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Writer, blogger, wife, Mam. Winner of the Best Blog Post category at the 2014 Blog Awards Ireland. Former contributor to Ramp.ie and Beaut.ie #Repealthe8th
Did you know that every single day nine Irish women leave Ireland to travel to the UK to have an abortion while a further three women take safe but illegal abortion pills, that they bought off the internet, in their own bedrooms? Did you know that because I have had post natal depression, I am now at a hugely increased risk of having post natal depression again in a subsequent pregnancy and that I am at a hugely increased risk of having a more severe form of depression the next time? Did you know that I have Crohn’s Disease – a chronic life-long disease of the bowel – and that pregnancy exacerbated my symptoms so much that I was seriously ill for the whole duration of my last pregnancy and had to have two surgeries after I gave birth? Did you know that because my Crohn’s was so bad during pregnancy the last time that there is a hugely increased risk that it would be even worse the next time around – meaning more pain, more illness, more surgeries after birth?
HE was no great shakes in the kitchen, my Dad, but he made a decent cup of tea. He’d put away the heavy stuff first – the potatoes, the cylinder of gas for the Super Ser – while Mam sorted out the bread and the milk The last cup for your mother, she likes it strong. He made it for her every day after all and every day she agreed it was the best cup of tea she’d ever had.
It’s only a short period of time, just 45 minutes, maybe an hour Unlike the rushed walk TO school in the morning there’s time here to stop to examine leaves and sticks, maybe pet the odd stray cat. I spend the morning that he’s in preschool doing all of that so for that precious hour, I just sit. Playgrounds and parks and libraries and feeding the ducks and baking and arts and crafts and playdates and flu-jab appointments and shopping and chopping and cooking and cleaning and answering questions about Iron Man.
I remember sitting in a cafe in Rathmines crying behind a magazine, trying not to be noticed by the other customers, thinking over and over ‘you’ve no choice, you’ve no choice, you’re just going to have to have a baby, like it or not.’ I spent that week crying, drinking and running to the toilet every half an hour desperately looking for any sign of my period arriving. I wouldn’t be forced to have a baby that I didn’t want, at that time. On the day I was sobbing with relief in my friend’s bathroom, ten women were sitting in clinic waiting rooms in the UK, waiting to have an abortion, unable to access this healthcare at home. This Saturday, September 30, 2017, the Abortion Rights Campaign will hold its annual March for Choice in Dublin City Centre calling for a full repeal of the clause in our Constitution that prohibits abortion here (the Eighth Amendment) and for legislation to be passed allowing free, safe and legal abortion access for Irish citizens, in Ireland.