Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends over the pond. I hope you will all have a wonderful time. This is my 3rd and final part of the Thanksgiving special I was invited to write. I really do have so much to be thankful for I could write on for weeks! Today I am thankful for my health.

Today I feel physically and mentally well. I am still working on the mental bit ha! But I think with physical and mental health it is always a works in progress. We tend to be much better at looking after our physical well-being and less willing to care for our mental well-being .

The past 2 years neither has been particularly great for me. Now I know that pregnancy is not an illness but I did have a few issues that made me quite unwell at that time. I had quite a few vaginal and urine infections throughout the pregnancy. I had pelvic girdle pain from about 16 weeks and good sleep was difficult to get. Then I got bitten by a dog when I was about 20ish weeks pregnant which then got infected 🙄 All in all I had about 12 courses of antibiotics throughout.

I went overdue. Tried a VBAC but declined the induction. Ended up with a CSection which was way more horrendous than my first. They were in my abdomen mopping up for ages after delivery as apparently my placenta was huge. In the weeks following I was constipated, anaemic and had 2 postpartum uterine infections. So yeah bit of a shit fest all round really! It took me such a long time to recover from the pregnancy and c section this time. It really took its toll on me mentally.

I have talked about my post natal depression in more depth in a previous blog so I won’t repeat. However what I will say is that compared with previous episodes of depression this was far, far worse. I felt like I had been attacked by the Harry Potter dementors. I was not caring for myself and on my list of priorities I was last. With help from the GP with medication and the CBT I now feel so much better and like myself again.

More recently I also broke my arm. This completely put me out of action for a week and it was a good few weeks before I could care for my baby. It was horrible. I am back able to manage pretty much all my usual activities without too much discomfort. Through that period though it made me reflect on the many mums out there that may have chronic illnesses or even terminal illnesses and it made me so, so thankful that no matter how painful or inconvenient that was, it was only temporary.

There is so much more I am thankful for in total but that is just my bit for today.

Love and peace xxx