Lucky

On Saturday I travelled up to London to attend the Save The Children blogging conference.

Since having Iyla, I have stopped watching the news. I know some would say that it’s ignorant of me, and maybe it is but I can no longer handle hearing details of all the terrible things that are happening on our planet. I love and want to protect Iyla more than anything, she is my world but sometimes I worry about what is happening in her world, the one I chose to bring her into.

Another reason I don’t like watching the news is because it makes me feel helpless, I don’t agree with so many things. Take prison for example, somewhere that people should be scared of. It should be a punishment, something to put people off committing a crime for fear of spending time inside but it’s not. It’s more like a holiday camp.

I knew I was going to be faced with lots of emotional stories when I signed up to attend the Save the Children conference but the difference with charity campaigns is that there is something that can be done. They doesn’t make me feel helpless, they make me feel like I can do something to make a difference, if only a small one.

Here are some of the stories that really made me sit back and realise how lucky we are in this country.

Firstly was hearing about how women in Rwanda don’t name their babies for the first eight days of their lives as so many of them won’t live for that long. As a mother this really had an effect on me. Having carried a child in your tummy for nine months, you already feel connected to them, then when you see them that love you feel is un-describable. So to know that their is a strong chance of losing them in the first few days must be heartbreaking.

Secondly was the horrendous circumstances in which women in Bangladesh have to give birth. I moaned about the ward I was put in after giving birth to Iyla but to think that there are women out there giving birth with no access to any trained medical staff is terrifying. As a result of this, the death rate of babies is extremely high. In one village, 9 out of 10 women had lost babies, many of them had lost more than 1. They showed a photograph of a basket that a woman had been carried in to receive medical attention, it took hours and by the time she arrived, her baby had died. So horrendously sad and yet the saddest thing is that it was preventable.

I wish that hearing these stories stopped me from ever complaining again about something as insignificant as being bored, being put on hold or not having enough money to buy luxuries. These things don’t matter but a lot of the time in my life, they seem important. I don’t know that I can easily change that but I do know that I can easily do something to help this campaign.

Save The Children are currently trying to raise one million pounds in order to build more health clinics and stop so many un-necessary deaths from occurring. You can read all the details of the campaign here  - BUILD IT FOR BABIES.

And if you are a blogger / vlogger and want to get involved then the wonderful mind of Mammasaurus has come up with a plan. She is going to be travelling around the UK and stopping off in various cities to take part in mini-blogger events to raise money for the campaign.

I live near Bristol so on Wednesday the 2nd of May I will be joining a group of local bloggers and taking part in something to raise money. I have no idea what yet but there is a Facebook group, so if you are based in Somerset and want to get involved then do come and join – Blog it for Babies Bristol Facebook Group.

If you want to check if your city is on her list or want to read about what Mammasaurus is up to then she has a whole site dedicated to it – Blog It For Babies.