lj idol series 8- week 18. Inspiration.
In New Zealand, when I had just discovered I was pregnant.
I take a journey every day. With me on that journey are the friends I have on Live Journal, sometimes the steps I take are guided by them, occaisionally they push me into a new and scary situation. Forced to look at the drop below, I flounder out of my comfort zone. More often though I feel I have met kindred spirits, people who think as I do. People who will understand what I care about.
Some of those people are;-
myrna_bird's, We are of a similar era, and so much she writes is on my radar too.
whipchick.
-just stunning writing, a razor sharp mind.
drjeff, appeals because he is just a great human being. Compassionate and fun too.
porn_this_way', this one shakes me up, makes me think outside the box!
basric 's, I just admire her tough attitude, and wonderfull dedication to her nursing.
There are more but the list would be too long. I have not included those whose love of animals binds us closer, but they also widen my horizons and enrich life every day.
Then, recently I read some of ecosopher, and that made even more sense, the more I read the more I liked her. Life is down to the basic things in the end. Birth, love, family. http://ecosopher.livejournal.com/
It is what she does so well, records everyday life.
She wrote;
"And then I had my third baby. Something about it all seemed to just click into place. Suddenly, I knew what I was doing; I knew what to expect. During the pregnancy, I armed myself with knowledge and spoke up for myself when it came to hospital regulations at the birth centre and tests they wanted to conduct. I asked questions about birthing techniques and acknowledged each of my fears until I realised that most of them lacked foundation"
She wrote about all the doubts and fears of being a woman, sexuality and birth, and wrote so well. It certainly clanged bells in my head.
I wrote this some time ago, about having my daughter, and although my experience was light years before hers, I felt a connection.
It illustrates the same power we felt.
First Child.
"It was a little like preparing for an exam, preparing for the baby to be born. Wanting very badly to do well, yet no one telling you the subject. It wasn’t a fear of pain that gripped me, just fear of doing the wrong thing. I was schooled at last on a hard narrow bed. The doctor was small and neat and from Thailand. I was his first patient outside his homeland. I suddenly felt an even heavier weight of responsibility.
The part of me he was holding was obviously not meant to be dislodged. The rubbery mask was placed near me, my finger on the button breathing deeply. But it was just a trick on their part, a ploy, something to do with my hands. So I threw it aside! I was breathing in all the air in that sterile room, sucking in enough to burst. Forcing it into my lungs, lift the rib cage, room for more. In staccato bursts I expelled it. Now I was in control, elated. They stood by as I used the air to advantage.'
“Do you want to see your baby born?” a female voice kindly asked. Helped to sit up I saw the dark furrowed forehead, shoulders, and a hand. That was it, I reached for the hand and clutched it. I was bathed in circling fluids, from the hands touching, to my throat constricting, to my eyes. Then circling to run back on my baby daughter. “It’s a girl,” they said unnecessarily. She knew her first tears as she drew her first breath, my joyful tears, female welcoming female, a fitting beginning.'
I was just two weeks from my 21st birthday when I had Kerry. Imagine if you can having your first baby, 12,000 miles from home, with a few newfound friends around, but no family. Then being taken from hospital to a new house, which was bone bare; no carpets and very little else. Husband had moved in while I had Kerry. The prospect was scary enough, then Kerry started projectile vomiting as my husband said goodbye, and was driven back to work. I sat on the only seat, a bed, Dot my friend's mother came to be with me, but she was more frightened than I was. We set fire to the oven together as I tried to cook, and the first mountain of nappies began to accumulate in the laundry. Yet guess what? I survived, and so did Kerry we learned together. I was soon able to breast feed without feeling like wolves had been at me, and sit on the bare floor in the sunshine, feeling at peace. New Zealand was my home for five years, I still cry when I hear Maori music.
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Because I read others who share their lives, their dreams, their problems, I am also free to share mine. LJ in some ways takes the part of that favourite Aunty, that grandmother, or the sister I never had; families shrink, fall apart or just become less close; so thank you Live Journal for being part of my family now.
http://therealljidol.livejournal.com/541963.html