What's going to happen in 2021?

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2021 here we come ….

It’s the day before New Year and we’re all wondering how we are going to cope with yet another year of Covid. I certainly am.

 Looking back on 2020, we have been amongst the lucky who have, so far, avoided this nasty virus. But it’s taken dedication to self-isolate, shopping minimally, wiping EVERYTHING before bringing it indoors, wearing a mask and visor in public spaces, and hand-washing. Every time I have been to the hospital I have stripped, showered, and washed my hair when I came home. It’s a hassle and heart-wrenching when you can’t visit family, friends, and grandchildren. But it’s something we simply HAVE to do. And KEEP doing. No short cuts.

One good old-fashioned way of survival is work. Hard work. It’s how our ancestors overcame challenges, and how our current generation is coping. Simply knuckling down and drowning our sorrows, aggravations and frustrations, disappointments, bad luck, and disasters by attacking the problem physically gives you a sense of achievement when you manage to solve your own problems.

 If poor health (and advancing age) deprives you from physical work, keep busy in other ways. Read, write if you can. Get busy with handcrafts – teach yourself with you-tube if you don’t know how or Pinterest if you don’t know what. Dance. Sing. Meditate or try yoga. Paint a mural or mosaic a pot or a wall. Teach yourself tatting or simply colour in. Make plasticine figurines, decorate a doll's house, compose a song, create a game, resurrect a hobby, pour over photographs, write letters, phone a friend, start a blog. Get the idea? Options are endless. Lazing on the couch eating potato chips is NOT an option. It makes you fat, lazy and depressed.

To all my dedicated readers, thank you for your support. Let’s move into 2021 with determination to succeed, to support one another and to keep looking upwards – mountaineers will tell you, never to look back or down. Focus on where you are here and now and keep your eye on your next step forward. Stay safe and don’t let your guard down – even when others throw caution to the wind. They won’t be there if you find yourself in ICU.

“When the cares of my heart are many, thy consolations cheer my soul”. Psalm 94:19          

Inseperable Mother-Love

The bonds of Mother-Love

On Sunday, 27^th December 2020, we said farewell to our firstborn, his charming wife and two of our six grandchildren.  Like the tiny parachute dandelion seeds, the children (and grandchild) have, one-by-one, wriggled free and floated away to settle in foreign lands, re-rooting the family tree. Our eldest and youngest sons have both returned to their ancestral, paternal roots. It may be a long time before we see them again.

Can a mother forget her firstborn? Or the birth of any of her children? Even stillborn. Especially stillborn.   

 

I remember when my firstborn was the first conceived. So sure was I that one single ova, patiently awaiting the arrival of the winning sperm – a Y sperm – to pair up with her microscopic, spiralling chromosomes to start a new life. I knew that we had made a boy, named him there and then and predicted the date of his birth in ten lunar months’ time. As it turned out, my calculation was pretty spot-on - only ten days out (earlier) and yes, there he was, loud and in my face – the way he has been for the past forty years - his little mouth wide open wide, crying with all his might, terrified by the sudden escape to freedom, arms waving wildly, the fresh morning air cold on his wet, warm body. It felt so natural to find myself lying unashamedly naked and exhausted, my distended abdomen deflated like a hot air balloon. I could see my pubic hair for the first time in months. My instincts were to enfold this little alien creature into my arms in a bear hug and to hold him over my heart where he could hear the familiar and reassuring drumming of my heartbeat. It’s no wonder that teenagers, during yet another turbulent time in their lives, turn up the music volume to hear the rhythmic beat of drums, mimicking the lub-dub, lub-dub, lub-dub of their mother’s heartbeat while they were snug and safe in the protective confines of her womb.

If you’re pregnant or have recently given birth, hold onto this special time because it’s precious and will be stamped into your subconscious forever. As you grow wiser and older, you will forget the pain, the wondering if you will make ‘a good mother’ and the overwhelming ying-yang of hormones wrenched from a constant supply during pregnancy (thanks to the placenta), now redirected by the pituitary gland in the brain to the breasts. This initiates oxytocin-the love hormone – that helps a new mother bond with her baby despite insecurities and the indescribable pain of labour and giving birth. Oxytocin stimulates the muscles around the milk-producing alveoli to contract, and the womb to keep contracting until it gets back to its original size (the size of your clenched fist) over the next six weeks. Breast cells, in turn, are stimulated by another hormone called prolactin (meaning pro-lactation) that initiates the process of making milk. At first, this is in minuscule amounts until your baby has emptied your breasts of colostrum* - or ‘first milk’ – and needs more than 5mls (1 teaspoonful) per feed.

A mother’s link to her baby is stronger than an umbilical cord. Made from living cells, a combination of her partner's sperm and her ova, moving freely, growing with the love of her beating heart, the bond grows stronger over the years. Distances and circumstances, and even death, will never pull them apart because they are, and will always be, spiritually bonded.

* More about this ‘liquid gold’ in my next blog.