Tag Archives: Sophie

Sophie the Girl Guide

Posted on by
1

A few months ago, I was helping a friend out by doing a little babysitting and ended up staying longer than planned so she could continue to get some studying done. :) Due to a fussy teething baby, I ended up taking their daughter down to  Rainbows. As we walked and skipped down the road singing ‘Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum‘ and ‘What shall we do with a drunken sailor‘ (I should point out that my friend’s daughter was dressed as a pink pirate for the Rainbows Hallowe’en party, hence the choice of songs) we passed parents who nodded and smiled at me as we got nearer the hall.

It occurred to me that they might not realise I was not her mother, and then I realised that I look (and am) old enough to be her Mum.

It was one of those ‘Oh my word, I feel old’ and ‘Beam me up to Neverland, I don’t want to grow up!‘ moments.

Later, I reflected that if things had been different I might have been taking my own daughter to a hallowe’en party at Brownies. I reckon with my background in guiding that Sophie would have be one too! With some more mental arithmetic I realised that I’m old enough to be the mother of some of my Guides as well.

Today my daughter might have been 10 years old, and she would likely have been leaving Brownies to go up to Guides this term. I’m pretty sure with her DNA we would be starting to deal with a lot of hormones kicking in as we entered the ‘pre-teen’ years and I would be talking about puberty, sex and relationships with her. Not to mention bras. And having to buy new clothes to cope with the growth spurts. Slamming doors. Melodrama. Tears.

It’s funny to think that I’d be ahead of all my friends on the parenting front, as this year a lot of my friends have started families or are talking about starting families. And I would have been through it before them. Crazy.

I think this may be the first year on the ‘Birthday anniversary’ that I’m thinking ‘thank God I’m not a parent!‘ as I’d be entering into probably the toughest phase of parenthood – the 10-16 years!

And I expect that tonight there would have a sleepover. Or to give it a more apt name: an ‘awakeover’.

I have no idea if you have awakeovers in heaven, perhaps you don’t even need sleep in heaven, so it’s one giant awakeover? I don’t know, and really I have no need to know (though I am curious).

The one thing I do know is that it’s very strange to think that I might have been watching my kid turn 10 today. 10.

Yes, that’s right. TEN.

Somebody pass the anti-wrinkle cream…

16th January always makes me smile, because I know that Sophie has left a legacy…

16th January 2008 – my first time running a sex education class on dealing with unplanned pregnancy to a group of fifth years (the year I was in when I got pregnant).

16th January 2009 – my first appointment with my post abortion client who I supported through a recovery programme.

16th January 2010 – the first day of my first time running a pregnancy crisis counselling course.

I have no idea what this day will bring, but I do know that this coming weekend we’ll be running the first pregnancy loss support training course in Edinburgh since Sarah & I became managers. Sarah’s head honcho for this course, but I’ll get to do a couple of the training sessions which I’m really looking forward to. The resources available to help people grieve after having a termination have improved so much over the last couple of years, and I’m really excited about that.

Gulp…

Posted on by
2

Back in the days of Musings of a Koala (my old blog) I wrote about something that scared the crap out of me, and was shocked when the Director of the national charity I volunteer with, Joanna found the post and commened on it.

It was one of the encouraging words that lead to me sharing the journey I had into the work I do in more detail over a series of posts. I was totally overwhelmed by the response those posts got – not only from the number of folks in my church who eventually worked up the courage to ask me about it (most of whom I had no idea read my blog!), but also from a number of e-mails I got from people telling me about how those posts had helped them in some way. I really and truly didn’t expect it, but it gave me the courage to do what I’d been wishing to do for a long time and really be open about it and started this blog very aptly named ‘Learning from Sophie‘.

I actually didn’t explain the title of my blog until about a month after it went live.

One of the reasons I did inter:act is because I really wanted to be able to be better at public speaking, because I felt that maybe I needed to be to help mobilise the church to dealing with pregnancy crisis & pregnancy loss in a much more Jesus-like way.

It’s funny how common pregnancy crisis & pregnancy loss is in our country – it’s a common struggle. Yet I’ve gone to Christian conferences that have had seminars on supporting people who have been sexually abused, struggled with depression generally or with their sexual identity or with sex & relationships in general. And yet time after time people say “I wish I’d known how to help my friend” “I wish people had spoken with me about this before I got pregnant” and even “My minister advised me to have an abortion so nobody would find out I got pregnant out of wedlock“.

So last week I simultaneously wanted to both cheer and throw up when 2 women organising a Christian women’s conference in Edinburgh had said they felt they needed to have a session on the topic of prayer, pregnancy crisis & healing from pregnancy loss.

And that they would like me to give a talk on the subject.

Oh help.

I’m nervous for several reasons. Firstly, I really don’t want to mess this up. Secondly, I’m not a natural public speaker by any stretch of the imagination. Thirdly, I have no idea what to expect. Fourthly, I’m concerned they referred to me as an ‘expert’ on the subject. As my twitter bio says ‘I’m just a wee lassie fae Leith!‘ (and it’s true).

I do take courage though that the last time I was asked to speak at a Christian event (specifically to share the story of Sophie and the story of how I ended up in my current job) it went much much better than I ever could have anticipated, and heard months later how it had become a catalyst for number of exciting things that happened within that youth group. I blogged about it here and I said then that it had made me realise that sharing my story can help and make a difference in some way.

So I really hope that it will again.

Of course, I would appreciate prayer as I prepare to do this. One thing I really wish to do is to head up to beach to remember and honour my unborn child before the conference (which is in September) – I had hoped to do this in June but circumstances meant I was unable to do this. Plus if you have experience in speaking at these kind of events – please share your wisdom with me (I need it!!).

Trusting God

Posted on by
5

It’s no surprise that after an intense and encouraging weekend with my lovely City Church family, that the week started in a weird way.

Somehow in my mind I had managed to organise my week forgetting key elements that make this week different to my routine weeks.

But add to that the news that my friends’ baby had been rushed to the local children’s hospital and was in an isolation room? Forget it. I found it so tough to concentrate on tasks today. My mind and heart were pure and simple with my friends.

I find it difficult to trust God with the people I care about. I don’t like being helpless, I don’t like it when I can’t fix things and go in their place when they face challenges.

But trust is what I have to do. Have faith that God does listen to our prayers. Trust that God will bring justice. Trust that God will bring people through and out of their pain.

This weekend has also brought out a lot of ‘Sophie-related’ stuff back to the forefront of my mind. One of the speakers spoke about her experience of stillbirth, and how grief didn’t come until she had named their little girl (I can relate!). In brings me great comfort to know that she too thinks of her children in heaven. There was the abortion conference where my old consultant who freaked when she found out about my beliefs and basically refused to treat me was one of the main speakers. The only one out of all these Gynaecology specialists to speak about the emotional side of termination (excuse me while I lift my jaw from the floor…). Not to mention reading a book in my search for a better understanding of pregnancy loss. The book, written by a Psychotherapist from the USA is the first book on pregnancy loss that has resonated so strongly with my own experience of both STOP (that’s medic speak for ‘Suction Termination of Pregnancy’) and being told of my possible infertility.

I’ve actually been pulling away from counselling for the moment, purely because I recognise that my head is pretty out of synch just now. Partly Inter:act, partly the unsettledness of not having a safe place to call home, partly delving into an area of pregnancy loss that brings a lot of emotions in me, partly due to the ‘winter factor’.

And the fact that I am very aware that next year it will be 10 years. Combine with the very weird fact that on 16th January 2011 (what should have been Sophie’s 9th birthday), I’ll be almost exactly the same age my Mum was when she gave birth to me.

But I know God. And since I started working in the pregnancy crisis centres, he has brought such special moments on the 16th January every single year so far. I hold faith that something special will happen next year too, because if I know anything, it is that my God is a gracious God. :)

Remembering Sophie

Posted on by
3

Today is a weird kind of anniversary, because it marks 7 years since the day I was due to give birth to my first child.

A couple of months ago, Lynn challenged me to write about 10 things I love beginning with ‘D’ back when I was writing on a different blog. One of the things I opened up to the blogosphere was how I’ve always had this gut feeling that I had been pregnant with a girl. Since I had my baby names picked out since I was about 14 or 15, I’ve kind of known for over a decade that if I ever had a girl she would be called Sophie.

Now if you’re really clever you might realise why this blog was given its name!

You see, there is a key catchphrase known in the world of post-abortion counselling:

“We cannot change the past, we do not know the future, but we can change the way we think about the past which will affect how we think about the future“

It’s simple, but true.

I can’t take back the past, and I can’t control my future. So I chose to take what I could from the past…you see you can always learn from it.

So I don’t want to dwell too much on what might have been. But I will admit even now, there are still those occasional moments where grief, loss and regret feel slightly suffocating, but they no longer have a hold over me like they used to. You might think because I’ve written this post that I’m going to spend the day crying, but it’s highly unlikely because I never have done on this particular ‘date’. This time last year I was in a classroom leading a workshop on dealing with unplanned pregnancy, and if memory serves me correctly, afterwards I was sitting in my car praying to God and having a giggle about the irony of it all.

But in all seriousness, if I hadn’t dealt with my emotions and hurt all those years ago, and didn’t know how to deal with them on those rare occasions when they sometimes sneak back up on me unexpectedly I wouldn’t be able to do the work I do. I wouldn’t be able to be in church or around most of my friends either (do you realise how many people I know get pregnant/become parents every year now? Because I’ve lost count.)

If things had been different there would be no danger that certain family-friends traditions would have been continued. Like learning how to do the Macarena or the Time Warp for example…

On second thoughts, watching that clip with ‘adult’ eyes, that’s probably really inappropriate for a seven year old. But then, that’s what I think now about the Brady Bunch.

And don’t worry, I picked out a few other girls and boys names if I ever get pregnant again (my fourteen year old self listed them at the back of my journal). I even checked when ‘Elastababy’ was born that they didn’t clash with my friends’ baby name choices.

Hmm….back to the dancing thing….it’s got me thinking…

I wonder if Jesus would have joined in doing the Time Warp at a party?

I can’t help but wonder what the Pharisees would have said if he did.