There are two standard initial
responses when people know you are going to have a baby.
Standard Response 1: ‘Oh my
god it’s amazing, you’ll love it’
Standard Response 2: ‘It’s
hard work… yeah… but amazing. You’ll love it’
Now… it is my belief that the
people giving response 1 are clearly suffering from some form of amnesia or
have undergone some sort of shock therapy treatment to help them suppress the
early days of having a baby.
People giving response 2 are
trying to give you a little taster of the truth. THEY ARE TRYING TO SEND YOU A
MESSAGE.
Then… after people have given
Standard Response 1 or 2 and your pregnancy news has all had time to settle…
over the next 9 months, you will very frequently hear the following comments:
- · Anytime you mention anything about sleep.. “Enjoy your sleep now… you won’t be sleeping again for 18 years!”
- · If you are doing something like going to the cinema/out to dinner/away for the weekend/anything enjoyable.. “Make the most of that, you won’t be able to go to the cinema/out to dinner/away for the weekend/do anything enjoyable anymore soon!”
- · Generic comment about the definite, unavoidable horror of childbirth and resulting destruction of your vagina and body.
- · If you ever dare to say you are tired… “If you think you’re tired now, wait until a few months time!”
- · Generic comment about never having a social life again.
- · Generic comment about your relationship never being the same again.
Now this was confusing… these
people had previously told me it was the most amazing thing ever and yet now it
was clearly NOT the most amazing thing ever. In fact, they were polar
opposites. It was the most amazing thing ever, but it was going to ruin my
sleep, relationship, social life, career and vagina. How could this be so? So I
crapped my pants. Surely it HAD to be the former, right? Because everyone kept
having babies and people always seemed to have more than one. And on further
questioning when faced with the above comments, people would again back track
and say ‘Oh, but you don’t care because it’s amazing.’
So I thought that motherhood
must literally be the dog’s bollocks. To have zero sleep, step down from your
career, have a baby stuck to your breast for months and seriously downgrade
your social life and STILL be the most amazing thing I’ll ever do? Wow. I
couldn’t comprehend anything amazing enough to overshadow all of that. I
guessed that there must be something unimaginable to come… maybe upon giving
birth, you not only received a baby, but also a key to some sort of Magical
Mothering Garden where everything is beautiful and rosy and you are immune to
the tiredness and unpredictability and frustration that having a baby can
bring.
Well… no key arrived for me.
And I double checked.
I did not experience this
Magical Mothering Garden. I would say I experienced some rough shrub land with
the odd scattering of pretty flowers and am now entering a small yet enjoyable
untended wildlife garden.
Now let me make something
very clear… my baby is the bomb. I love her in a way that terrifies me. If
anyone ever did anything to even slightly harm her, I would genuinely have no
problem messing them up Law-Abiding-Citizen-style. I will be the mum that sets
fire to another child’s scooter because they looked at my child funny. Fact.
Let me make something else
very clear… when The Baby does certain things like smile or laugh or pull a
funny face or fart, it provides a kind of joy that I used to believe only came
from multiple cake portions. In fact it completely surpasses that. It’s
phenomenal. And I realise I don’t care about my career, my sleep, seeing The
Hobbit at the cinema or the Honeycomb Smash Cheesecake from Prezzos that I
might not be able to eat for about a year.
But I need to be honest with
you… quite a lot of the other stuff can be shit. And hard. And at times makes
me want to cry on the living room rug whilst talking to my cat (see previous
post). Don’t get me wrong… it has gotten easier. And continues to get easier
(this week I have had the best time ever with The Baby). But there is no
getting away from the fact that unless you are one of those lucky naturally
amazing maternal beings; those first few months are similar to being in a deep
dark trench with no map telling you how to get out of the trench. Particularly
when you’ve never experienced trenches before. And just when you think you are
getting to grips with the trench, the trench changes and also does a massive
yellow crap every 5 minutes. Probably over your brand new sofa and a bit on
your best jeans that you don’t notice until you are out in public.
I would say… 5 months in… I’m
not so much in the trench now… more like a slightly boggy field. With some dry
bits here and there. It definitely gets easier. But I wish someone had been
upfront with me about the early days so I didn’t feel like such a failure for
the following things:
- · I didn’t get that immediate rush of love. Sure, I loved The Baby straight away and knew I would do anything for her. But I didn’t get that ‘rush’ and felt like an utter failure at the first hurdle. Possibly something to do with the fact that a baby had just been hauled out of my uterus. It’s quite a shock really. But that rush has come with time and continues to grow stronger. Sometimes I’m worried I’m going to love-squish her so hard she pops.
- · I didn’t know what to do. At all. I had ZERO baby experience and I felt entirely useless. I felt like I hadn’t received that ‘natural mothering instinct’ everyone said I would get. That first night when I had to stay in hospital and The Man had to go home, I have never felt so terrified in my entire life.
- · I had zero confidence with The Baby. The Man was far more competent with her than me. I thought there must be something wrong with me.
- · Breastfeeding was NOT going well (I will post about this soon)
- · I sat on the couch a few days in, crying, thinking ‘what have I done?’ and ‘this is horrible’. I didn’t feel depressed, just terrified, in shock and completely incompetent. But I was scared to admit this to anyone in case they thought I was a terrible mother and would probably think I was suffering from postnatal depression. And also because in my head, everyone else seemed to be doing amazingly.
I know not everyone feels
like this and some people take to it straight away and love every second
immediately and know what they’re doing and their baby is basically learning to
drive by 2 weeks old. That’s amazing. I wish I had been one of those people. And
I did have good days as well. But I think it’s important for people to know
that not everyone feels like that… and it’s ok. And it’s normal. And you don’t
need to feel alone and like there is something wrong with you if, like me, you
didn’t even know how to attach a nappy to a baby and were scared to move The
Baby in case The Baby broke.
Funnily enough, since I have started
daring to be honest with people about these things that I felt, other people
have started to admit that they felt like that too. So I say…. Bollocks to the
Magical Mothering Garden…. Let’s just be honest!!! Or let’s at least admit that
the Magical Mothering Garden has some large heaps of potent dung scattered
around. Then we’re all in it together and no one has to put on a fake smile and
pretend everything is perfect every second of every day!! Instead, we can sit
together, eat a disgusting amount of biscuits and talk about how shit it is
sometimes!!
So as a scientist, I have of
course evaluated and collaborated all the advice and first hand evidence and now,
when someone asks me about having a baby, I shall be honest and tell them the
following:
The first few weeks/months can be hard. HARD. Like a deep dark
tunnel. But it really, honestly, does get easier. So if you can keep your head
down and power through for that first bit, you will love it and it will develop
into those aforementioned dogs bollocks. It will still be hard and there will
still be really shit parts, but it is completely and utterly worth it. And
maybe… just maybe… your vagina will be just fine.
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