From Maiden to Mother

I have this old brown battered case that has followed me from house to house. Often I’ve considered burning it, just burning the lot without even opening it for one last look at the contents, a symbolic letting go of the past and the painful memories locked away in that case.

I’ve been sorting out Tater’s room and making space for his ever growing collection of toys. And in doing this that brown case has resurfaced again, as it does every once in a while, dredging up with it old memories and feelings. Almost casually I decided to take a peek inside yesterday morning and while my other half dressed Taters I amused myself reading snippets of my teenage diaries. Predictably they made me cringe with embarrassment – it was all exactly as you’d expect, the insane crushes on pop stars and older boys, the jealousy and back stabbing amongst the girls in school (I was such a teenage cliché!) I tried to avoid reading my accounts of the bullying I suffered, but I can’t say I need re-read all that anyway, I still carry a lot of it around with me. I wish I didn’t, but there you go. There’s lots of other memorabilia in there besides the diaries, not all bad – there are letters from friends, magazine cuttings of my teenage crushes (they’re always fun to revisit), a sympathy card from my best friend when River Phoenix died. There’s later stuff too from my early days at University, much happier times – valentines cards from the man I went on to marry, a tape of songs he made for me.

Basically that battered brown case is a memory box filled with memorabilia from the most intense periods of my life and whenever I open it, the concentrated emotions that fester within can be overwhelming. That’s why I often think it would be healthier to just burn the thing (perhaps removing the nice things in there first). At the moment it sits hidden away half buried in corners of the house, almost polluting the atmosphere around it.

Anyway after my little meander down memory lane I sat on the bus to work listening to some old albums I’d recently uploaded to my ipod. It wasn’t a conscious decision to revisit my university years but as I listened it was almost like travelling back in time – I could clearly recall dancing in rock clubs to those songs, the thrill of the loud music, the dark room and the smoke machine veiling me, the alcohol and the dancing, the fantastic new friends and sense of belonging at last, I relived the first rushes of love and excitement as me and my now husband started seeing one another. I remembered the newness of life; the turbulent times now behind me, free for the first time, happy for the first time in a long time, the future full of hope and possibility. It was a truly magnificent time.

By the time I found myself listening to those same songs on the way back from work the effect was now somewhat draining. In fact when I arrived home I felt rather depressed, wondering why the memories of both those eras (teenage years and uni) burn so much more brightly than the more recent past? How can it be I remember something more vividly from ten years ago than from three?

I think the true source of yesterday’s malaise was the feeling that I’m losing myself, that girl burning with passion for life back then, packed full of potential and dreams for the future, that she’s fading and all that potential is wasted. In my darkest moods I feel like I didn’t blossom into the woman I hoped to back then and now I’m wilting. It’s partly because the old me is currently submerged in motherhood, struggling to find an outlet to just be “me”. It’s also a lot to do with getting older.

I am very much shaped by that era of my life, scarred by the memories of school I want to forget, moulded further by the memories of university that I try to hold on to; clinging to the same people, trying to do the same things, I still have the same hair, I don’t dress all that differently, it’s like I’m still trying to be the same girl. I supposed I’m scared to change the formula that worked for me. Yet I’m still viewing the world through the eyes of a 20 year old, which makes looking at my thirty something self in the mirror harder and harder. It doesn’t work for me anymore. Of course I’ve failed or “sold out” if I’m judging myself by the unrealistic, idealistic standards of a teenager. Yet here I am getting all depressed because I am viewing myself from that very perspective.

So is it time to burn that brown case and properly grow up? Let go of the pain of school years and the glory days of university. After all these are the new glory days and I hope in years to come they burn even more brightly than the last. But I do think I need to redefine myself as a grown woman. I’m not the maiden now, I’m the mother. Yes this is a new golden era, and there needs to be a new me to go with it. I don’t want to look like a faded version of my old self, I don’t want to be a faded version of my old self. I want a new self. I’ve resisted change for far too long.

The time has come to pull my socks up!

I’ve broken the rules and I don’t care. For the last few nights Taters has slept with us. Yes slept. We have all slept. I’m a new woman and long may it continue. Naysayers will tell me that I won’t get him out of our bed until he’s five now I’ve given in, but that’s fine – just so long as I’m getting some sleep. And yes I know it’s another one of my parenting “things I’ll never do” plans out of the window, but sometimes you just have to do whatever it takes to survive.

And so back in the land of the living I’m trying to rebuild bridges and make amends. It’s proving to be a frustrating task. I don’t remember friendships being this complicated before? Everyone is now so busy I have to schedule meetings with them sometimes months ahead of time. And sometimes it’s more like having keep-in-touch meetings with colleagues rather than spending time with friends. It only brings it home to me how separate our lives are becoming as we chat about things we’ve done with other people. Our lives used to be intertwined, we were almost inseparable, I have albums full of photos of the times we’ve had together.

And for some people, sadly, I just don’t think my life is all that interesting to them anymore, babies just aren’t their thing!

All in all it’s a sad state of affairs and I’m feeling a bit lonely. I miss the deep connection I used to share with these people, I used to feel like I could take on the world after a conversation with them but it’s becoming obvious we’re all drifting apart. I don’t make friends easily either and so this is leaving a gaping hole in my life.

Work, ouch, work – that’s another tricky area. While I was on maternity leave many of my colleagues were made redundant. I came back to a very different work environment to the one I left, my once passionate and enthusiastic workmates rather battered down. I was surprised to find myself back at all. And now round two of changes have begun. Further cost reductions need to be made, functions have been merged and what the future holds, well no one as yet knows. This is the time to really prove yourself, to demonstrate what a hard worker and asset to the team you are. It is certainly not the time to be wandering round like a zombie with a migraine, struggling to keep your eyes open in meetings and contributing nothing to the team whatsoever. So maybe it’s too late for me, I do suspect it is. And to lose my job now would be terrifying – what are my chances of finding another part time role that will pay the mortgage? Part of me thinks it’s time to go anyway, this is such a depressing, soul crushing environment to work in. A new challenge would do me the world of good and I know that. But I’d rather that challenge be a new and exciting job, in this climate however the challenge is more likely to be finding a job when there are so few around.

Well, that was a cheery post wasn’t it? The future is looking rather daunting. But you know, so long as I’ve had some sleep, at least I can put up a fight!

A long, long night

It’s uncanny; every night as I’m drifting off to sleep the sound of stirring in the room downstairs breaks the silence on the baby monitor. How does he know? Does he sense my brain waves changing? Is this the maternal bond they speak of and if so, why is he using it to torture me?

The shuffling builds to a few soft cries. My heart leaps to attention, my stomach flips and my spirits crash. Again? Really? I hold my breath, will he find the dummy in time and go back to sleep? Please, please, please, I’m so tired from doing this last night, I don’t think I can do this again! A loud cry bellows out, followed by another and another…

I throw back the quilt and swing my legs out of bed, I feel like stomping down the stairs but no, softly, softly I go, quietly into his room with a gentle “Ssshhh” to reassure him mummy is here. Back up dummy is located and quickly shoved in his gob. The arms go up. Still “sshh-ing” but not speaking I stroke his arm and try to encourage him to go back to sleep in his cot, like all the good books say. Gritting the dummy between his teeth his cries become more insistent, arms up reaching out again demanding to be cuddled.

With a sigh I scoop him up and we settle into the rocking chair. Oh I know I shouldn’t pick him up, but I’ve tried resisting and as a result spent hours with a baby screaming blue murder at me, night after night we’ve done that. Then one night I picked him up and he fell soundly asleep in my arms, so soundly just minutes later I was creeping out of the room and back in my own bed. Bliss!

Yes he soon got wise to that one. Now he dozes in my arms with one eye open, I stroke his cheek and his little eyes close in blissful relaxation. Until I stop and they spring right back open, or I continue too long and he gets bored and yes, they spring right back open.

I try every technique with a history of success. I stroke his arm, I stroke his hair, I shush, I stay silent and do nothing, I rock, I sit still, I sing, I hum. I put him back in his cot and do it all over again. I know, I know, I need to be consistent, that’s what the good books say!

Sometimes he torments me and lays silent and still for long enough to build my hopes up. In my head I am making my retreat back up the stairs, I might even allow myself to doze a little so that when I get back to bed in oh, 15 minutes or so? I can fall asleep more easily.

He knows what I’m thinking. It’s that maternal bond again. But he’s evil, and so he waits until I make it to the door and then, bam! He flips onto his back and commences to cry.

I look at the clock, it’s 11:30pm. Worst case scenario I’ll be back in bed by 3:30am, he never lasts more than four hours. Then I’ll be up at 7:00am, well if I’m lucky and he doesn’t wake up at 6am. Can I get through a day at work on that little sleep? I keep having to!

We’re back in the chair only now he’s sitting up and bouncing in my lap like a little chimp, throwing me irresistibly cute smiles and teasing me by resting his head on my shoulder for brief moments before flashing me a cheeky, knowing grin as he sits back up. Yes, he’s evil.

He points to his cot, hoping I’m understanding his cues correctly I put him back in and gently stroke his back, shushing again. He sits up, then stands up. I quietly say “sit down”, he obeys. I quietly say “lay down”, he bends over and attempts a head stand – he doesn’t quite have that down yet. Then he springs back up, grinning. The arms go up again. I lay him back down. He’s up again. I lay him back down. He starts to cry. I relent and we’re back in the rocking chair. I know, I know, I’m too soft on him!

As he alternates between playful chimp and quietly relaxing in my arms seemingly on the verge of sleep for hours, I alternate between calm and understanding mother, and frustrated and sleep deprived nutter. Unfortunately for me husband cannot help in case you’re wondering where he is, Tater’s gets hysterical rather quickly if mummy does not come to him in the night. He steps in to give me time out if I really feel my temper boiling over, but this usually only extends the waking period even further. So mostly I sit in my rocking chair in that quiet, dark room by myself. After mentally rearranging his nursery and imagining scenes in which someone I admire is observing me and commenting on what a wonderfully patient and caring mother I am, I start to lose my marbles. Last night I tried to think it through rationally, determined to get to the bottom of it. What I needed was a plan! If I have a plan then I can be consistent in sticking to it, it will at least make me feel that I have a modicum of control. Husband will be on board and we can work together. Yes, a plan will sort us out.

I hastily hatched my plan. It went like this: Tater’s is most likely awake simply because he wants to be up. So I have to make being up so boring he will prefer to go back to sleep. I read that in one of the books. Yes, I already do it partly in that he is only allowed to either sit on my knee or be in the cot during these mammoth wake-a-thons, but I’m still entertaining him with the singing and the sodding Winnie-the-Pooh light show and music box – “I think I will sing a sleepy song..” Grrr!. So other than being there I will do nothing. Yes I will cuddle him at first, but in a few days I will step back further and not even get him out of the cot. I will be firm but understanding. He won’t like it because he won’t be getting his own way, but soon he will learn that there’s nothing to be awake for and we will all be happier as a result.

I decided to begin right away. It didn’t take long for him to get pissed off with the new regime. Soon he was sat in my lap screaming his head off and trying to shove my arms away from him. I felt like the biggest meanie in the world. Ever. But I had to be strong. This is for his own good too, he’s such a happier child when he’s had proper sleep. Okay so he didn’t want to be on my knee so I put him in his cot, he stood up and screamed. I remained resolutely boring. No talking, no singing, no Pooh Bear light show on the ceiling. Nothing to stay awake for here Mister.

I started to crumble, am I damaging him doing this? Isn’t this just cry-it-out with me in the room? Have I given this enough thought? My now worried husband keeps coming into the room to check everything is okay. Is he sick? Should we give him Calpol? Call an ambulance? My god that kid can paddy! He sounds like a scalded dog!

Finally I scoop him up in my arms and head up to our bedroom, defeated, weak, exhausted. FAIL! It’s not that it even helps half the time, after he’s finished bouncing around on the bed, elbowing and kicking us both in the ribs, head, neck, groin, eventually we all pass out and when I awake a few measly hours later it is with painfully stiff limbs and a cold arse hanging off the edge of the bed. Very ladylike! Dr Sears makes co-sleeping sound so charming too.

And so there we have it, a night in our house. I don’t know what on earth to do. I don’t feel strong enough to sit out the gentler version of crying it out on my own. And we’ve had months of doing something similar and it hasn’t worked at all. So I don’t know, I need another plan!

8 hours straight would be lovely, please?

My how time flies when you’re living existing in a fog of sleep deprivation! Writing a blog does fall by the wayside when it takes everything you have just to get through the day. I’m turning out to be a useless blogger! (not to mention an unproductive member of the workforce, a useless friend who doesn’t even know what is happening in her friends lives, a lazy, snappy wife who looks terrible all the time…) And this has been dragging on for so long I’m scared that by the time this phase is finally over I’ll “wake up” and find myself to be a stranger in my own life, an unemployed one at that. Maybe I’m being overly dramatic but it feels like life is passing me by while I wander round in my sleepless daze, neglected friends are drifting away from me, I feel isolated and frustrated at my inability to achieve anything, almost as though I’m fading away.

We’ve had periods of sleeping through, or near sleeping through at least, but we’ve also had prolonged periods of waking up every hour throughout the night, refusing to go to sleep, refusing to go back to sleep. This current phase has been going on since he turned one. That was four months ago. I just don’t know what’s going on, I don’t understand why – what causes him to wake up in the night and then proceed to stay awake for anything up to four hours – demanding my attention for the entire period? Is he too warm? Too cold? Hungry? Thirsty? I just don’t know! Why won’t he go back to sleep? I don’t want to do the old “cry it out” but one thing is for certain, we can’t keep going on like this.

In search of the elusive Christmas spirit

We’re going to have a great Christmas this year, oh yes we bloody well are! I’m determined, I’m adamant. No excuses, Christmas will run smoothly, it will be magical, it will be the fairy tale, we will all laugh and wipe away tears of joy from our eyes, it will be special.

The pressure to have a perfect Christmas is spoiling Christmas. I’m very good at doing this; I think of something lovely to do then work so hard at making it perfect I end up stressed out, exhausted and don’t really enjoy it at all. I’m daft like that. And I’m at it again this Christmas, I’ve dragged my family to every Christmas market and event I can find, desperate to soak in the Christmas spirit and make it wonderful and magical for us all. There has been the Winter Fayre at the City Farm, complete with carol singers and Morris Dancers and not forgetting the animals (Taters will love that!). It sounded lovely, perfect to get us in the mood. We trudged there through torrential rain with me stubbornly refusing to turn back because it might stop soon and I’d been looking forward to it so we were going! Taters didn’t see very much of the farm from behind his rain cover and many of the stalls hadn’t turned up (due to aforementioned torrential rain)

everybody in! it's spitting!

But we saw a few animals and it stopped raining long enough for Taters to watch a piglet having a poo, though the bigger pigs terrified him and ultimately he was really rather bored stuck in his pushchair the whole time.

A piglet having a poo!

Then there was the Victorian Market. We didn’t go last year when Taters was 10 weeks old, it was cancelled due to snow. I’d been so looking forward to it too, it was to be our first family trip out after the cesarean, he was going in the sling, it was going to be lovely.

Yes I’d envisioned the whole thing and it was magical, ahh! Then it got cancelled.

So we were going this year no matter what…

Bloody hell it was freezing.

And raining.

So Taters didn’t see much from behind his rain cover and when he was allowed out of the pushchair inside the big hall, it was so packed it was utter mayhem. The result was poor Tater’s throwing a premature “terrible-twos” style tantrum because I wouldn’t let him meander around aimlessly in circles and yank Christmas decorations off the stalls. I had to send him home with Grandma and Daddy in the end and then spent an hour or so Christmas shopping with my brother and his family. Yes, wonderful family trip out that was! I have a vague recollection of my wonderfully patient and understanding husband trying to warn me it might be a bit much for Taters… but I might have possible tuned him out or muttered something about him being a killjoy…

Fast forward a week or so and we’re at the Botanical Gardens Magical Christmas Light Show; there’s a miniature stream train, Santa’s grotto, a light show…. How could I possibly fail to feel the stirrings of Christmas spirit here? At last, it will officially feel like Christmas… As we drive past the enormous stationary queue wonderfully patient and understanding husband suggests we might want to rethink this one… (killjoy)… But I remember there is another entrance, huzzah! The queue is minuscule here and moving. I will not be defeated!

It’s drizzling a little, we contemplate bringing out the rain cover for the pushchair, but it slows to a stop… Woo-hoo!

And the Botanical Gardens Magical Christmas Light Show? Well it was alright, kind of nice, not really worth £6 but nice. Overcrowded, yes. Worth dragging out Taters, his daddy and grandma after dark on a drizzly, windy evening? The jury’s out on that one. I felt little flickers of Christmas spirit here and there like the candles dotted around amongst the trees, but it was so packed we were pushed along on a tidal wave of people – there was no time to savour the moment or let in the magic, or even just enjoy the colourfully lit trees and Christmas music. It was just nice.

I’m annoyed. I’ve never really liked Christmas but now I have a child I really want to love it. I want to make it wonderful for him. Last year I was ill and it didn’t live up to the image of how “our first Christmas” together should be. I feel like I let Taters down because of that, hence my manic overdrive this year. I need to get a grip. I know I’m just trying way too hard and I need to calm down. I so want to build magical memories and enjoy this special time as much as possible, these are the golden years are they not? Why do I feel so flat?

Anyway the tree is up now, the presents are mostly bought. It’s still only mid December so it’s not too late. I will try to stop dragging my family around in the wind and rain to any event labelled up with the Christmas tag and listen to wonderfully patient and understanding husband… I drive myself mad sometimes.

My big headed baby

I was laughed out of the doctor’s surgery this morning and I couldn’t be happier about it. We’d been sent by the health visitor because little Tater’s head circumference is off the charts, it was when she first measured it 5 months ago, 3 months ago it remained static and she was pleased with that, but on this occasion it had grown another 1.5cm. She wasn’t happy about that and instructed us to take him to the GP. Personally I would have been more concerned if it hadn’t grown at all in five months, but what do I know about these things? And so off to the doctors we dutifully trotted… and he looked at us gone out! His diagnosis? Tater’s has a big head, he’s a big lad (99.6th percentile for weight and 98th for height), Daddy has a big head too (it’s practically impossible to get a hat that fits him), it’s just the way he is. Tater’s head isn’t growing any faster than the rest of him, he’s walking, babbling and doing everything else a child of his age should do – there’s nothing wrong with him. He seemed somewhat exasperated that the health visitor had made such a fuss over a perfectly healthy, normal child.

That said, I’m not really angry at the health visitor, after all they’re just looking out for my son and I want them to be vigilant. I guess this one is another procedure they have to follow, they do so love their charts and he didn’t fit the norm so it worried them. Fair enough, I’d surely be thanking them if something had been wrong and they’d discovered it. But there does seem to exist a certain antagonism between doctors and midwives/health visitors – which really wasn’t at all helpful back in the early days when you tend to prefer your “godlike experts” to be on the same page.

It did make me realise one thing though, if I am ever blessed with a second child I don’t think I should pin my hopes on getting my dream “totally natural, no painkillers, hypno-birthing in a yurt by candlelight” birth this time round either. Number one = big baby with even bigger head. Number two = let’s face it, probably another c-section, might as well come to terms with that now.

Anyway, free of this hanging over us I’m now on a bit of a high. It’s the second piece of good news this week after finding out our boiler was leaking carbon monoxide on Monday – yes I class that as good news, we found out about it before it could do any harm, that’s extremely fortunate. I also got to go out to a gig last night, and I didn’t have to come home earlier because Tater’s had rumbled that I wasn’t in the house and gone mental. Marvellous! I feel like a more rounded individual this morning.

Right, back to dashing around the shops and fighting off the hoards to buy gifts; endless, tedious wrapping and feeling bloated from too many sweets… tis the season to be harassed, stressed and obsessed that everyone else is having a more magical time than you… tra-la-la-la-laa-la-la-la-laah...

How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?

I've mentioned before that in the past few years my beliefs have been thrown up in the air. Now I seem to go around in circles getting myself all in a tangle trying to work out what I believe now, where I stand... Sometimes you feel things without ever putting those feelings into words, and it's hard to pin them down when you try. They may sound totally illogical but they are what you feel nonetheless. So however mad they may sound, they are still valid.

I'm a bit of a hippy at heart, I believed in natural birthing, in my bodies ability to be able to naturally deliver my child, I believe 100% in breastfeeding - the natural way all the way for me. I thought so many women ended up having caesarians because they were out of touch with nature, with their bodies, too brainwashed by modern society and removed from our natural instincts.

Then I ended up with an epidural, then a caesarian, then a partially bottle fed baby... argh! (if you want to know why, read here) My beliefs in tatters! I could feel my imaginary peers turning their backs on me - I say imaginary because I didn't actually know many mothers at this point, let alone any full on earth mother types. But now I feared that if I did meet any of "my kind" I would be judged and rejected...

And where did this leave my faith in Mother Nature? Had she abandoned me? Was I being tested? Had I done something wrong? I know Mother Nature can be cruel, but it's still hard to stomach the feeling that she doesn't care about you. So maybe I wasn't supposed to be a mother, that thought haunted me. Nothing seemed to come naturally, so perhaps I had bulldozed my way onto a road never intended for me, ignoring all the signs along the way.

All of these things I felt keenly at the time, but I never voiced them, never thought them through to figure out what I actually did believe. But oh it brought me down a peg or two!

Recently I came across a few blogs that talked about women having too high an expectation with regards to child birth (here and here, in case I need to re-read them in the future) and I agree wholeheartedly with this. I certainly put far too much pressure on myself to be perfect. Ok I didn't have a great pregnancy because I was still traumatised by a previous miscarriage, so I didn't obsess for hours over birthing dvds or books. In that sense I didn't have high expectations. But still, deep down inside I was looking forward to giving birth, to it being the most profound, miraculous experience of my life. Something I was designed to do. So long as I trusted my instincts it would be fine, beautiful, wonderful, magical even.

In reality it was frightening and rather traumatising. I didn't care for any of those things when it came down to it - I only cared that my baby came out alive. My experience didn't matter.

So did I defy Mother Nature by becoming a mother? Here's some food for thought garnered from these blogs. As a species we are gifted with intelligence, with large and complicated brains. If we were not intended to use our brains we would not have been given them. Just as if I was not intended to have a child then why did I get pregnant?

Think about it, if we had no choice but to give birth 100% naturally and did away with medical intervention, then how many mothers and babies would die? How many die in third world countries where they have no choice but to do it the “natural” way. We have intelligence so that we can build on what nature gives us, so when things do go wrong we have a safety net. That is if we are lucky enough to be born in certain parts of the world - how wrong is that? But I doubt even the most ardent fan of natural birthing would reject medical intervention to save the life of her child if it was necessary. It isn't all or nothing. Nature or science. But that doesn't mean you were wrong to believe in the miracle of birth in the first place, to be amazed at the ability of the female body to create and give birth to life. It also means you shouldn't feel like you've failed because you didn't manage to give birth naturally or breastfeed. What a ridiculous notion!

And no, it's isn't a choice between nature or science (in which I am classing the medical profession here) I found my hospital to have the utmost respect for the birthing experience. Providing private rooms with low lighting, promoting skin on skin contact immediately after birth and fully supporting breastfeeding. It was the hospital who drove home the message to trust in your body's ability to deliver the baby, that it would just "know" what to do. But they also have a more medicalized wing in case your birth became more complicated – the consultant led wing where I ended up. Because sometimes no amount of hypno birthing classes can save you from complications that can and do arise. My baby's cord was tangled and for me there was no option but the bright lights and noisy monitors of the consultant led wing, doctors coming in and out, constant supervision from the midwife – I opted for an epidural because laying still was unbearable, I couldn't move around or do what came naturally because we were being monitored so closely. The way I saw it I wasn’t going to get the birth I wanted, now it was time to do whatever it took to get us both through it. That is what became instinctual then. Mother nature didn't let me down, she equipped us with the intelligence to save both me and my son in this situation.

So yes, I can still hold onto my "beliefs" despite my experiences.

The question remains though, do I believe in some sort of Mother Earth, Goddess figure, or some kind of higher being? I've never committed myself to saying it before, but looking back over things I've written in this blog, things I genuinely felt, that certainly seems to be the case. Do I believe? Well yes. That is something I can't pin down in words, clearly define, explain logically. I just do. Do I believe she has a plan for us all individually? Despite all my talk about things being "intended" I don't think I actually do. Life is too random. Having said that I do believe there are energies in the universe that you can tap into, a certain flow to your life that if you go with it it can help you achieve your potential. But perhaps it improves your odds rather than guarantees anything, we can never control nature, it deserves our utmost respect and reverence.

Inner peace regained?