At times it's scary just how accurate I can be.

Or you could say that I'm useless at keeping up to date and have proved it.

My bloggage tonight is about being pregnant and being hurt.

When I found I was pregnant with W, I was really worried about how my despicable sister-in-law would take it. She had announced constantly that she wanted kids, despite the fact that my brother didn't want kids. When I realised I was pregnant with W, I told my brother first, thinking this would spare E from an awkward situation. He told me that E was also pregnant - 4 weeks due ahead of me! I was so happy for her - I knew she was dying to be a mum, but was also aware that my brother was not keen on being a dad. He admitted that he was scared, felt unsure how happy to be for himself, but was delighted for me. When SIL talked to me she said that she was 'annoyed' I was pregnant at the same time as her, that she wished she'd announced the pregnancy earlier so she could have had more attention about hers and then... 'You haven't put on much weight being pregnant. I always thought you'd be the type of person to get really fat. Are you eating properly?'

Fast forward three years and I'm pregnant again. SIL makes no reference to me being pregnant for the entire duration. D is born in dramatic circumstances on the bathroom floor, and we are taken to hospital in an ambulance at 120mph. E tells anyone who will listen that babies are born all the time at home, and that a home birth is normal (although her son was born by elective c-section). A calls home to say we're all ok. E asks 'So who's looking after the boys this afternoon?' - less than ten hours after D's terrifying arrival. Despite her coming to the house every day for a week she doesn't see D. It's only when her own son drags her in that she meets her niece for the first time.

This woman is part of my family, I have to work with her. But I just don't know what to do with her. I feel like she's a poisonous gas, silently infiltrating everything and it's so hard to explain to people why she's so hurtful.

If you want rainbows, you've got to put up with the rain

Apologies for the Hallmark cardesque name, but I like the quote, from one of the great thinkers of our time - Dolly Parton. Now, chances are, I'll be one of the 95% or whatever it is of bloggers who write an opening post, then forget all about the blog they started and wander off back into cyberspace. In a year or two they'll remember the blog, try to log back in (probably to the wrong site), get annoyed, set up a new blog, be really determined to post lots in this new blog, keep it up religously for a week until real life intrudes and then forget all bout it again...until a year or two later.

So now I've lowered expectations, and you know I'm unlikely to appear again, why am I here, knowing that chances are this'll be one of very few entries? We-ellll..... I was reading The Pythons' Autobiography the other week and in one chapter I kept crying and crying and crying. Ok, so I am female, I'm more than a bit pregnant and I've just come off anti-depressants, but still - why was I crying so much? At Monty Python? And not even a sad story! Most of them were talking about words, and reading, and writing and how it opened a door for them. Not a door into gainful employment, or anything like that, just that it was an escape hatch into somewhere where they could glory in words, and forget all about whatever shittiness they were living through. And I kept thinking 'That was me! That's what I did! I wrote, constantly, obsessively, every day all day! Words were how I defined myself!' And I cried because I feel like I've lost that part of myself - I can't write so easily anymore, I have to consciously make the effort to write things down. And I feel like a part of me - the defining part of me from the time I learned to read and write is gone, and I don't know how to get that part, how to get 'me' back again.

And now...what am I really? I'm crap at my job - actually, no, I'm not crap at my job, just that there's not enough time for me to do all I need to do, so I'm just generally inefficient. J thinks I'm crap: brandishing bits of paper in my face to show me just how little he thinks of me, using the republican we to remind me of all that I haven't done... I'm a terrible mother - loving, yes, but pretty crap, really. I don't pull my weight at home. Everywhere I look in my life, everything is going wrong. I'm about to lose my business, my job, my home, my family maybe? Lose MJ/SD too, and it'd serve me right. So is it any wonder that I'm longing again to lose myself in something?