Becoming a mother was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Not just birth, although that left me wishing the baby would disappear halfway through the experience and I could go back to not having a baby at all thank you very much. But the act of becoming a mother, that transition time between having a baby and being a competent parent (ok, I’m still not sure I’m that some most of the time), the time where we grow into our roles. Jeesh that was hard.
I was overwhelmed. We had no family support close to us. We had no friends with children to learn from. We only had books like The Baby Whisperer and Gina Ford to tell us what to do. We had the narrative from society that babies should be seen and not heard, but only sometimes, when it was convenient and as long as they didn’t interrupt your plans. The rest of the time it felt like they were supposed to be shut into a drawer and forgotten about so you could go back to doing the things you used to do in that mythical time BC. We were promised we would make lifelong friends at NCT classes and Early Days groups but they passed in a blur of trying not to cry because you’re exhausted, wishing desperately our babies were sitting quietly like the others, and wondering if you left early could you time the nap with lunchtime so you could actually eat that day.
The initial flurry of visitors post-birth soon stopped. The token gestures of still being invited out with childless friends came to an end. The resentment that they didn’t understand that I had a 4 week old, or a 2 month old, or a 4 month old, or a high needs baby, and hadn’t slept properly for more than a hundredbillionty years built. The photos of them going out enjoying themselves without me appeared. I didn’t want to see them ever again. Dumped and ignored. Meeting up with other new moms happened, but these passed in a blur of poo and sleep issues and much as friendships with colleagues stall as soon as you leave the company, there was an expectation that these wouldn’t last either.
The reality was my life HAD changed from what it was before, and going backwards is never an option. Their lives hadn’t. My world had ripped apart and theirs was exactly the same. And that wasn’t their fault. And it wasn’t mine either. Becoming a parent can be hugely overwhelming but it’s compounded by the expectation we put on ourselves. We expect babies to slot right in and for us to carry on as normal. We expect a week of no sleep and then it becomes a problem to be solved. We expect to feed our babies a lot but we only have what the side of a tin tells us is the right schedule. We buy cots and Moses baskets and we expect our babies to sleep in them. From before a baby is even born we’re sold the idea that babies will be satisfied with milk, burp and a nappy change before going to sleep (like a baby ) and we can continue our lives with wild abandon.
And when we find out that we need to do more than that, and it’s relentless and gruelling and lonely, when we need friends more than ever just to get through the hardest part of our lives, just as we’re finally ready to raise your head above the parapet and come blinking into the world again, that’s when the cruellest trick happens and we realise that the world has carried on turning and although our own plot line has changed dramatically everyone else is still playing out their own movie. And their movie doesn’t have babies. Being the mature, resilient person I am I didn’t talk this through with my friends, who would no doubt have been devastated to hear what I was feeling and would have done what they could to counter it but a tired and traumatised brain doesn’t think logically.
Finding out I had a lifelong chronic condition at the same time, exacerbated the loneliness, hurt and worthlessness I felt. It felt like my body was doing it just out of spite but the reality is it was my body’s way of dealing with the trauma I’d gone through. The reality is if I’d not shut down, if I’d opened up a bit I’d have found it all easier. But that’s the quirks of the human brain, isn’t it?
Telling someone in the throes of this that it doesn’t stay like this forever is useless. But it doesn’t. Slowly you realise that those fabled friends-for-life that you make at NCT really are becoming your trusted confidantes and are willing to step into whatever emergency you throw at them. Slowly you understand yours and your baby’s rhythm and can adjust to it. Slowly you start getting sleep on a regular basis and can commit to an evening that doesn’t feature an 8pm bedtime. If you’re lucky you’ve thrown the baby books away and are parenting peacefully with the baby you have, not the baby the books tell you that you should have. And those friends who have loved you since school and who have suffered you pushing them away when life got hard will accept the baby steps you make back to friendships and welcome you with open arms.
It gets better. Open your heart and let people in. And if you’re on the other side of it, check in with your friends who have had babies – they might just be glad of that friendly text (even if they do bail on plans at the last minute and sleep instead!)
