I did it! At long last I am a M-O-T-H-E-R
On Saturday 10th August 2013, at 19.44 hours – after 41 weeks, 1 day and about 19 hours – I produced a perfect baby girl from within my very own body.
After weeks of waiting in the grip of constant tension, my labour began in a fairly understated fashion when I woke in the early hours of that Saturday morning with the beginnings of those long awaited contractions. After all that wondering and many, many false alarms I needn’t have worried – I knew this was ‘It’.
I quietly awoke my husband and informed him ‘It was happening’ and then we waited….well, I did. He went back to sleep.
After a very long day, during which I learned that I’m probably a lot tougher than I imagined and also that my husband Andy is indeed my Rock – my labour ended in a rather painful crescendo and finally, after all that waiting we were parents.
Our baby girl Amber was welcomed by half of the Delivery team at the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch who were urgently summoned to my bed in the last moments to tug our little girl free – at the last second she decided to make a dramatic entrance and get herself wedged with her arm above her head, which turned what was a straightforward delivery into a hot, sweaty and rather crowded finale.
I feel I deserve a badge or a certificate declaring ‘I survived Labour with no drugs’ and a little award ceremony but the moment that Amber was placed; seemingly huge, squirming and searching for food (already taking after both parents) upon my body I felt like I had won a zillion lotteries. I won’t say it made me forget the pain but it made it all worth it!
It was the most incredible moment of my life.
The whole episode is now a fuzzy memory which I regard with fear and utter pride and happiness. I have never felt so close to my husband as we worked together that day to bring our baby into the world and I am utterly astounded at what my body is capable of.
Even thinking about it now makes my chest ache with pride. But I will leave it there for now as we have much more to discuss…
SO, here I am! A bonafide, real-life MUM, a parent, in charge of a real child. Can you believe that? I can’t, even now I am shocked that they let me leave the hospital with this little person. No questions asked, no paperwork or licence applications, we were allowed to bring her home and figure out how she works all by ourselves….Gulp.
Our daughter is called Amber May Smith, when I began writing this she was 2 weeks and 5 days old – she is now 8 weeks and 1 day – time to do things like write are very rare these days and every spare moment is a desperate scramble to catch up on sleep or clean something.
In my expert and biased opinion, Amber is utterly perfect. She doesn’t do much apart from sleep, cry, eat, poo, wee and wiggle about but she is without doubt the most fascinating person I have ever met and staring at her is now my favourite activity.
Parenthood is incredible, a never ending roller coaster that is impossible to get off. Nothing can prepare you for the shock and uncertainty of those early days. You hear the warnings from other parents about lack of sleep and immense tiredness but until it arrives there is no way to appreciate the reality.
I’m still very much a parenting novice but after almost two months I think I have made some progress.
I have learned however, that every time you think you have it sussed, you quickly learn that you haven’t at all.
Babies are small but powerful and unpredictable creatures. Never under estimate their ability to pull a wild card on you which makes you doubt everything you thought you had learnt. Every time this happens, we just store it away as another lesson learned and carry on.
The most important lesson I can take from my first eight weeks as a mother is to take it slow. Don’t try to run before you are ready, which is what I did and the repercussions set me back in my place very quickly.
After I gave birth, the midwife kept telling me to sleep, everyone told me to sleep but I was high on adrenalin and excitement that Amber was finally here and I foolishly didn’t listen.
I decided early in my pregnancy that I would breastfeed my baby and this requires your body to be in good working order.
Now, somewhere between pregnancy, birth and a week of almost no sleep – my body went from strong and healthy to broken and feeble with bits not working and new bits growing off it which added extra pressure to our parenting journey, when it really wasn’t needed.
If I had that time again I would sleep for every minute that Amber did. Forget housework and visitors and going out and Facebook and Twitter and just rest! I’m convinced that if I had done that then the past 2 months would have been ten times easier than they were.
I have pretty much moved into my GP surgery since Amber arrived, so far the list of ailments runs thus;
– A bad back due to the complications in Amber’s delivery which I am now receiving acupuncture to correct
– A pyrogenic granuloma on my finger tip: an alarming growth which I can only describe as a large weepy, messy raspberry.
This appeared due to my body’s crazy hormones at the end of pregnancy and continued to grow at an alarming rate after Amber was born until the doctor cauterised it after 6 weeks
– A blocked milk duct in my right breast which evolved into a 50p sized abscess that eventually had to be incised and drained in hospital, leaving a scary looking bullet hole in its wake.
Three minor issues which made the beginning of my parenthood journey rather bumpier than expected
It’s strange how your body reacts to certain things. I always thought I was super strong and healthy but without the right care and attention, things can soon change.
Despite all of these setbacks the most important thing I keep reminding myself is that I have an incredible gift. Every time I look at Amber (even when she is screaming in my face at 2am) I just can’t believe how lucky I am to have her.
I guess that is the main thing to keep getting us through the tough early days of parenthood: no matter how hard it is, we have a beautiful little person as a reward.
Nobody can possibly prepare you for the shock of becoming a parent for the first time. Nobody could prepare me for all of the new things there are to worry about!
I worry constantly about anything and everything. For the first 3-4 weeks Amber cried seemingly all the time. We tried everything and it started to look like we were destined to spend the next 3 or 4 years driving aimlessly around our village at all hours of the day and night because the car was the only thing which could get her to sleep.
Gradually though things have settled down. She still cries a lot but I have learned that babies do that. It doesn’t necessarily mean that she is broken or I’m doing it wrong, it’s just a form of expression!
The questions which everyone asks in pregnancy have now changed to a new set;
“How is she?”
“Is she good?”
“Does she sleep through?”
I never know how to answer these queries. I have no idea if she’s good or bad – with nothing to compare to it is difficult to know if she is the possessed child of Satan or just a normal baby. And as for the sleeping question, is there a baby anywhere that has ever managed an unbroken 8 hours of sleep without tranquillisers in the whole history of EVER?
And then there’s the few people who feel it is their right to pass judgement on your parenting decisions.
As an emotional, tired, achy new mother who already feels like she is the worst parent ever invented, the last thing you want to hear from some busy body is that they think you have made a ‘bad’ parenting decision. My advice? Don’t stew on it, move on. Or tell them to walk a mile in your shoes before trying to judge them.
Don’t lose any sleep over these things, you’ve lost enough already.
Babies are funny creatures, they are temperamental little people but I guess it’s a scary time for them too. Suddenly they have give from this lovely floaty cocoon into a loud, dazzly World where faces stare directly into theirs from people who have no concept of the need for personal space, every time they wake up from a nap someone has moved them and they don’t know where they are, and they can’t tell anyone what’s on their mind because they don’t know how to!
I love being a Mum, it’s indescribably brilliant. I admit, there have been a couple of moments where I thought I had made a dreadful mistake, but they very quickly passed and for every setback I have learned to keep trying.
When you figure something out about your baby it’s better than receiving an A* in GCSE maths. You feel so PROUD. Probably nobody cares that you managed to bath her and she didn’t cry, or that you breastfed in public for the first time and nobody threw you out of the cafe – but you care and your baby appreciates that you did it, even if they can’t tell you properly.
It’s all a big, long journey and it’s mostly really good fun – mostly.
“We’ll get there”, I keep saying….I’m not really sure where ‘There’ is but it’s certainly going to be interesting finding out and as I do I will try to share it with you, if you are even interested.
I hope to see you again soon, thanks for reading. Must dash, I’ve got a nappy to tend to.
Xx
simplyshoeshine 