Nobody Is Coming To Rescue You, And That's Okay

The first time I realised that nobody was coming was Christmas Eve 2017.

My mother has so many stories about me playing pretend and dress up, wearing princess dresses to nursery and talking to a huge “Grandmother Willow” (from Pocahontas) that I’d constructed with about 20 sheets of A4 paper stuck together. I am a huge romantic and all I’d ever wanted was to be married and have a family. I wouldn’t say I had high expectations from life – I like simplicity, honesty, love. I am a giver. I had always wanted a man to look after me, to build a life together. I am a feminist but I hadn’t relinquished that notion. I wanted it, was still able to trust. This is what I believe made me most vulnerable.

I now believe it to be gone.

On Christmas Eve my parked car slid all the way down a steep hill and crashed into somebody’s wall. It was oddly fortuitous, it had somehow swerved outwards and not hit anybody else’s car. The entire back was smashed, sending glass all over my teaching kit and breaking one brake light. I didn’t have any nappies with me and the prospect of waiting for recovery on Christmas Eve miles from Cardiff was a grim one. The young male police officer advised me that I could drive it to my mother’s house as long as I just made that one trip but we would have to tape the back window up with binbags. The man and woman whose wall I had smashed taped it up while I bobbed and breastfed the baby in the sling. They were all so kind. Then they all disappeared.

As I drove home with my eight week old baby in the backseat in the drizzling rain, coming down the motorway to Cardiff, I realised I had nobody. I didn’t know what I was going to do about my car. I felt totally lost. There was nobody whose voice would be on the other end of the phone telling me it was okay, that they loved me, to get home safe for cwtches. Nobody to help me work out a solution. I burst into tears as I realised that the buck really stopped with me, that nobody was coming to rescue me, it was just me driving my falling apart car back to Cardiff and working out what I was going to do next. Alone, nobody to depend on, to come home to. Solely in charge of mine and the children's destiny. I sobbed - I didn't want it.

I don’t think that longing to be rescued has completely gone away. I remarked to a friend in a conversation recently that although I am on my own with the children indefinitely now, I can’t shake this feeling that somebody is just going to come along and lift me out of it. Some childish fancy that flitted across my mind as I gazed across the city… living on the top floor, like a tower. I haven’t lived on the top floor since before I was a mother. Taking a long time to process that this actually is it, this is my life, the romantic part of the story has already ended. In fact, it was never real to begin with.

You say I’ve been strong, and I thank you for it, but I feel like I’m on automated.

More recently, with my new car, only had it two weeks and it’s having problems. Taking it back to the garage again and again. The man who has been helping me look at it – an ordinary guy, the mechanic. We realise it’s leaking fluid, I would have to come back another day, and I saw myself through his eyes, briefly, as he said something about gaskets and then “Sorry, when you’ve got your kids out of the car and everything…”I see the chatterbox blond child with the steely glint in his eye, over half my size, the fat-cheeked baby in woollens, me in my long skirt, stressed out, strung out, begging - I drive it every day, I can’t be without it, without my car I really can’t cope... He was kind, men in general are always kind to me, he topped up the fluid and told me to just drive it home for now and use public transport until I had time to book it in for a couple of days. Advice I ignored afterwards, I admittedly am headstrong… again I was brought to tears by the futility of it all, I don’t know what more I was expecting than that, why am I forever casting men in the role of rescuers when it comes down to it, it’s always been just me?

Nobody is coming. More often than not it's the women around that support and give aid, more than any man actually ever has really - but that integral other half, that partnership, that safety net, that happy ever after is never going to be.

Nobody is coming to rescue you, and that’s okay.

And I connect this to birth work, in that life is scary and so is birth… women often look to people like midwives and doulas, even consultants, to save them – but all these external people can only ever be support, ultimately it is the woman who has to go through it herself. That belief, that looking outward for a saviour is detrimental and disempowering, in birth as in life—

And birth is life.

So stand on your own and call your power to you.

Nobody's Wife

I'm writing this having just received my decree absolute that makes me absolutely, categorically not married.

The stress of this. From getting the guts to do it, to finding the time to do the forms, getting proof, to chasing my now ex-husband to sign, send them again, engage a bailiff, wait, wonder, worry.

When it came for me to sign the decree nisi (the one that comes before the absolute), I signed the section on 'uncontested divorce'. What does uncontested mean? The papers were never acknowledged, the charges uncontested, in the eyes of the law that being an admittance of guilt. They went completely ignored. The irony is not lost on me that the divorce papers suffered the condition I spent most of my marriage living in. 

When I was a child all I ever wanted to be was a wife and mother. I knew it would be a hard job - I am not afraid of hard work. I was also aware through my short-lived relationships as a young woman that many men are reluctant to make any kind of commitment. I expected that I'd have to wait a long time for my dreams to come true.

When I met Judah's father, I was 19. It seemed that straight away he wanted me to move in and share his life with me. I still maintain he 'raised' me through my journey to adulthood, there are still behaviours I notice about myself that were programmed by him. I was bowled over by this excessive demonstration of commitment, culminating in a proposal of marriage on my 21st birthday (by which time his behaviour had already began to take a turn for the worse). I reasoned with myself, this is what somebody does when they love you. Why would a man ask to marry you unless he loved you?

The wedding was called off when I left him for abusive behaviour in Christmas 2012. My attempt to leave was unsuccessful and since I became pregnant shortly after, the wedding went ahead.

My life as a wife was awful, comparable only to when I suffered depression as a teenager. I spent the first year in a dreamy haze of babies and breastfeeding, feeling reassured by the friendly presence of my roommate Shane in the house and knowing my husband was working hard to support me and Judah. I felt so grateful that I could stay at home and be with Judah, I tried to be perfect to compensate my husband for what I perceived to be my unfair advantage, staying home instead of working.

The second year was the most emotionally isolating experience of my life. As I began to gain independence through my job he became worse. On my first day of teaching Daisy, right before I left he made me cry on purpose. I felt ugly, unwanted, unworthy. I spent vast amounts of time alone, or with Judah. I couldn't tell anybody what was going on because marriage was supposed to be hard work, wasn't it? Why complain when this is what I had signed up for? I knew you were supposed to work hard at a marriage that can be strained with young children, to get the reward of having somebody always there for you, who loved you. While I was working hard, he was partying and spending money we didn't have, and taking coworkers on dates.

Divorce is humiliating, especially for a marriage so short. I am still plagued with shaming thoughts, thinking of the people who came, the money that was spent, what people must think, especially as I was so young. It has been hard work to re-frame these thoughts into positive ones and acknowledge I went into it with good faith, with somebody who never wanted me to be their equal partner. I would never say never, but I'm not sure how I would feel about marrying again, as I felt keenly what felt like a demotion from girlfriend to wife. Looking back it was like it was a license to behave worse, a trapping to make it harder to leave.

Exactly a year later, I've made the decision to no longer write about my marriage to my son's father. The future is so bright and I'm so amazed and happy that my life could be this wonderful only one year later. I am not even close to the same person I was when I was a wife. I am free.

motherhood, written august 2014

lately i sit, idle,
yet not idle - poised
tuned to the monitor in the kitchen
and a baby's cries.
then later-
stroking that sweaty, suckling head
feeling the tingling
of the milk letting down.
this is a new land i traversed,
and brought you with me, yet
you have not been where i have been.
my body is indented with marks that say
a mother lives here
and yours
shows not a sign.
i wonder if they know?
the girls on the street.
the ones that used to be me.
free, and laughing
in an empty cacophony.
know that yes, you belong to us
us and me.
just tell me-
what about me is so untouchable?
what part of this heart so unlovable?
since it became so full
with your beautiful baby.
every day i grow stronger
and i did it myself
grower, nurturer, nourisher
goddess
forgotten on the shelf.

Natural, Non-Hormonal Birth Control - Daysy

EDIT JULY 2019: As this is probably my most popular blog I feel like I should add that I did conceive while using Daysy due to a barrier failure. Since I had my daughter I have been using a basal body thermometer and tracking symptoms and temperature through Kindara, calculating my fertile window myself, and I feel much more confident and in control.

I first began learning about fertility awareness last year. Contrary to what many women believe, we are not fertile all month. By tracking your basal body temperature and cervical fluid you are able to pinpoint when you are ovulating and know when you are most at risk of pregnancy.

Hormonal birth control methods suppress our natural cycles and pose long-term health risks, for the sake of a few days out of the month. Equally, methods such as the IUD are invasive and often with side-effects that some women find intolerable.

Fertility awareness (NOT to be confused with natural family planning) works as well as any contraceptive method, being aware that nothing except abstinence is 100% effective. You can begin by taking your temperature every day with a basal body temperature thermometer and plotting it on a graph to identify ovulation (characterised by a high surge in temperature). You also take into account the fact that sperm can survive inside the body for up to 5 days and bring that into your calculations as to whether unprotected intercourse is safe or not.

With fertility awareness charts you also need to monitor cervical fluid, which varies depending on where you are in your cycle (ovulation being identified with fluid that is reminiscent of egg-whites to enable sperm to travel up to fertilise an egg).

Introducing Daysy - the fertility monitor that does the calculations for you and has a simple light system. It is clinically tested at 99.3% efficiency (rivalling the IUD). 

Bearing in mind with these statistics that Daysy is a computer, so user error is significantly reduced compared to other fertility methods.

How does it work? You have to take your temperature with the monitor before you get out of bed and it gives you a light.

Red - fertile
Green - Infertile
Red Blinking - ovulating
Amber - unsure (treat as fertile)
All lights flashing - pregnant

Once you've done that, you plug the monitor into your phone and sync the data.

When I began using Daysy I got all amber lights until my period started. Daysy treats the first five days of your period as safe. Ovulation for most women is typically 14 days after their period starts, but Daysy learns YOUR body. This is why the device will show you red days before ovulation is expected as sperm can survive and wait for the egg to be released. Once ovulation is confirmed (and 24 hours given just incase a second egg is released), Daysy will give you green days until the end of your next period.

On a red day couples MUST either choose to abstain or use a barrier method (ideally two!) to prevent pregnancy. It also does not protect from STDs.

This is my calendar so far. As you can see Daysy is already starting to 'look ahead' as to what my fertility status might be for the rest of the month.

And there's my graph. I've done a little arrow so you can see how Daysy has calculated ovulation.

So far I'm really happy with it. Daysy can take 3 months to learn your body and already I'm getting a significant amount of green days over red.

A good feature of the app is you can give your partner the login details and they can have their own version to keep up to date with your fertility status each day!

I was also really pleased that this was the first month since I had the IUD removed that I 'felt' ovulation which was great, it means my body is back to normal and I liked that I could confirm it with the monitor.

I don't believe that ANY contraceptive method can truly prevent pregnancy so if I did conceive I wouldn't blame Daysy, any more than I would blame the Pill if I conceived on that.

It's a bit pricey at £250 but it's an investment - if you did decide to try to conceive, you can use the light system in reverse. This device will last you for your fertile years so I thought it was really cost-effective. Now I really know how it works I'd be happy to use just a thermometer and paper charts too, but this way is just so convenient. 

You can save money on pregnancy tests too - when you are about to begin your period your temperature will start to drastically drop. If this doesn't happen and your temperature keeps rising Daysy will identify the pregnancy and let you know,

It also has the added benefit of if I ever experienced any health issues related to reproduction, I have invaluable information about my cycles that can be used to help pinpoint the problem.