Me, myself and I

We're tiptoeing towards the end of the working week with a pleasant weekend with friends and family stretching ahead, and our holiday to Santorini swift approaching. I absolutely can't wait for the break in the sunshine - I feel it will help us so much to be together just us two away from everything, enjoying each other's company and the sun and sea air. The Greek islands hold such special and happy memories for us that I can't think of a better place for us to be to regenerate and begin again.

It's been an anxious week for me, and I don't feel I've quite yet settled back into my own skin. In the past I've always felt my body and I were friends. I didn't always treat myself too well, but my body was always strong and reliable, and I could depend on it to care for me. I have enjoyed good health and very few ailments, aches and pains. My cycle was always regular as clockwork, despite years of me being on the pill, and we fell pregnant quickly.

But now I'm aware I'm slightly mistrusting of my body. Since the miscarriage my friendship with my physical self has been tested. Why did the pregnancy have to go wrong and why was the baby lost? Why didn't my body play ball? Logically I know, given the low hormones in the blood tests, this was just 'one of those things' and I couldn't have done anything about it. There is no point going over and over old ground that can give no fresh knowledge but can bring fresh pain, but somewhere in a quiet corner at the back of my mind those questions linger, never to be answered. I feel anxious awaiting the return of my cycle and a sign that my body has recovered and settled down. It's been five weeks and the doctor said it could take six or seven weeks to come back, but the waiting is tense - and mother nature teases me by delaying it so I begin to wonder if I could be pregnant again. I find it cruelly ironic that the symptoms of my lady and my pregnancy were so similar - tiredness, sore breasts and very light cramps. I've felt all of those in the past week but yet no lady arrives. My hopes rise that perhaps I am pregnant again - but I know that it is so unlikely I have to try and ignore my naive expectations. As things are it will be a bitter enough pill to take when my cycle kicks in again.

So, again I take a deep breath and pull out another little bit of courage from my reserves. There seems a good supply there. I place one foot in front of the other and hope that the rest somehow follows from there. I go easy on myself - it is, after all, only five weeks. I'm going to be fragile for some time longer and that's ok. There will continue to be little signs and incidents that remind me of our loss. Last night on the tube on the way to the cinema to see Hangover 2 (more great escapism - I'm loving films that distract me completely at the moment!) a pregnant lady sat down with a 'Baby on Board' badge on her coat. The Boy had talked about buying me one, so it was an unassuming, small trigger and I felt sad for a moment. But it was just a moment of many moments in the day, and it passed. The next moment - a smile flashed from the Boy - quickly arrived to replace it. If I take each moment as it comes, when it comes, how it comes, then I know I have every chance of moving on from this stronger than I was before, more knowing than I was before, and more at one with myself than I was before. Wish me luck.