Dreadful Nonsense

It's pay day today. I went online to my bank to check my balance, move some money around and cry in despair at my ever growing mountain of debt, and continuing lack of opportunity to fuck off to New York at a moment's whim. 

At the top of the screen was one of those cheery messages that massive corporations like to ask of their customers, to pretend we're all mates together, everyone on equal terms, best buddies.  You know, "thinking of going on holiday?" or "thinking of buying a new car?"  Only this one asked me "thinking of starting a family?"

Now, hormonally I am pretty much getting back to normal following the operation.  Emotionally I don't think I've even properly started to process what's happened.  In fact, I'm pretty sure I haven't and I'm afraid there is a massive emotional nuclear explosion waiting to go off at any moment.  I promise I'll steer clear of blogger when it happens, because I feel it may not be pretty, and may involve some kind of radical haircut and/or new tattoo to fully recover.

(Don't worry, you'll see photos of both)

Anyway, the intrusive enquiry from a faceless corporation about my thoughts regarding pregnancy, child bearing, fertility, fucundity or whatever it was they were specifically looking for in order to get me to take out a loan or credit card or overdraft or whatever it was they were offering made me a little bit angry.  So I answered their bloody question.

I sent them an email in direct response, in fact.  I said, yes, I was thinking of starting a family.  Sadly though, I continued, I had recently lost two pregnancies.  I had also almost died last year, I told them, due to extreme blood loss following one of the losses.  I'm now riddled with scars, I told them.  I'm still feeling pretty angry about the whole situation, I said, and while they may think that their marketing strategy is a lovely, friendly, clever one, they may want to rethink slightly their intrusive, over personal, upsetting and frankly fucking rude questions when people are simply logging on to see if they can afford a take-away over the weekend.

I'll let you know their response.

I was sitting in my brother's kitchen yesterday, holding my five day old nephew, who had just been fed and was now fast asleep, drunk on milk, in my arms.  New born babies are amazing and terrifying to me.  Their breathing is so fast and odd, their movements while they sleep so comical, and the miniature perfection of their features - ears, fingers, mouths - so beautiful to look at.

My Mum reminded me of a story that I have been told about my whole life.  Just after I was born, a girl came to stay with my parents.  She was pregnant, unmarried, and unable to go home as it would bring disgrace on her family (a situation which was still ridiculously and disgracefully common in Ireland in the late 1970s).  She had her baby, and he was immediately taken from her and put up for adoption.  She stayed on with my parents to recover, and used to spend hours just holding the new born me.  Mum said that she said that being able to do that, being able to hold a new life in her arms, was the only thing that helped her to carry on.

It is wonderful and appalling how history can repeat itself.