A Brief Timeline in Work In Progress

I haven’t written in absolutely ages. Two years I think. It’s hard to know where to even start, so I guess I’ll just post a quick outline of the last two/three years then elaborate in future entries about the significant events.

May 2015: Met Joey in person after chatting for a while.
December 2015: moved in with Joey.
January 2016 - January 2017: turning the house into our home, living life, travel, fun stuff. February 2017: referral to fertility services
June 2017: Joey proposed
September 2017: Buy a wedding dress. Start meds for cycle 1 IVF
October 2017: Egg collection, fresh embryo transfer, first embryo transfer fails
January 2018: Frozen embryo transfer, resulting in positive pregnancy test
March 2018: 7 week viability scan
May 2018: my last entry here, 16 week scan
June 2018: 20 week scan
July 2018: Book our wedding for August 2019. Joey confesses he’s under investigation in work.
August 2018: Joey is fired from work. Joey is attested for drink driving. Discover Joey has been cheating on me whilst I’ve been pregnant.
September 2018: Joey gets new job.
October 2018: Violette is born.
November 2018: discover Joey is cheating with woman from new job. End our relationship. Hand back engagement ring.
February 2019: Move out of joeys and back into my parent’s house
February 2019 - September 2019: absolute shit show, emotional and physical wreck. Manage to keep a newborn alive.
September 2019: maternity leave ends, back to work.
October 2019: have kept a child alive for 12 whole months.
November 2019: sign for a (rented) flat for me and V, get the keys for said flat.
December 2019: move in to flat.
2020: coparenting trials and tribulations, ever evolving, cracking on with single, working mum life.

And that’s it in a nutshell. I realise 2019 and 2020 need a lot more discussion, A LOT has happened over the course of the last 18 months and I’ll share it here, not necessarily in any kind of order, just whatever comes up, whichever bit springs to mind at the time.

Life continues to be busy, and funny, and painful, and joyous, and exhausting but exhilarating all at the same time. It’s complicated, it has drama, it has love, and frustration, and mess. And most of all, it has V. The axis around which my world turns, the very being on which everything is focused.

Glitter and Trauma has never been so apt a name for the highs and lows, the raw emotion and honesty about everything that’s happened, everything that is happening, about motherhood, about nursing, especially nursing right now through a pandemic, about life.