Confessions

What is I going to write today may surprise some people.  If you have just known me in the last 20 years, maybe there will be no surprise.  For the people who have known me most of my life, some of you may be surprised, shocked or disappointed.  No apologies from me on that.  This is me.  xx

Today while browsing Facebook, I noticed some stunning photos.  They are of a lovely young lady I met through my son.  She is pregnant and due to give birth any day now.  The photos are a gorgeous celebration of her relationship, her pregnancy and the new life she is about to bring into the world.

It started me thinking how wonderful it is that these days all babies are welcomed as a joyful addition to the world.  Barely anyone cares whether the parents are engaged, married, single.  We have gay and lesbian couples with precious little ones added to their relationships.  We have pregnant brides, brides with the kids as attendants and it is ALL fantastic. 

It has changed so much from when I was younger.

When I was 17 years old I came out of a long-term (one year is long term at that age!!) relationship and fell deeply in love with my previous boyfriend's best friend (complicated I know!).  My parents took one look at the new guy and decided they hated him, so of course I loved him even more!

My parent's went away on a cruise and left us in the care of my aging Grandmother.  Well let's just say that nature (and teenage hormones) took their course and Jen became a 'woman'.    I was blissfully happy but feeling a bit unwell.   Eventually my mother noticed some changes in my shape and questioned me.  Before that I don't actually remember acknowledging I might be pregnant, but of course, I was. 

My mother immediately told my father, whose reaction was to slap my face and tell me I was a 'f...king slut'.  I don't think he looked directly at me for many weeks after that.  The next thing I knew I was at the family doctor who gave me my first internal examination.  He was not gentle, and when I winced, his reply was 'can't be any worse than what you did to get into this mess'!!!!

Appointments were made by the doctor and my parents, and a few days later I was driven to East Melbourne to a well known abortion clinic.  There had been absolutely NO discussions with my parents about what was going to happen.  They made the decision and that was that. 

On arrival at the clinic, I remember bursting into tears.  My mother turned around and said, 'go inside and get this over with'.  When I protested I was told that I either had the abortion or I would be left on the street and would not be welcome back in my home.  I want to say here that my parents were good people.  They probably thought they were doing the right thing.  My mother was very conscious of her social position and was not going to be embarrassed by this sort of accident.  To my shame, I went in and had the abortion.

On arriving home I was told that this would never be spoken about again, I was not to tell anyone, especially the father of the child (with whom I was still in a relationship).  I did tell him the next day.  He was understandably angry, hurt and disappointed.  He immediately suggested that if he had known, we could have been married and raised the baby.  I was unbelievable heartbroken.  My parents never knew I told him.   My parents banned him frym our house and after meeting at the shops etc, the relationship finished a few months later.

True to their word, the baby, the pregnancy and the whole incident was never spoken about again until 1978 (when I was 24). 

I eventually married someone else.  I wanted a family straight away but my ex insisted we wait for 12 months.  After our first anniversary we started trying, and eventually  in late 1977, I was pregnant.  I was totally ecstatic.  At about 12  weeks things started to go wrong and I lost my baby at 16 weeks.  The night before I had surgery, I rang my mother sobbing and said 'God has taken this baby as a punishment for my other baby'.  I was told to stop being so silly and she hung up.  I never tried to talk about my baby to her again.

Fast forward to 1989 and LOML and I were a couple again.  We talked about anything and everything.  At one stage, the subject of the relationship with his best friend came up.  I confessed about the baby and abortion.  Bless him, he held me while I cried for hours.  He let me talk about my baby, my loss and my anger.  I realised my long-established deep depression, stemmed from the forced abortion and my guilt at not protecting my precious baby.

I have had extensive counselling and help to come to grips with what I did.  Despite realising I did my best at the time, I doubt I will ever stop blaming myself for the loss of life.  I will never, ever forget my first two babies that never made it into this world.

If you have made it to the end, thanks for reading.  Please try not to judge me to harshly.  

Love and celebrate every life that comes into this wild, wacky, wonderful world xxxx

Buy A Life

I like to play games on my laptop and ipad.    I do a lot of this.  Often at times when I should be sleeping, doing housework or other more productive things.

For a while there I was, like lots of other people, almost addicted to Candy Crush.  I just HAD to play it and it felt like a huge achievement when I completed a level.  However I absolutely refused to spend money on extras for on-line games.  It got to a point where I could not complete a certain level and I lost interest.

However, it did get me thinking.

How great would it be, if life was like Candy Crush!!

Let's face it, the end is inevitable.  As someone once said, the only certain things in life are death and taxes!!   So how cool would it be if, when reaching that point, we could just 'buy another life'.

Now obviously this extra life is not going to keep you going forever.  But it could buy you time to complete things before you depart permanently.

So how would I use my extra life?  

I would want to finish any books I was half-way through, complete
any knitting and cross-stitch pieces I have going.  Hopefully I would have some time to write a note to some special people.  The other thing I would absolutely do, is tidy all my cupboards and drawers.  Now they are usually pretty neat, but I would hate for anyone to have to sort through a mess!!

So how would you use an 'extra' life?

I would love to know!!