Self Doubt

1st November 2015

It's been a while since I posted. I had commited to a daily blog but two things happened (and they always happen)... the first was a re-read what I had written and trashed it in my mind... the second was someone said something to me that led me to doubt myself... and so I withdrew.

The idea was that I would blog daily over 9 months as self directed study towards becoming a doula. I read my first couple of blogs back and found them rich and wordy and intellectual. What relevance did they have to being a doula?

Then a lady in my welsh class asked me how many children I have and when I said none she didn't hold back "I wouldn't want you as a doula" she said "I'd be screaming at you that you had NO IDEA" (and she laughed and looked away).

I had blog posts planned which seemed ridiculous to post - an anecdote about an eccentric man managing to silence to the Quiet Zone on virgin trains - or the photos of autumn leaves on my daily walk...

And the days have passed. And this project is 3 weeks gestation and I am afraid that it might not go full term.

I doubt I have what it takes. Who am I to do anything like this?

When the lady said that she wouldn't want me as a doula initially I was unfazed... I smiled at her and gently said "I have no bad experience of my own to bring to the birth, I come holding the ideal of a perfect healthy birth intact".

It was only later my heart broke into a million pieces. I have forced it down and down and down... but I want a baby of my own. But I don't think I ought to.

I am comfortable with death and I work with the dying and bereaved. Why? Because I know death. Death and I have talked. And I know Her.

I have a better relationship with death than I do life. I fear life more than I fear death. I fear intimacy. I fear loving and then rejection.

I fear rejection so badly.

At 28 I was told I was likely infertile. 20 years of eating disorders by that time had stopped my periods. I took it quite well then, I guess, I signed up for fostering and fostered young people leaving care. I worked harder. I also did what I could to be healthier. I did my yoga training, my periods returned, my hormones levelled out. I stopped purging... I gained weight... long story short I found a way to arrest the eating disorder and for 5 years now I have been well and healthy (contact me for more info if you need that kind of help and I'll share with you where I went)...

So now I am 35. Despite all that is said about how late in life people are having children now - it's not my fertility that is likely to slow me down. It's the radical all pervading self doubt that I have any genes worth passing on. The absolute guilt I would feel if a child of mine spent their teens and 20s in the grip of addiction.

So I realise that my journey into birth is about my own journey into a love of life. By the time I get "there" in 8.5 months time... I hope I will love life as much as I love death. I hope that I will love my own life as much as I love others. I hope that I will see my "wasted" years as of value.

And maybe this is a parallel to the beginnings of pregnancy. The fragile seed taking to new soil.

And I am sick. A vomiting bug. Cue inbox jokes about morning sickness...

If only you knew how unlikely conception actually is right now.