I’m working on these two loom bead projects to help me manage the pain/boredom/frustration of over a week of early labour. The poppy design is a gift for Rose’s birthday coming up, she has a passion for these flowers since they bloomed all through our experience of getting pregnant and losing Tamlorn.

Still no sign of little frog, but everything is looking good and we have negotiated to have the inductions delayed by a week to give her and me a chance to go into labour naturally – which means a greater likelihood I’ll be able to manage contractions without needing to use methods of pain relief (ie meds) we know I have trouble processing. The week of early labour has been moving things along slowly, I’m 80% effaced and bubs is in a good position. Fingers crossed things keep moving along!

In the meantime I’m trying to figure out what project to pick up next – art, writing, study, employment… I put out a HVNSA newsletter the other day about the upcoming World Hearing Voices Day. For a year now I have strictly forbidden myself from doing anything on my networks other than maintaining the online discussion groups in order to focus my energy on paid employment. Giving myself a day to reply to emails and create the newsletter was actually a relief – in all the mess of trying to figure out income and the deep pain that topic causes me, I felt clear as an arrow to my chest, a strong sense of love for this work. This, and my arts, is what I want to be doing. This is where my heart is.

I have been delighted to have been approached by a number of people recently for public speaking work. I am booking in dates from September onwards. It’s good to have things to focus on I can actually do something about. 🙂