The beginning or the end or a continuos loop.....

So I'm sitting in the play pen with my 12 week old daughter looking at her in amazement, fear, hope and many other conflicting emotions thinking back on the journey that got me to this very point in my life.

How easily it could all be different. A choice here, a refusal there and none of this would be. Has it made me stronger or wiser or better or worse or a fruity combination of the above?!?!?

What does the future hold. How will the next lot of decisions in my life impact who I will be in the future and how that will shape my daughters future. I can only hope for the best and pray that worst is kept at bay.

It's only been 12 weeks of having her in my life and the tears have flowed, mostly out of my feelings of inadequacies. How many times have I heard..... "You will just know her cries" or "you will just know when your milk is in". And then how I feel when I don't know those things after I have put those expectations on myself.

I have depression and anxiety. My therapist reckons that having a child will be good for me, enabling me to challenge my unhelpful ways of thinks "I should know how to do this" or "asking for help may inconvenience someone else".  I am not convinced of this, especially when I have had no sleep, I am crying and finding myself in the pits of despair wondering why I don't know what I think I am meant to.

But then I get the smiles....... And I hope that I will be ok and that for all my faults I will raise a strong and resilient daughter.