'You've got your hands full'

Breaking the silence carnival of blog posts about mental illness

WHY a carnival about mental health?

I feel very strongly about mental health issues. I have suffered from what everyone always just called "black moods" now and again all my adult life. I didn't know what this meant and would just go to bed to let these fleeting feelings pass. But you can't do that when you are a mum or well, busy at work can you?

And then I got worse. I contemplated throwing myself out of the window, of deliberately crashing my car, telling myself I wasn't worthy of my family's love and that they would be better off without me. I was terrified of how my children would be affected by my mental illness.

My upbringing was to ignore, shun, dismiss or ridicule people who are mentally ill. I was told by family, friends and the media through news reporting and entertainment that those who "succumbed" to a mental illness were either weak, dangerous or just a bit odd. These people either deserved our pity or we should be scared of them. They didn't amount to much and if they were people in positions of trust, authority or power, then well they couldn't have been very good in their job, if they ended up cracking up.

Everyday Stranger on the "fragility and darkness" of postnatal depression

SHANNON's blog Everyday Stranger, is a new find for me. It's filled with beautiful writing and photos and  captivating thoughts.

She's also shortlisted for a Best Writer award in The MADs, where her blog is described as a "glorious patchwork of stories."

Here, she shares with us her experience of depression and what I'd call a cautious optimism about life on the other side.

Thank you Shannon for sharing your story, which I'm also including at Breaking the Silence.

She writes:

MY twins are two years old now, hurtling towards three.

This morning our son decided to "caterpillar" across the floor with his Thomas the Tank Engine trains, and our daughter politely asked “Can I have a turn too please?” after her brother had a spin from his half-sister.

They sing, they hold my hands, the kiss me, they fill my days with light.

It hasn’t always been this way.

Multiple mayhem -- a carnival of posts about twins and more

PHEW. Thank you so much for all your support of this special week on You've Got Your Hands Full which has reminded me why I set this blog up in the first place and put me in touch with some fabulous blogs, some already familiar, others new to me.

If you can say one thing that unites all parents of multiples, well it's that they're busy.

Forgive me for stating the obvious. So I didn't know what to expect with my planned carnival. I've ended up with a dozen or so entries and so I'm delighted.

In all honesty this was very short notice so if anyone wants to make this a more regular feature, with us taking turns to host a monthly carnival, then please shout up and we can kick off an on-going Multiples Mayhem carnival?

The guest posts this week and the carnival entries have made me laugh and made me cry. I hope our small but perfectly formed carnival informs and entertains. 

The loss of a twin by Emily Carlisle

AS a mum and a journalist, overuse of the words "every parent's nightmare" are bound to wind me up. Every parent's nightmare is not that they can't afford the latest trainers or worry over whether their little girl should have a mobile phone. Every parent's nightmare is quite simply that they should lose their precious child. Here, in the latest guest post for our Twins, Triplets & More week, the amazing blogger More than Just a Mother shares what that nightmare is really like.

I have read this post with tears running down my face and would like to say a massive thank you to Emily for sharing her story. She describes how she wishes she had been able to 'open up'' more and I hope by the simple act of doing that here, other parents searching for help in their darkest hour may find some and know at least, they are not alone.

FROM mythical Romulus and Remus to pop-duo The Cheeky Girls, the world is fascinated by twins and their unique bond. 

Parenting twins is hard work but an incredibly rewarding experience. 

Mothers of multiples, such as Julia Roberts and Angelina Jolie, are part of an elite club many women would love to join.  But what happens when you are unceremoniously thrown out of that club?  When celebrations for the birth of your newborn are overshadowed by the funeral of their sibling? 

Twenty-six weeks into my twin pregnancy my waters broke and I was admitted to hospital.  The babies held on until the milestone marker of 28 weeks. 

Are you a 'good enough' mum? Course you are!

CHANCES are if you've asked yourself that question, the answer's pretty likely to be yes. Don't you agree?

The above video was shot at our office by Mario from Someone Once Told Me and features the gorgeous Grace Marshall who runs a group in Stafford for mums who work for themselves, which my dear friend and colleague Carol has also been involved with.

I had reason to watch this video today and thought I'd include it here.

Hope you like it.

Two sets of twins: Families share their stories

EVER wondered what it's like to have two sets of twins? Three families who have been doubly blessed - twice over - tell all.

TOM and Alison Colegrove had twins Alex and Stephen, after IVF treatment. A year later they conceived naturally and by accident.

Again it was twins (non identical). At the time of writing, Toby and Daniel were four-and-a-half months old and Alex and Stephen were two. Alison said: "We tried for two years to have a baby before we went to the doctor and because of my age he recommended that we get on with IVF. It was three-and-a-half years in total before we conceived. "I guess we weren't that surprised when I was told it was twins because there's always a higher chance of multiple births with IVF. I did feel a bit scared about how I'd cope but mainly we were just glad that we were going to have a family at last.

Children and bereavement: Families share experiences and advice

Photo by D Sharon Pruitt on Flickr

LIKE millions of others, I watched Children in Need through a mist of tears as two young sisters told an interviewer how much they loved their Daddy, before a caption revealed he'd since died.

I recently worked on a project involving research on how to help bereaved children. As it's not online, I thought I would rewrite and edit it, as well as adding in some bloggers' wisdom. I've pulled together posts that touch on this most delicate of subjects. I hope this may be useful to someone out there sometime.

Project Seahorse update: Please vote for inspirational video! (Today's the last day...)

YOU may remember that some months ago, I featured a video on You've Got Your Hands Full which was a tribute to a precious little girl called Emily, a quadruplet who died when she was just days old.

I remember thinking at the time that being able to spread the word about the work that her family have gone on to do through their Project Seahorse organisation, despite their own grief, to help other families, underlined my belief in blogging.

Now Emily's dad Phil Roberts, from Lexington in Kentucky, has been in touch to tell me about another video and this time, ask for my help in getting people to vote for it in a TV channel's competition.

Nebraska 23-weeker quadruplets turn 1

"MEDICAL miracles" Brett, Kaden, Parker and Cooper Woolen turned 1 on Feb. 11, 2009. They were born in 2008 at 23 weeks at the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha. See story and video here. Happy birthday!

also blogs at Deep Muck Big Rake. Write her at becky_handsfull@yahoo.com.

A mum and sister's loving tribute

THE two phrases "every parent's nightmare" and "inspirational woman" are so overused.

The first is applied to struggling to balance little Portia on your knee while you bash out your latest chick-lit potboiler, while the second's supposed to fit with some pampered supermodel who goes on a drive round a rainforest.

But I was stopped in my tracks last week by a lady who really lives up to the second phrase, after actually experiencing the first.