I went to Louisa‘s house yesterday to drop off her photos and over a cup of coffee we were discussing some of the scary stories she got told when she was pregnant, and how she stopped people from telling her.

Then a little later, she mentioned that someone had asked her, after Nicola was born, whether she’d heard my stories.  Until then she hadn’t realised that I’d had so many miscarriages and nearly lost Bradley and then Connor being in NICU etc etc.  And she was surprised that I hadn’t said anything.

The thing is I believe that every mother has a story.

At some stage, every single mother has had a problem.  Whether it was during pregnancy, or birth or feeding or pooing or whatever.  And in addition, every mother has a different story about each child they have.

Now I know I talk a lot.  If asked, I would have told her my very long story.  However, my story is a scary one.  And it’s not likely to happen to everyone, so until a new mom is ready, I won’t be telling her my story.

It would put her off pregnancy and babies for a long time actually.

And that’s why Louisa didn’t hear it then.

However, she heard parts of it yesterday And I think she gets now why she didn’t hear it sooner (apart from the fact that it’s not the kinda thing you talk about on Twitter )

And talking about mother’s stories… I’ve just read this on the DPS blog… and it’s truly inspirational.  It’s called shoot to live.  I took quite a few photos of Connor when he was in NICU and I’m glad I did, but this mother’s story is amazing… this is why photo-a-day is a good thing to record your kids lives even though it’s a schlep and you think they’re trivial things you’re recording… you never know if they’ll do that particular thing again.

I think I want to change the project 365 name to Shoot to Live after that actually!