tanya

Reader. Ambivert. Imposter syndrome on overdrive. 🇿🇼

[Tai Lopez @tailopez]

To fall asleep you first pretend to be asleep. That's how everything in life works.

[Codie Sanchez @Codie_Sanchez]

This is for every woman who has struggled with or been shamed trying to get pregnant.

I'm pregnant and thrilled. AND YET I've been failing at it for years. You don't see the part where I'm on the floor with a syringe. You don't see the part where I miss the window or lose a pregnancy.

My mother had several miscarriages. I've had one too. Sadly, this is so very common you probably have no idea. It's a quiet killer for women.

For my mom, I will not put numbers on her grief because they are hers. I will tell you that I grew up knowing the word miscarriage the way other children grow up knowing the word garage. It was a household word.
I have had one of my own.

And before my baby, before my brother, and after me… there was Kristin.

Kristin was my sister.

She made it all the way. My mother carried her to term. She was born. She was alive. She came out, but she never left the hospital.

She did not stay with us. She lived a month. Maybe two.
Her heart had reversed valves.

I remember my father telling me about driving home from the hospital that cloudy day without his baby girl. He and my mother alone in the car when the song,

“My Love’s Leaving,” came on by Stevie Winwood.
“Can I cope with today?
My love is leavin' me
Still I'm hoping she'll stay
My love is leavin' me”

That song hangs heavy in our family.
Every year on Kristin's birthday I think about the tiny grave and the baby whose heart was too small, and I do the math of how old she would be now if she had stayed.

That is, weirdly, what I have been carrying for years while I was trying to have a baby.

If you have carried something like it, a sibling, a child, a pregnancy that ended on a bathroom floor, a name in a small graveyard with a date too close to itself, then you already know that what I am describing is not in the past. It is in the room. It is sitting on the bed during the test. It is in the car on the way to the appointment. It is the question every shot in the stomach is asking.
Will this one stay. Please.

That was the question my mother asked however many times.

It was the question my father had to put down on a highway with Stevie Winwood on the radio.

It is the question I am still asking, at 16 weeks, in the privacy of my own car, on the way to my own appointments, when the song comes on.

So I guess while I am THRILLED. I am still putting this on the page because nobody else does.

The world watches a woman like me and decides when she’s pregnant, she just gets lucky, and when she doesn’t she is just too busy or some heartless wench who only likes to work.

The comments come. They always come. People who do not know your name typing into a phone that none of this matters unless you are a mother, and you should spend more time being a mom than doing this, and you never prioritized family. F*cking A there is no winning.

I want to tell you what I was doing in the exact moment a stranger was typing that comment to me.

I was on a kitchen floor in a different time zone, doing math with a syringe. I was 5 years into not getting pregnant and blaming myself every seven seconds.

If you are reading this, and you have ever been told you should be doing more of the thing you were already, secretly, breaking yourself trying to do, please put the phone face down on the counter after this.

You are not lazy. You are not late. You are not failing. People just hate their lives in that moment and want you to feel worse than they do.

For me, the only answer was prayer.
I prayed.
I had not, until these three years, ever had a thing I needed badly enough to beg for it from something larger than me.

I begged.

I begged in cars. I begged in bathrooms. I begged at airports. I begged in clinics with the paper sheet under me. I begged while another woman in another room was getting the news I wanted and not getting it myself.
I pleaded when I had nothing left to give in return for the asking.

I think God gave us this baby. I do not know what else to call it. The other words I have tried do not fit.

And yet, I am also very afraid.

I have been around enough grief in this lineage to know that 16 weeks is not the finish line.

Kristin's heart was too small at term. I've had my own pregnancy lost too. My mother carried her grief. I am not going to pretend I am not still scared, because pretending is the part of this story I am tired of, and the part that almost made me not tell you any of it.

If you are reading this and you are scared too, you are allowed.

You are allowed to be happy and afraid in the same hour. You are allowed to want this baby and not yet believe in this baby. You are allowed to thank God and refresh the doctor's portal in the same minute.

If you are reading this in the parking lot at the clinic, I see you.
If you are reading this with the leftover medication in the drawer, I see you.

If you are like me who has not been able to ask her husband for what she needs, I have been you for years, and I am telling you now, he will sit on the edge of the bed and listen. They do not break the way you are afraid they will break. You can ask. You are allowed.

If you have a Kristin, I am sorry. I think about her so very often, and I never met her. I will think about yours.

If the comments in your life are louder than the truth in your body please stop listening to them. The body knows. Other people do not.

If this isn't you scroll past... but I heard enough negativity with my announcement and many other womens I thought maybe the haters just don't know how damn hard this all is. And if they did... they'd be a little kinder.

Xoxo - Codie

[Rendani (MBA - Wits) @Rendani666]

The fact that this Polygamyst thing didn’t trigger a single childhood trauma is such a blessing. Reading people’s takes and I just realized I owe my dad even more respect. He was and still continues being a good father and husband to my mom ❤️

[GTV Ghana @GTV_Ghana]

Soccer no be amapiano oh

[Lyn🦋 @_ayandamay]

I miss the days when you could quit your job and have a new one three days later...

[Farai @FaraiJulian]

My father is critically ill in hospital in Zimbabwe and our family is raising funds to cover his medical care.

If you’re able to help, we’d be incredibly grateful. If not, please keep him in your prayers and share this post.

Paypal: https://t.co/5KYwjrMDWp

Thank you

[Mobile Movie 🎬 @Ignoto88]

The Big Bang Theory ending episode 🔥

[✩⋆｡°kronk⋆｡°✩ @krrronk]

foundational text

[𝐂𝐫𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐖𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡 𝐙𝐖 @CrimeWatchZW]

PLEASE SHARE🙏🏾 | MISSING PERSON ALERT

Help us find Natasha Mashoko, a Form 1 student at Marlborough High School.

She was last seen yesterday at around 6:45 AM when she left home for school. However, she never made it to school and has not been seen since. At the time of her disappearance, she was wearing her winter school uniform consisting of navy blue slacks, a navy blue blazer, and a sky-blue shirt.

Her family and friends are deeply concerned for her safety and are appealing to members of the public for any information that may assist in locating her.

If you have seen Natasha or know anything about her whereabouts, please urgently contact Nyasha Mashoko on 0777 229 989.

Please share this post widely to help bring Natasha home safely.

@PoliceZimbabwe

[ᗩl wᗩdᑌd_tᕼe sIᗰᑭ @_MakdShelby]

Guys someone is looking for their child , please if you have any information …

Retweet until he is found 🙏🏽,He was last seen in Chitungwiza

[Django Gold @django]

watching Indiana Jones for the first time, do archaeologists typically kill this many people?

[First Doctor @FirstDoctor]

Never take for granted a body that wakes up and functions without a medical crisis attached to it. That is grace.

[🦋 fairy 🧚‍♂️ @thisdecfairy]

apparently this bear can smell people who don’t want to go to work tomorrow

[Zion @zionszzn]

Mahn you turn the AC off in your car for 1 sec and it feel like the sun hopped in the passenger seat 😂😂

[• @WordsCocoon]

reminder!

[Mama T🌻 @herchosenpath]

Being embarrassed about your age makes no sense to me. How you gone let somebody shame you for being alive longer?

[‎➳ ⋆.𖥔 𝘚𝘦𝘳 𝘌𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘦 @gildfae]

Girl if he doesn’t know who Aragorn son of Arathorn is, cancel that date

[Doug Coltart ✊🏼🇿🇼 @DougColtart]

Thank you @ChangeRadioZW for translating into both Shona and Ndebele this Explainer on how #CAB3 takes away #OneManOneVote through Delimitation.🙏👏👏👏
Please give it a watch, share it with someone, and let me know your thoughts. #NoToCAB3

[Freeman @freemanchari]

We are only left with 2 days for before parliament deliberates on this illegal coup bill. We have so far sent more than 105k emails. If you haven't, please add your voice. You can send an email via :
1. https://t.co/9vyQQM24pE
2. Whatsapp https://t.co/rdQ6kKcex9 Send Hello to [phone]
3. You can also email directly to [email protected] or [email protected]