Relinquishing control

After my last pity party thought I would put up a quick update. As the title suggests am still here, resembling a beached whale a little more every day. Officially I am 35 weeks today. Reading my pregnancy updates I had to chuckle. Yip, Markus has been doing all that for the last three weeks at least. 

He is now so low, I feel as though I am sitting on his head and walking, urm yes...

Officially my due date is 10th August, it was 27th, then 13th. As I have no idea about my dates, I am not all convinced that I'm going to last until August, but we shall see.  Today I had a bit of a show, cue hubbie ringing me up panicking after I texted him... bless him... you'd think after eight babies he'd be used to this by now ;-)

Of course it doesn't really mean anything other then things are progressing and I could go into labour tonight, next week or indeed in August. I often muse to myself that the unpredictability of late pregnancy and birth is good preparation for when that precious newborn is actually here and any idea of routine goes out of the window for the first few weeks, months at least.

Does this control freak the world of good, I tell you. You simply have to relinquish control when you are hugely pregnant, have a new baby in the house. Other people may not do things the way I do them, but as long as it gets done, does it really matter?

One of the most empowering things I was ever told was at an LLL meeting and it forms part of their philosophy. "People before things."

Such a simple, yet inspiring statement. The people we surround ourselves with should always come before things. People are what makes this life worth living, our interactions define us, they make us happy, they make us cry. We learn, we live through interactions.

This goes for writing too, come to think of it. Dialogue drives our stories forward. Who wants to read pages and pages of introspection or description, not me that's for sure. They have their place of course, but a book would be very dull, if it didn't contain dialogue. Sparkling dialogue is what keeps me reading as a reader and as a writer, I like my H/H to resolve their issues by talking.

For me, personally, it also means relinquishing control when writing and let my characters guide me. I blogged about how I write on our group blog here

Even if it means not writing a thing for days and having to wait until they speak to me again. I have one last chapter to write on my current WIP and part of me is itching to get it finished, but I haven't managed to do it yet. I know what I am going to write, but I also know that I will need to carry on writing and finish it, once I start, so it will have to wait till the weekend, when hubbie is around to keep the kids occupied. For some strange reason they need things like clothes washed, food cooked and picking up from school... ;-)

Of course if Markus decides to make an  early appearance, that plan will go out of the window too.

Ho hum, watch this space...