Danger zone averted

Went for my 12 week scan on Friday - it's so wriggly! I'm taking that as it's a happy little thing, which makes me happy myself. Must be doing a good job so far.

Had no sickness at all - guess I've been one of the lucky ones! Only things I have are bigger boobs and an expanding waistline. And a massive appetite.

My mum.. upset me, I guess.. she rang up and said she wanted to make me "aware" that this child "will" be autistic, and that I wont cope because it'll be a "disabled mum looking after a disabled child". So I didn't speak to her for three weeks. Just because I have Aspergers, and so does Zac, it doesn't mean the likelihood is concrete that our child will be autistic in any way. It's a higher percentage, sure, but it's not definite. And two dilute cases don't make a concentrated one - doesn't work like that! What upset me most of all was that she doesn't think I'll be able to cope, and this is coming from the person who is supposed to know me more than I know myself. I, for one, think I'll be a great mum simply because of my Aspergers - I wont get emotionally overwhelmed, worrying that my baby hates me because I can't stop it crying, because I can switch off emotion like a tap. I'm certainly not likely to just leave it in the middle of the street and walk off because it's crying too much. And if it does end up being on the spectrum, I would know first hand how to deal with that. And so would Zac. So she's talking out of her backside, and I don't want to subject my child to a family who will just watch it playing with blocks or something and go "aww, it's a shame isn't it".. UGH that would make me so mad, and I would be likely to leave on the spot.

When I did end up speaking to her again, I explained that I was going to give my dad a scan copy, and she went off on one going "oh he treated you like crap when you were little" - that's right Mum, when *I* was little. This one isn't even born yet, I have to give him a chance. And if he does mess up, then cut all ties, but I want to have a Grandad for my baby. And it's not like he's going to be seeing it all the time, unless he makes the effort to come to me. As my mum doesn't, it's entirely up to her when she gets to see her grandchild. I'm not going to be constantly travelling. It's not fair on me, Zac, or the baby.

Well that was a bit of a long rant. Anyway, I'm really looking forward to this, despite my mum's nay-saying!!

Positive

So... I'm pregnant! I don't think it has yet sunk in, but I'm only in my 6th week now; got plenty of time to get used to it! At the moment I'm trying not to move in case I throw up, as Zac is in the bathroom and I don't relish the idea of puking in the sink :P

I'm getting a few fears, as last time I was pregnant, it kinda went wrong and I lost it before even knowing I was. This was in the 6th week, so every cramp or spasm I have I'm quietly panicking to myself. The man keeps trying to reassure me, but my brain doesn't like to listen to reason when it's already decided!

I am dreading telling my mum, as I can almost picture her face now... dismay, worry, disappointment (I'm nearly 23, not 13, but try telling HER that). Told two of my friends, one of which hates kids with a passion, whose reaction was interesting to watch! Of course she is happy for me, but can't understand why I'm happy, but that's ok :)

Going to ring the doctor tomorrow to start the ball rolling... finding out on the Friday before bank holiday is a bitch!

Symptoms so far (christ it sounds like it's a disease):

• Large, heavy boobs (first sign, they were bigger than they usually are when I'm about to come on)
  
• Tiredness
• Extreme feelings of hunger if not eaten for a few hours
• Cramping and tightness
• slight nausea (only started today)
  

In contrast, today was a good day.

Went to see the office we'll be working in as volunteers for the CAAT (Community Adult Autism Team) and had a long discussion about how we're going to go about starting some social skills groups. Group 1 is the lower function group.. i.e. the ones who REALLY don't have a clue about how to deal with people, and group 2 is the higher function, i.e. the ones who manage to acquire friends and partners, but don't seem to get it right to prolong the relationships further than a few months, say.

I feel really confident and excited about this... it's about time something happened that was helpful in Doncaster for the adult autistics.

Maybe instead of starting my new year at 1st January (which was absolutely terrible), I should start it 1st of February.

I'm having a bad day.

Since I lost my job in May last year, I have been struggling to deal with having nothing to do in my life. At first, I was mesed up because my routine had changed. Appointments with tenancy workers, autism team, etc, helped with that a lot, but things still get delayed and I'm still waiting for this supposed "personal budget" that will allow me to have aids to manage a routine independently, as well as things that will improve my life.

Today was yet another day of ringing ppl to no avail. I am having problems with my words, noise, and temperature... pretty much everything is driving me mad. Building work next door has been going on since August, and I'm getting pretty sick of the noise. I need to move, but, as above, this "personal budget" was supposed to help with that.

Oh yes.. and in September Penny had FOUR kittens as we didn't have the money to get her done! Marvellous. One has gone to Lou, and it appears we are keeping the other three. Sister left the nest due to the building work noise (oh how I envy her), but still came back occasionally. However, the last time I saw her (last week), she didn't even respond to her name :( So I don't really know what to do about that. Cat number is at 11 if you include Sister, as we also found a kitten in our back garden looking scared and upset, and really not liking the wind.. he's adopted us. His name is Edison as he loves lightbulbs - every time he gets in the bedroom we find him curled up in one of the bedside lamps that has suspiciously been knocked on the floor. Hmm. We named the three of Penny's litter Apoptygma (Tyggie), Montgomery (Monty), and Enola Grey (Enola). TOO MANY CATS!!!!!!!

Gah. Motivation = 0. Stress levels = 7. Energy = 3. Mood = Ugh.

June

Had a good birthday. Which is better than the rest of the days in May - got fired on the 8th, got a letter saying I couldn't get counselling as the aspergers counsellor was moving, and my boss decided to put 22nd May on our P45s as the termination date. I have received no money from the Job Centre, and it's starting to get worrying now. Shakespeare decided to become ill, too. Enough for me to fear for his life. Damn cat cost me over £100 just for some antibiotics and consultations, enough to break into the rent money. But, as I said, my birthday was good. The whole weekend in fact. On the Saturday we went for a picnic with the boys and Lou, then on Sunday it was the toy fair at the racecourse (bought some lovely things) and a barbecue at his mothers with his brother and sister-in-law. And yesterday a picnic at Cusworth Hall with some friends! It's been a good week for the weather, and I now have sunburn which will hopefully turn into something other than red!

I have my counselling session on Thursday (FINALLY), but I don't really know what to say to her as my circumstances have changed - I'm now unemployed, so I'm experiencing less stress and anxiety. However, there is probably more to it than that. I suppose I should just give it a try, after all, I've been waiting 10 months. Could've had a baby in that time!

We're also getting a lot more attention from local services, in particular M25 tenant support. The woman is trying to get us social workers, a dentist, information as to why we haven't received ESA yet, the lot. She's coming again tomorrow - think it may end up being every week. Hope she's got some good news for us.

We have two more cats to do - Crazy Eyes(who we ended up keeping) and Pennywise. Though there's now a delay after Shakespeare's bout of gland swelling! He seems to be getting back to normal, and the lump on his neck has disappeared for the most part. That was a birthday present all on its own.

Well, it's June now - 14 days 'til Zac's birthday, 24 days 'til Dani is supposed to give birth to his first nephew, and it looks like it's going to rain for the first time in a week! The plants will be happy! Hopefully, June will be a good month all said. The first two days of it have been grand. :)

Christmas

So.. it's that time again. Except this year it's a little different. I'm spending it at home, instead of at Home (if that makes sense). And there is little money to be had.

Jobs are scarce, and even more so if you can't even handle interviews, though I would LOVE to have even one right now. This recession has forced me to think of the bigger picture, to open my eyes and see what I can actually do with my life, other than pour John Smiths for smelly old men, and reject advances from toothless reprobates with the mental age of around 12. Which is why I'm going to make an appointment with a disability employment advisor (though with my difficulty in pronouncing words with more than 3 syllables, it will be a little tricky). I only hope they can help me in this time of need - after all, they get funding, so where is it going?

Anyway, aside from that, all is well in the land of Emily. I have healthy lively animals, two of which are getting neutered on 5th January as they are discovering that their sister is a GIRL. Three of which are going to lovely homes (hopefully), so we will be left with six, which is manageable! Then in the new year we can get the three girls done, and they can sod off outside whenever they so desire - hopefully not at 5 in the morning, as that would start to get annoying! Things are OK with the bearded woman, though getting him to do anything other than make tea and sleep is a load of stress and shouting! Serves me right for choosing an aspergic mind to go out with, I suppose.

People keep showing me scans of foetuses, which is making my hormones scream! I think I might just be fed up, as nothing seems to be happening in my life at the moment, and I want something nice to happen. Not particularly babies, but just SOMETHING. I don't want any more cats, and I don't particularly want a new person to go out with, or even any new friends as I'm happy with those I have. I don't know what I want.

I'm in self-destructive mode again, causing ructions when there needn't be. I know I'm doing it though, so I can moderate my behaviour. It's getting annoying though. I've been waiting on this counselling shit for four months now, and what would've happened if I needed it in the first place? I probably would've killed myself by now, and how good would that have looked on the front page - "Autistic girl kills self after being delayed counselling". I just want to sit down and say I didn't ask for this in the first place, as I already KNOW my issues, and that wasn't the problem anyway. My problems are purely sensory, and I can't cope with the panic attacks or the stress of putting my mask on. I need to be able to calm down, which I can't. No wonder there's a history of ppl with ASD's dying from heart attacks.

But yeah, everything's fine. Here's hoping Christmas will come and go, without any drama or crap from any side. Bring on 2009. It'd better be better than this.

My Day Off

Started off the day with smelling cat poo from one of the baby kittens shitting in the corner of the bedroom. Not the best start, I'm sure you would agree. And who is this "you" anyway, a wizard? A figment of my imagination? Probably an imaginary friend. I never had one when I was little, might not be too late to create one, I guess.

It's raining. It pretty much always does when I'm off work. It was sunny yesterday for a few hours, but I worked that duration. Lovely. Fucking hate life today.

I have to tidy up. I will have to do the washing up (maybe some washing too.. running out of clothes), and maybe do some vaccuum cleaning *shudder*. On the bright side (it's certainly not the other side of the window), I have downloaded a bunch of new albums to listen through and determine whether they're shit or not.

The biggest thing I missed when we moved was the internet. Never mind the countless hours we spent without a TV or a playstation. No. It was the internet that hurt the most. It has been my longest running obsession/addiction. When my mum and dad split up, my mum decided to buy a computer and we had a 14kb modem, that we stuck into the phone line. We had a piece of software on the computer which acted as an answermachine! I loved it! We got loads of disks with it too, with games on - Madeline (lol), Fade To Grey, and Sesame Street are the ones that come to mind. And we went on whichever websites didn't take an age to load, and it was awesome. I was 9, I think. So that'll be 12 years pretty much solid internet. I remember when we had a 28kb modem.. and then we got a 56kb "fun" modem.. which was green and translucent. That was awesome. I was on it so much that my mum just ended up getting broadband when that came out. I downloaded Kazaa, and stole music. When was that.. I think I was 14, close to 15 maybe? I got into Black Sabbath and the like. I then got Kazaa Lite because I was informed that it was quicker and less buggy, and found there was a chatroom. I'd been in a lot of chatrooms during my days on the 56k, so I decided to give it a shot. I was an obnoxious little madam! But I started making friends of those who were as obnoxious as I was, and it was a brand new experience. At this point I was doing my GCSE's, and probably shouldn't have been on the computer so much, but I did it anyway. My friends at school had started to get to know me a bit, and that's usually where the friendship ends. I am ok at making friends, but maintaining those friendships I have no clue about. I didn't know that I should contact them if I wanted to go out, and I had no reason to know, as they usually came to my door asking. I didn't like ringing ppl, and I still don't, and that was my downfall. So, my friendships with ppl were breaking down, but I had this brand new set of friends (mainly from America as I have terrible sleeping patterns and was always up until they were going to bed anyway), and so I delved deeper. Because I was so upset about my "RL" friends basically dumping me, I went into my shell. I lived for IRC. I was there more than the operators were, and I loved every minute of it. One time I actually stayed up for three days straight on it. I don't think my mother was very happy about it. In fact, I'm pretty sure she worried like hell, but I know this now, and didn't realise before that my actions affected others. I wasn't diagnosed at this point. But back to point, yeah, I did the IRC thing. I was almost late for my Business Studies exam (no point in going anyway, I only got a D) because I was on IRC. But that summer was great, the sun shone outside, and don't get me wrong, I didn't just look at it whilst indoors. When ppl were working or at school or sleeping on that timestealing server, I sunbathed with music I downloaded from K-Lite playing through the patio doors, and I loved it.

Even now, I am on IRC. I have made friends and closer on that thing in the past 6 years, and I think it's going to continue.

I tidied up. I used the vacuum cleaner.. uurgh. Now IRC and television. Woohoo!