A quick note before we get started this week… the first part of this blog is about the potentially sensitive subject of infertility and IVF, so if for any reason you need to either not read this week, or scroll on past to the regular bakery news, please do, and know that that is absolutely fine to do so.
A couple of weeks ago I received a voice note from a friend, Emma, asking me if I would write a piece for her newsletter. The invitation floored me for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, Emma is someone I admire enormously and her newsletter, “Trying…”, has a LOT of subscribers, so that she would trust me with her readers felt like a really big responsibility and a really big honour.
Secondly, she was inviting me to share a big chapter of my life that I knew would make me feel incredibly vulnerable and that I also knew wouldn’t be easy to excavate from the tucked away corners of my heart and write about without accepting that it would bring a whole heap of emotions.
My piece for the newsletter was called ‘Trying… to build a life without children’. The response to it was far beyond anything I was prepared for, and I’ve spent the last week reading and replying to messages, emails and comments from people who have travelled (or are travelling) a similar path. It’s been so moving to hear so many shared stories of how it feels to realise that it’s time to begin to let go of what you hoped and imagined life was going to look like, and start living it as it is. It’s something that we just don’t talk about and I think we need to.
I’ve shared parts of our decade-long journey through infertility and IVF before, not least because I think it’s so very important that we don’t hide away from the parts of us that hurt. I think it’s the parts that feel like ‘failures’ that teach us the most about ourselves and give us the most chance to experience the beautiful, human connections that make life so meaningful.
Writing the piece, and the response to it made me realise me how important (where we feel it’s safe, and right to do so) it is to be honest and to share our experiences, the happy ones AND the hard, heartbreaking ones – because we never know who might feel some comfort learning that they are not the only one.
If you have not yet read the piece, but feel you would like to please click HERE.
At the bakery…
We had our first Christmas Baking project at the bakery this week (yikes!), with some great customised biscuits for DeVere Hotels who were launching a Christmas event.
We’ve also been finalising this year’s advent biscuit collection. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I will NEVER get used to working so far ahead of myself, but it is part and parcel of being a retailer and I’m constantly trying to get better at it!
Love
Caroline
💕
