So what’s holding you back? The only thing you need to buy to WWOOF is a membership… Not all hosts will provide you everything you need but you should at least be able to find a place with room and board. Where are you wanting a ticket to?

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So here I am, living with my mom, still unemployed, wanting to WWOOF. *Scratching head*

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I’m very sorry for your loss. I know it’s hard, but sometimes things happen for a reason. As I told my son, our second baby knew that it wasn’t the right time. If your boyfriend wasn’t able to stand with you after losing a baby, he wouldn’t have been there for you to raise a baby, either. When things are difficult, that’s when you find who your true friends and loved ones are. The ones who stay with you and help you through the hard times are the ones worth keeping. The ones who leave at the first sign of trouble were never worth being around to begin with. Losing a baby just months ago you are still in an emotional whirlwind, dealing with sadness, grief, fear, loneliness, plus a lot of hormones. This is absolutely normal! There are two things that will make this harder for you:

1. When a woman has a baby, she goes through a lot of hormonal changes, including what’s sometimes called the “Baby Blues”. It’s common for a new mother to feel sadness, anger, and other emotions, often crying for no reason. Typically this gets better with time, and it is also helped by the good emotional and hormonal benefits of having an actual baby to hold and love. When you have a miscarriage or abortion or lose a baby shortly after birth, the hormones are the same. Your body can’t tell the difference. However, they are compounded, because you are grieving the loss, the death of someone you had grown to love, to think about as a real person with a future, even though you never met them.

2. You don’t have a good support group. I was lucky to have a great husband who showed so much love when we lost our child. He was a great friend and husband. Your boyfriend is not being a good friend and you feel lost in the world. You are having relationship trouble, a major stressor on its own, and all these factors combined, along with fear of separation and life on your own is multiplying everything.

I think you need to get away from this unhealthy relationship. Love yourself enough to leave him, and find a place for yourself in the world. You are special for who you are and you don’t need a man or anyone else to define you. It will not be easy, but you must do this, and be strong, to be able to move on with your life.

I’ve dealt with depression and sad times in my life a lot, and I’ve found that when a sad person helps other people, it takes away from the sadness and lets you focus on other things. Get involved in volunteering for something you care about… I wouldn’t suggest anything with children or babies until you’ve had some time to heal emotionally from your loss, but there are lots of opportunities with the elderly, animals, the environment, anything you can think of.

Another thing that helps is to do physically or mentally demanding work, like starting a garden, or like my grandmother, a quilt. These are long-term projects that take a long time, and they will give you something else to think about, and at the same time can stand as a memorial for your baby.

Whatever you decide to do, find someone reliable to depend on and talk to. Not this boyfriend, maybe a family member or a good friend. If you don’t have friends, find a support group. There are many women just like us who have lost babies. This is a connecting point and she will understand more than anyone else ever can. Start online if you have to.

My best wishes to you in finding the new life for yourself. The possibilities are endless. look at this as your chance to make a wonderful life.

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Nice people like us can really get cheated. Sometimes you have to be a little mean, a little tough, to get what you need and want. It is your farm, your house, your food budget. I’m not sure if your farm is your moneymaker or if you’re just hobbyists. But WWOOFers, like any guest, should understand that you’re the boss and you set the boundaries. For most WWOOF hosts, the farm is not just a home but also a place of business. Like in the traditional business world, workers are expected to be on time and do the work requested. In the real world, if you don’t do your job, or if you show up late too many times, you get fired. Some people think that since WWOOFing is unpaid and more casual, they don’t have to follow the rules. But rules and boundaries keep problems from happening.

To prevent problems in the future I would suggest a couple things:

-decide now what things are critical to your success as a farm and family and make these essential rules. If you have communal meals or share things like the kitchen and bathroom, you should definitely have boundaries as to when and how these things can be used. Consider your water and electric bills as well as food costs. Figure out how much leeway you can afford people with the schedule. For example, if you raise animals, they must be fed and watered at a certain time each day, eggs need to be gathered before they’re stepped on and cracked, etc. If your WWOOFers are working on independent projects like weeding or painting the barn you could be less strict about timing (as long as it gets done).

-explain these rules from the beginning. You may not need or want to put everything in the WWOOF listing, but in response to the initial contact email is a great time. Just a message with, “We’re really excited to hear from you, and you seem like you could be a great match for our farm. These are the daily expectations we have for all our WWOOFers” would be fine. The party animal who likes to drink and dance til 3 and get up at noon isn’t likely to pursue a farm that wants everyone up at 6 to feed the chickens with lights out at 9 to save electricity.

-When things begin to be a problem, you have to say something. If you allow a WWOOFer to abuse your bigheartedness you imply that this is ok with you. The longer it goes on, the more uncomfortable it will be. Explain why you have this rule (ex: we all have to get done with breakfast and out of the house by 10 so I can do the housework and have some personal space) and that you’re not picking on them, you expect everyone (including yourself!!) to follow the rules so everyone can have a pleasant time.

It’s ok to request that WWOOFers clean up after themselves and to expect people to help with things like washing the dishes and setting the table. You could even have a rotating “chore” sheet so that a different person is in charge of clearing the table, washing the dishes or cooking each night.

You know, I think this is going to be a whole new blog post, lol. Well, I need to be writing something on here anyway.

Let me answer your question about meals… I never mind to fix my own breakfast or lunch, and sometimes I even prefer it. At most WWOOF farms I helped on we prepared some or all of our meals, often with a communal dinner to bring everyone together. Different hosts handle it different ways.. with one we were alloted a certain amount of basics per week (bread, eggs, milk, pasta, all the rice, lentils, whole wheat flour and oatmeal we wanted from the shared pantry, butter, peanut butter, etc plus all the apples and garden veggies we could eat), with one I had free range of the kitchen and its 3 freezers (filled up with delicious things like smoked salmon and wild blackberries), and on one we provided all of our own food (in France, and what delicious food there was to be had). It all depends on what you can afford and what you are able to provide from the farm. You can’t give away all of your cash crop, but it’s nice to give WWOOFers a taste of what they’re producing. Of course if you have plenty of it and it’s basically a “free” resource then you could give more. On the apple farm for instance, there’s no way even the hungriest WWOOFer could eat all the apples, so for most varieties we were allowed to eat and bake with all the apples we wanted. Certain varieties were off-limits, destined for market, but we always got at least a taste. This is another great topic for an article so I’m going to stop there. Oh one more thing, keep in mind that some WWOOFers, especially young ones don’t know how to cook! I wouldn’t go buy convenience food for them, but have simple things like leftovers that can be heated up in the microwave (if you use one), toast or cereal/granola for breakfast, etc. And teach them how to cook for themselves! That’s an essential skill everyone should have.

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In a situation like this, communication is absolutely essential. I think that in most human relationships the reason there are conflicts from the smallest at-home disagreement to international wars is due to lack of communication. As soon as you realize a WWOOFer has gone beyond making a mistake or making things a little inconvenient, that he’s actually taking advantage of you, you have to take some time to sit down quietly together and discuss how things are going. Explain again what you expect and what you are giving in return, see if there are any issues that he feels are a disadvantage to him. I think it’s also important, especially in the case of young, inexperienced people, to give reasons for the rules you have. He may not have realized what a drag he put on your day by sleeping in or may have been oblivious to the mud that he tracked through the house. I’ve found that if you tell people why the rules are in place they will be more likely to follow them.

And wow, offering to pay a plane ticket. That’s a tough one. For the right WWOOFer that would be a really nice compensation. However, it’s hard to tell before you meet someone how they’re going to work out. It’s best to at least meet in person before making any large commitment like that, or even an agreement to let someone stay more than a week or two. I like to have a 2 week trial period with any new host. Some people are bizarre or too strict or have really bad accomodations (the story of the ironing board and the moldy oatmeal comes to mind). So it’s nice to have a way to duck out (either side, the host or the WWOOFer) gracefully.

I don’t think your WWOOFer got the point and message of WWOOFing. Eating frozen convenience food dinners when he could have had a (FREE!!) home-cooked meal, fresh from the farm? That’s crazy, and sad!! You know, if he’d have eaten a nice meal with lots of veggies to fill him up, he wouldn’t have needed to eat so much. I would never buy something special like that for a WWOOFer if he didn’t want to eat the food in the house. If it’s that bad, as a WWOOFer you can (and I have) buy your own food to supplement what the host is giving you. When we go to a new place, especially if I take my son, we always make sure to have SOME emergency rations, like fruit, peanut butter and crackers, etc. Because you never know what you’re going to get. But I’ve been pretty lucky with food, having enjoyed heritage apples, home-smoked salmon and crab, the best sushi I’ve ever eaten, eggs just out of the chicken, and grass-fed beef, all for a couple hours of work. I love food and that is one of the best compensations to me, enjoying all the taste treats from different locations.

I’ve never worked with someone who was that lazy, but I have heard stories from WWOOF hosts. Particularly one hungry guy who would eat a huge scoop of organic oats with miso and molasses (or something weird and expensive like that) every day for breakfast. I’m lucky enough to have an overachiever husband who usually puts me to shame with the beautiful work he does and getting up on time. I’m really proud of him and he has landscaping/gardening handiwork still standing in Germany, France and Canada that we still get gushing emails about. I can’t imagine how anyone would be so inconsiderate as your WWOOFer but I hope he’s grown up a little now.

What kind of farm do you have? Are you in the US?

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Always so sad to read the comments on this post, all the stories of loss. Sorry I have taken so long to respond. Gosh, pregnancy and losing a baby are so hard to deal with on their own. I was so lucky to have my wonderful husband for emotional and physical support. He was so strong for me and I love him much more for that. Having to deal with it alone would be so much harder.

I still think about the baby that could have been, how our lives would have been different. My son, an only child for now, brings it up often. He’s not overly sad about it, just says, ah, mom, if I’d had my brother or sister we would do this together, now. I still hope to give him that experience someday, but as he gets older (he’s 10 now) it seems like they would be too far apart in age to be close to each other. And yes, it does scare me still to think about getting pregnant and what if…

You mentioned having trouble being around your friends and babies and that’s totally normal. Anger, sadness, guilt, fear, it’s all to be expected. And 8 or 9 months after losing a baby, of course you will be feeling all these things intensely. That’s a significant anniversary, because your child would have been born about that time.

“So-called” pregnancy? No, what an insensitive man. I’m glad you decided not to speak to him again. An ectopic pregnancy and loss/miscarriage is just as much a valid pregnancy as any other. Your baby and all the emotions surrounding him or her were and are completely real. It is normal and in fact very healthy to mourn this baby.

I hope that time is helping you heal and that you are able to find a loving relationship that may or may not include children. I’ve been through counseling lately for an unrelated issue and i can tell you that it really is helpful. Sometimes you just need to talk to another human being who cares and will just say “it’s ok to be you.”

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