I hated being pregnant. And I hated being a mother. But I am so pleased for, but yet also so envy those that enjoyed it.

I never wanted to be a mother. I tried to get sterilized at 19. They said no! They said that I may change my mind later?

My friend Sue with Caja.
I have no photos of me with her when a baby
as few took photos except me

I should have listened to myself later. I did not change my mind.
But I so love Caja yet I should never have had her or any child....
I fucked her up even before she was born.
I should never myself have had a child.

Yet I worked with others children for so many years and indeed I ran many young parents groups.
I was very good at it. Indeed I have qualifications in it and certificates and so much experience. I am an expert...but with others children. I am crap at my own





I am indeed trained in it and there is very little I do not know, academically !!! ..........  about being a parent and how to look after children, from birth to teens  and their health and well being.

But having a child myself ....was a huge mistake!!

I did know this. So from very young. So I did for most of my life spend a lot of energy, trying not ever to be pregnant.

Therefore I had so many years, since about 14, of contraception, some that damaged me, like the pill and the coil.
I was left with damaged fallopian tubes from the coil and hence many years of pain.
The pill I tried off and on from 15. It made me so very ill, mentally and physically.  I just could not take it. It sent me crazy.

So sorry you guys. Once the pill came about, for you men it was brilliant .......FOR YOU, and you all thought that after the pill no consequences for you or us existed? Great for you. But it solved very little for many of us women. In fact I think the pill harmed many of us women. Well it did me.

But it made it so you thought there was no reason anymore not to have sex with you just because you wanted to. Another story!!


But I did accidentally, and very accidentally, first get pregnant, in my early 20s.

I was on the coil, but I had just had a new one fitted, as the last one went through my uterine wall and caused me to hemorrhage and resulted in a hospital stay and operation to remove it. 

So when I got pregnant, I had just had another coil fitted, but I was using the pill as well, until the copper 7 kicked in.
And yet I got pregnant!

It so hurt me that I did . The coil was sold to me as the solution as I could not take the pill for anymore than a couple of months without going totally off my head.
Then the first coil I had, the one with spikes ( cannot remember its name)  went through my uterus and pierced it. It went into my abdominal cavity .  Caused infection and then an operation to have it removed.

But they told me the Copper 7 was safe, and effective. We now know it was not at all safe. And for me it was not even at all effective.

So I had an abortion, I am not ever going to use the nicer term 'termination' as to me it was an abortion. I killed her. My baby.
Do NOT!! get me wrong. I respect every women's right to choose. Our bodies, our choice.
It was my choice.
But do not EVER think that choice is ever easily made, either way. It is not for any of us.


Despite not wanting to have her, she was a her. Once she was a reality, I still loved her and talked to her. When in my tummy

But I so betrayed her. My baby. I kept saying to her I will never kill you. But I did!!!!!!Believe me....In those days I felt I had no option. Well I felt had no option.

I was so alone and mentally....... and not at all that well

My parents were older parents and for me to  have a baby would have been disaster for them and indeed for us all. Yes I was selfish as I could have had her adopted and every day now I wish I had. But then I knew to do that then would have destroyed me. And I was already destroyed.

Having been sectioned at 17 asnd having had Deep Sleep Treatment. I knew I would never then survive having a child adopted. Yes I was so selfish


But that is another long story .........going around to doctor after doctor, with my mum, who did understand. Trying to get two signatures for the abortion. Some who wore a LIFE badge. LIFE was a prominent anti abortion campaign in the UK then. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_(UK_organisation)

But to go to see a gynecologist to try to get a second signature. To be confronted in, I think Winchester Hospital, by a gynecologist and her team wearing LIFE badges!! Yes she was a woman!! Nothing could be worse!!

Well not for me!!

And what I have never got over is she realised my coil was still in place. A copper 7. And I had got pregnant despite it. 
So she just  took it out!! Then and there, with no pain relief, no consultation, she just removed it....it fucking hurt. So much I passed out.
And all she said was 'hopefully this will solve your problem' !!
Disingenuous at best!!

It didn't. Solve my problem. Apparently the IUD was outside the amoebic sac.So my pregnancy carried on
Therefore when the abortion happened it was later than it should/would have been. And while thankfully I did not have to give birth, like some had to. The operation was long and I was very ill for some time.

And the LIFE gynecologist removing it did have the result that when I finally got the two signatures I needed for the abortion and I went in to have it. No one believed that I was using contraceptives when I got pregnant?? That I was not only using a coil but the pill as well!


So I was put into a ward mainly with women trying to save their babies! A ward for women with complications, who were desperately trying to save their babies. I was hated by all.

And lectured at by everyone from the cleaners, the other patients, the nurses and doctors.
Told I was stupid for not using contraception. No one believed I was both on the pill and had a coil in place when I got pregnant??
As there was no coil by then in my uterus!!
And in those days GPs/birth control records did not follow you into hospitals.

But who would have cared if they had?
Everyone there, in that ward wanted someone to blame and I became it.

I was spat at by one woman in to try to save her baby.
I did not blame her. At the time I felt I deserved it.


I did try to put things behind me, trained as a teacher and after teaching I decided youth work was more me and so I became a youth worker.
And when I met Barry and by the time I was 31 and we were relatively secure financially and I knew we were together for the long haul.

I did not exactly change my mind.
As neither of us had children on our agenda.
But that we did have a child is all my fault and all down to me.

As I did not always use the extensive the anti pregnancy defenses that I had had for so many years in the past until then.

I stupidly, actually thought I was so damaged I could not get pregnant anyway and indeed my doctor did confirm this.
To be fair being a father was never on Barrys agenda either.

He loved me and still does and went with what I wanted and still does as I do him. But he had no understanding of pregnancy etc, so he left it to me.
He made a good father.
Well better than I ever did a mother!

What changed was I finally decided to have an operation to remove the scar tissue in my fallopian tubes and that in my uterus etc caused by the coils and my late abortion etc. As I had so much pain from it.

I was settled. The time had come to sort things out for me and that,  for me, included sorting out medical things.

I went into City Hospital Truro to have that done. City  This hospital is long gone but they treated me well.

I guess the first time I ever felt treated well by any NHS hospital.

And about 6 months later I found I was pregnant!!
Not what I planned!!

I was still using contraceptives. Not the coil, I had it taken out a few years before, as it caused me so much pain, infections, and was the reason why I needed the operation. And I was not the pill anymore as that also made me feel so shit, and made me so crazy. I just could not take it anymore.

But I did use the cap and religiously and made him also use condoms.
Yes of course, that did not always work, nor him withdrawing  - which I knew was never going to work, but he did think it would LOL!! But I had confidence, in that I was using the cap.

So I got pregnant at 36.

I hated every moment of it! From the first it felt like and alien had taken over my body. So sorry I know that will upset some, but that was my reality.
I was sooooooooo friggingh sick!!
And in pain and every day.

9 months of utter hell and the birth?? I may write about the birth in more detail in time . But just believe me .........it did not get any better!!

I can hear all those women I so admire who have had more than one saying ...............

"you are wimp,. its part of the course. Being 'uncomfortable' in pregnancy is normal. Birth is painful but you forget it??"

Do you??
I never have!!

And the view is by most that I was selfish??

~No I was in utter pain......... distressed ............ off my tree ....for the whole 9 months.
And it was so amazing I actually carried her for 9 months, to full term!!!

I had have other pregnancies besides this after the abortion, despite my contraception efforts- I may write about that another time. But none stuck more than a month or so.

So I never expected this to stick, none others had since the abortion. But Caja is and was so stubborn.
So against all odds, she stuck!!

Hormones have always done me in. In pregnancy the hormones made me crazy yet again and I was in pain and I was  so sick, sick sick sick...... blood pressure also through the roof.

When I gave birth, I had to be induced, As I had eclampsia............. not pre-eclampsia.  I had eclampsia. I was close to death and my baby too.

But even in labour for 36 hours and with me bleeding and in so much pain, no one recognized things were going so wrong.
We only survived due to a shift change and someone finally noticing, just in time. And my having an emergency cesarean, just in time.

Due to which we both, me and my baby, nearly died. And it took me months to recover physically from that  and my baby.
But I never recovered mentally.


I am not sure that many who found pregnancy and birth good, and not like my experience. Would ever have had  more than one, ever would have, if they had felt like me?

Or am I fooling myself? Is pregnancy that awful and painful as it was for me? But somehow worth it??
That is what I am told? It wasn't for me sadly.
Let me know?

I have never understood if what I went though is 'normal ' and I am a wimp and failure as a woman?
Or that what I experienced is not usual?? Or that I am such a selfish and self centered person that I could not cope with what so many women do all the time??

I have actually met quite a few women in my life that said they liked or enjoyed being pregnant.
And for most, even if they felt sick or ill at times, the result was worth it.
And the years bringing them up?

I must be in a total minority?
I am glad very I gave her life and she is alive and I hope she is living her best life...but!!

But having a baby was horrible for me. The whole thing. From early pregnancy until  she ran away from home at 16. For which I do not blame her. I was a nightmare as a mother.

And it still continues to be
As she has no relationship with me. I cry all the time about that and always will


But once pregnant I had no choice. As no way would I ever abort a life again. And especially not Barrys child. So I had no option. Well in my view I had none.

Barry is the best man/person I have known. He was and still is my rock. If he had said he did not want us to have a child I may not have. But he did not. So I carried on with it.

It was hell. And certainly, the ending was hell too
Barry actually got back, from sea........ Just before the birth.
He did manage to get back, just  hours before I had Caja ............I was so lucky he did. But hadn't seen him for over 3 months, and rarely before. 

He did stay home in the early weeks as i was so sick I could not move. So he had an extended leave as i could not look after the animals.

But after that he went back to sea and had not been there for any of the scans and he had not seemed to have been remotely involved at all?
In any of Cajas pregnancy. I think he came home on leave once in my whole pregnancy, after the 19 weeks when he was at home. After that I think he cam back once when I was about 6 months pregnant. He seemed to take no notice of my pregnancy at all and then went back to sea.

But he got home for the birth,  just in time...................

He had to be flown out of his ship on helicopters, then to the UK. So glad he made it
He even had to push me on the trolley, to the operating theater, when the shit hit the fan.
Having only got there a few hours before.....as no porters at that time of night then, in so such pain. To the operating theater.

I was hemorrhaging. I had eclampsia, I had existing damaged organs, I had Placenta previ. I lost so much blood.
Yet at the time I told them I was hemorrhaging, for some hours, and they, the staff on at the time, told me I was wrong..... despite the blood??


None  of my previous gynecological history was taken  into account. I did try to tell them at the time., But no one listened to me. But I was right

I am lucky.  Caja is lucky
That we both survived!!!!I do not think she has any idea how close we got to death. But then why would she or even care. It is like yesterday to me still. But she is now 32 years old and of course nothing to her. Of course not. She was the baby.

I was in soooo much pain.
We both nearly died, we both, Caja and me ..... Both so lucky to have survived

We, Caja and I,  did have a few good years when she loved me. I should be grateful for that. And I am.

After I got over the birth and then the severe Post natal illness I suffered, when she was around 4. We had a few good years until her own hormones kicked in when she was about 9.

In those years, she seemed to love me? We got on, she talked to me, she seemed to like me?
I had hopes and dreams that we would in the future have a good mother, daughter relationship.
Other mothers even said to me at that time ( unbelievable now but they did) how lucky I was to have such a good relationship with my daughter!!!!!!

But it was not to last.
It all turned tits up starting when she was about 9 and got worse when I had my accident when she was about 12
And NOW? she ......wants nothing to do with me
Did my best.
But my best was not good enough. In fact it was crap.

But we were OK for a short while.  And when we were OK, when life was looking good.  Once I  had got over my post natal illness I formed www.pni,org.uk

As I was then and briefly as it turned out, in a good place and wanted to assist others.
And I think that for a short time I did help others?
That www.pni.org.uk helped others and without me being part of it still continues to>

But now, for me, it is is a different story.

I look back and wonder about how I ever thought I could help anyone else? And how did I have the audacity, given how much being a mother has been so horrible for me.

But at the time I was in a good place. And I truly had hoped and thought it was all behind me.
So sorry, to all, as it was not.

I am so envious of all that having a child was on the whole a positive experience.
And even more envious of those that it was enough to have had had more than one child. And these days so envious of those that have grand-kids that actually want anything to do with them

I feel so diminished compared to them. I wish I had never had a child as then I would not have gone through what I did or had anything to compare it with.
I so feel now an utter failure. I thought I was holding up our right not to have kids if even if it was not your thing??
But having had only one and made a total pit of it,  I now feel a utter failure

I know those that that have had 2,3,4, 5, 6 , even 9 kids ........ and seemed to enjoy it??? Or at least not felt was utter hell??
Most of you I know now, are now grandmothers, even great grandmothers? And so many are much younger than I
~
I am lucky that I am now a great aunt, But I am never probably even ever will be a grandmother and I am now 68.

Being a grandmother seems to rely on you to have kids,. and then your kids then also have kids. And that they all want you in their life. My one child does not want children.
And I cannot blame her as nor did I.

And even if she did she would not and does not want me involved with her life
I am in so awe of you all

But now that makes me feel like shit and so very inadequate. As I only ever had one child and she does not want me in her life.

I am so pleased for you all, yet  .... Yet I envy you all. But still love hearing your stories and am so pleased for you all.

But I feel shit.

Worse Christmas and New Year ever ....................... perhaps!

I know we are all supposed to be cheery over this period and I do try. I do 'usually' try to make the most of it and make it good for any that join us for the period. But this time I failed. Except for Christmas day. When between me and Barry we managed to cook a Christms lunch and make it Ok for our guests. But other wise I failed this year.

It has always been a difficult time for me, and for my dad. Which is one of the reasons it has always been difficult for me. But also the Christmases on the streets or in squats, or once I'd sorted myself the years when I had no where to go on Christmas and even had a boiled egg one time for my Christmas lunch - but actually that was not too bad as I spent the time making a cupboard for the flat to hide my emersion heater and succeeded all on my own, So that one was not to bad really.  Then the so many years when Barry was at sea at Christmas, especially when I had my daughter and she wanted Christmas to be special, But it was just me and her and while I tried I could not seem to make it special enough.

But that is the past and in later years I have tried to make it good, or good enough.

But anyway this year.
Mentally and physically so ill. Mentally on full meltdown.
And then to do it publicly on Facebook!!
Facebook in one way is a lifesaver. As it is the only way I have to keep in touch with so many old friends and relatives. And indeed those I know now, even the village community I live in as I so rarely see anyone.

But on the other hand Facebook is the reason I have so few friends especially local. As due to my using it to rant when in meltdown,

No ones fault but my own. But we both went down with a nasty bug on about the 21st and neither of us are over it yet. Started as a nasty cold but then nausea and me vomiting and neither of us with any appetite at all, still haven't. 
I freak out if I vomit as I am emectophobic and drink brandy to try to blot it out, a terrible combination.
Then I got a letter from an old friend. Who meant well and said some lovely things like how she misses and thinks of me. But for me it dragged up the past, my accident, her illness later and especially the dire mistakes I made with my own and only birth daughter, that I will regret for the rest of my life. I just did not need to be reminded although I know she meant so well.