This is how people without children think. They tackle the idea of having a baby like an important work project. They gather information, use resources and absorb facts to further their chances of success. Of course, why wouldn't you confront the challenge of impending parenthood with the same tireless effort? You read the books, talk to other parents, get all the facts and memorize all the tricks. It makes perfect sense to get ourselves as prepared as possible and that's why we do it. Unfortunately there isn't a damn thing we can do or read that would actually prepare us for the emotional, exhausting and often painful reality of being a parent.
It's such a cliche to write about motherhood, especially now that we live in the age of blogs, when any idiot (me!) can tap out a few opinionated paragraphs on any subject. But the topic of parenting will always be interesting because it's such an individual experience. Babies are different and so are parenting styles. What I will be focusing on is my unique experience, the good and the bad. I will make no apologies for my honesty because I really believe that quite often things are left out of parenting books and articles because of controversy, sensitivity etc. Perhaps if I had read a more candid account of the first year of motherhood then I wouldn't have been that smug, confident person that was ready to handle anything that came my way. That outlook really just made the shock of everything ten times worse. I want to give that person a swift kick to the head.
My labour was fine. It lasted 24 hours and ended with an emergency C-section. I never felt a thing after the epidural. I had been to worse parties and while it wasn't the most pleasant experience, it wasn't the worst either. When Kiri was finally born, like any other parent I was smitten and couldn't stop staring at her. She was pretty quiet, taking in the world around her and only crying when she was hungry. My Mother had come from Canada to be with us for the first two weeks and when we brought Kiri home I felt confident and relieved that everything had gone so well. When my Mother left I was sad but I felt prepared to handle my quiet, content little girl.
The first few nights were really hard. We were up every 2 hours to feed and I was just not used to waking in the night. I remember catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror one morning and I looked like a stranger. Half of my hair was tied in a clumsy knot with a rubber band, and the other half frizzily cascaded down my shoulders in a greasy mess. There were dark circles under my half closed eyes and my breasts were swollen and throbbing at three times their size and hanging loosely out of my shirt. I had no choice but to re tie my hair and get up for the day. Kiri was already up with Gavin, who got up with her at 5:30am so I could catch another hour of sleep before he went to work. When Gavin left for the day, I looked at Kiri and she looked at me. Then the tears started. The quiet little girl that we brought home from the hospital had turned on us and was crying all day long and for seemingly no reason. Panicked, I started flipping though the booklet on crying. 'Talk to her in a soothing voice and lay a hand on her chest' it said. A soothing voice? She can't hear my voice over the crying!!! Needless to say the book went flying across the room and all I could do was pick her up and walk her around. It didn't stop the crying but lowered the shrillness and volume.
During that time a typical day would involve me getting up, greasy hair, half open eyes, bare and swollen breasts, feet dragging and trudging into the living room, where Kiri would be laying in the bouncing boppee that our friend lent us (and the only thing she would sit in without screaming) and Gav would be walking out the door. He would leave me a tea bag in a cup, a boiling kettle and a bowl of cereal with a spoon, ready for milk. If he didn't do this, I wouldn't eat. Kiri would start crying almost straight away.
And so began my next three months, waking every 2 hours all night long, and spending the days pacing the same space on my living room floor while Kiri screamed over my shoulder. She would howl, sob and hiccup. Nothing I did helped in the slightest, except the act of pacing the room, which somehow lessened her cries slightly. I would pray for her to just go to sleep so I could shower for the first time in a week. She would eventually fall asleep and I would quietly and slowly put her in the cot, and tiptoe away. More often than not, she would wake up and scream before I even left the room. Sometimes, she would wake ten minutes later while I had shampoo in my hair and I would jump out naked and run to the living room, dripping with water, to try and soothe her back to sleep. I had no idea how long she was going to sleep, ever. If I made a plan to do something, she would likely wake in 10 minutes, if i didn't, she would sleep for an hour. I gave up making plans. I was completely out of touch with reality, unable to cook, clean or do laundry. The days passed by in a slow blur, one melting into the next with the only relief being the sound of the door squeaking open to signify the return of Gavin.
The crying developed a pattern of 15 minutes of screaming, 10 of regular crying then a calm interval of about 20 minutes before the cycle began again. There were days when it was four o'clock in the afternoon before I realized I hadn't yet brushed my teeth. We had all kinds of colic drops, books, DVD's and magazines. We jiggled her, we rocked her, we swung her and burped her endlessly. Nothing had a lasting solution. She would have red faced screaming fits until she literally fell asleep from exhaustion. I would use this time to frantically search online for solutions, worrying sick that there was something wrong with her. Every article I read said that if the screaming was high pitched and out of control that meant the baby was in pain. She had a horrible rash on her face and I thought she was sick, so I took her to the doctor, who said everything was normal. Normal? My maternal health nurse spent a long time writing and asking me questions with a concerned look on her face when I told her that Kiri was 'a real handful'.
Her naps consisted of 40 mins, sometimes longer, with her refusing to nap in her cot. She would only nap in the boppee and only when she was being bounced, which meant I had to make the boppee bounce with my foot to keep her asleep. She slept a maximum of 3 hours at a time at night, at which time I would lay awake with insomnia, literally praying she wouldn't wake up and scream and wake the neighbours. 'Please don't wake up, please don't wake up' I would mutter with my eyes shut tight. Then sleep would finally come over my overtired body and I would drift into a state of blissful rest for about 20 minutes. Then, that horrible cry that pierced through my consciousness and ripped into my chest. The baby was awake and hungry.
Hours were spent crying my eyes out on the phone with my Mom. Kiri would cry in the background and Mom would be in tears on the other end of the line. She was supposed to come and visit for Easter but I couldn't face any more time alone and so she came early, when Kiri was just six weeks old. I was at the end of my tether and facing the grim reality (in my mind) that there was something horribly wrong with the way I was doing everything. I was a terrible Mother who was completely out of control and needed help, desperately. So many people told me how great I was doing. I could only look at them with sympathy, as they couldn't possibly realize how wrong they were. My Mother was convinced I was doing just fine. I didn't believe her. My awake time was filled with sleep deprived and self deprecating thoughts. My only respite was the internet, where I would scour for solutions to a crying baby while bouncing her to sleep with my foot. I read so many stories, and was humbled to realize how many people had it worse than me.
Meanwhile, Kiri was a very healthy little girl with a great set of lungs. She could hold her head up right away, and had an awareness that I had never seen in a newborn. She would have these amazing quiet moments, where she would look around, take the world in and coo. She had a huge appetite and fed often with eyes half closed and rapture etched in her face. Through all the physical and emotional pain for me she was also a beacon of love and the object of my complete adoration. I took about a million pictures of her and stared at each photo a hundred times over. She was fabulous at tummy time and everyone commented on how high she could raise her head. At 5 weeks old she smiled. For one small act, it completely astounded me how much it affected me, slicing through the storm clouds in my head like a silver ray of sunshine. The feeling was worth a hundred miserable weeks.
My friends would stop by and sit sympathetically while Kiri would cry her little heart out. I was getting well intentioned but unhelpful advice left right and center. My best friend was getting ready to travel the world and I hadn't shaved my legs, had sex or worn anything other than sweat pants in 8 months. I hated Gavin for going to work and I hated him for any little thing he did for himself. I remember fuming that he spent half a Sunday working on his bike while I sat on the couch and rocked the baby. I felt like the most unappreciated person in the world and that no one understood what I was going through. It was a pity party of the highest regard, thrown by me, for me.
Kiri would wake at night and I would get up, angry and spitting silent venom at Gavin for sleeping. I would look at her crying eyes and feel anguish and dislike for her. I would roughly bring her out of bed and to my breast, sometimes wishing I could just make her disappear so I could go back to my life. I wanted to run away, far away and never see my family again. I had fantasies of travelling the world on my own, making up a fake name and never talking to anyone I knew ever again. I would then look down at her little helpless face, buried in my chest and feel such powerful love and guilt. Oh, the guilt. What kind of Mother has these thoughts? What kind of Mother wants to make her baby disappear? So many people have more than one child, how do they function? How can I be so inadequate as a Mother that I can barely take care of one?
The insomnia was the worst. Those precious second, minutes, hours I could be sleeping, instead spent laying awake, worrying about everything from her feeding schedule to what I'm going to do when she asks me about sex, drugs, God, or Santa Claus. How was I supposed to know that part of my job would have to be to help shape this person's opinions and beliefs, be a role model and show strength in times of utter pain and misery? How was I supposed to know that I would have to be a pillar of integrity and courage, act selflessly every day and make sure the surrounding environment was always safe? How was I meant to know that I would no longer get any more time to do anything I wanted? When I did get precious time to myself, I would just sit and stare at the wall, not knowing where to begin. Being a Mum was turning out to be so much more, requiring more strength than I ever thought I had.
Then there were the other babies, the endless stories of how they all seemed to sleep though the night and were generally happy. No crying and screaming and only sympathetic looks in my direction from other Mums, all looking beautifully well rested. That was my reality, in my sleep deprived state, that no one else was going through what I was. I felt like I was in a waking dream, where everything was foggy and out of focus. Kiri would cry in the stroller all the way to Mother's Group and cry all the way back. I would walk silently behind her, the sunlight drizzling through my tired eyes, shame being the only emotion I could feel as people walked by and heard her cry. One day I passed an old man who, when he saw how hard Kiri was crying, just shook his head at me in disgust. I felt disgusting.
Yet day in and day out, we just went through the same thing over and over.
At 3 months old, Kiri's crying let up slightly. She would still have bouts, but they became less frequent. She would often sleep for four hour stretches at night and that felt like paradise. The boppee was starting to cause problems for us, as we were having to bounce her increasingly harder to get her to sleep. I kept reading confusing books telling me to put her on schedules and let her 'cry it out'. One frustrating day, when she about 4 months old I had just had enough, and I put her in her cot for a nap, sick of bouncing her. She screamed at the top of her lungs for a solid hour. I was tortured on the couch, every ounce of my being wanting to comfort her but my sleep deprived brain saying that she needed to learn a lesson. I finally went in and saw to her. She was shaking uncontrollably and covered in sweat. I sobbed as I brought her to my breast, frustrated and guilt ridden and feeling like a complete and utter failure. She looked up at me with forgiving eyes. She fell asleep after feeding and I gently put her in her cot and called my Mother. Mom was shocked to hear that I had let her scream. 'You didn't do that to your darling baby' she said. I felt like the worst Mother on earth.
After that incident Kiri always slept in her cot. I stuck to my guns even though I had felt so bad that day. I wouldn't want to repeat it ever, but it also oddly felt like I had won a battle. I had broken a bad habit that I created, in the illusion that it was for her. I controlled every thing that happened to her yet I was still blaming her for things I had done wrong. It was a huge realization.
A lot of things changed that day. I vowed to never let her cry like that again. I vowed to be more patient at nights with her. Most of all I vowed to stick to my guns and trust my instinct in the future.
It was a revolutionary day.
When Kiri was six months old she started crawling. She was all over the place and starting to put things in her mouth, grab coffee mugs and pull books apart. As soon as she could crawl, she could sit up. One day she pulled her wobbly little legs into a standing position. She was so proud of herself and I was so proud of her. With this new found freedom, she seemed to be able to relax and start enjoying life. And she did! The cries turned into smiles and giggles and she was perfectly content cruising around the living room, investigating every corner. We also shared in the joys of her first solid foods. She was much more calm and easygoing, and she no longer hated her stroller. For the first time since she was born, I felt I could take her out in public without the fear and embarrassment of her having a screaming fit. I figured that they way things were going, she would soon start sleeping through the night.
Wrong!!
She would wake three, four, five and sometimes six times at night, to feed or just to cry. Sometimes she would get better and sometimes worse. Once she spent three weeks waking up every 40 minutes, all night long. Gavin and I were beside ourselves. I tried everything, aside from letting her scream. I had read everywhere that you shouldn't have a baby in bed with you so I stayed up most nights, putting her back to bed and getting her out again. Finally, after a week of sleeplessness (for both of us), I brought her in bed with me and exhausted, we both promptly fell asleep and slept practically the whole night through. After that I let her sleep with me if I knew it was going to be 'one of those nights'. I also started reading some information and advice that was making a lot of sense to me. Instead of the tough love method that has become so popular these days I was finally reading about some alternatives to assist in the problems we were facing, that suited me better. I didn't have to let her cry and I didn't have to stick to somebody else's schedule. I was slowly starting to learn that my own instinct was the one to listen to.
As Kiri started getting better, I was able to start paying more attention to myself. I didn't like what I saw. I looked in the mirror and saw a Mother. I would refuse to wear certain clothes because they were too sexy. I refused to wear other clothes because they were too Mom-ish. My face was etched with stress and worry and I didn't care what my hair looked like. As far as sex was concerned you many as well have cut off all the nerve endings down there because I felt nothing. Sex was a chore, something to try and get out of by whatever means necessary. The excuses poured out of my mouth, but the reality was that I just didn't want to be touched. I spent the whole day looking after a very demanding baby and at the end of that day I did not want to be demanded on anymore, for anything. My sex drive was so low that I thought there surely must be something wrong with me. You would think that through all of this I would feel sorry for Gavin. As a matter of fact, I hated him.
Gavin cooked all of our meals and cleaned the flat for the first three months. He insisted on getting up with me at night, just to keep me company. He gets up with Kiri every single morning and gives her breakfast before he goes to work, so I can sleep. He's been doing this since she was newborn. He shared with me the sheer terror of going out to lunch for fear of the baby waking up. He didn't have even one night off to himself and didn't ask for one. He had to take many a tearful call from me at work, probably feeling helpless and sorry for not being able to be home. He would come home from work and I would thrust the screaming baby in his arms, saying 'I hate her!!!' He would calm us down, make dinner and tell me to relax and put my feet up. He would give me long massages and tell me how beautiful I was and what a good job I was doing. And a lot of the time I was an absolute bitch to him.
I remember getting long emails from him, with suggestions of things I could do so I wouldn't have to sit in the house all day. I refused to do anything that required any more effort than I was already putting out. I had become a recluse, venturing out only to Mother's group and the odd grocery shop. I hated waking up to a shining sun because it would mean a day of feeling guilty for not going outside. Gavin had many talks with me about how we would find a solution but any that he brought up would fall on deaf ears. Sometimes I would spend all day putting off an outing. Then I would finally get up off the couch and look in the mirror to assess my situation. All the long nights up with Kiri had added new lines to my face. My wrinkled stomach sagged over my sweat pants and I knew that any of my pre pregnancy clothes I attempted to put on wouldn't fit. I may as well have been a sasquatch for all the hair I had on my legs. I felt ugly, fat and miserable and never wanted to leave the house again.
Meanwhile, Kiri was advancing very quickly for her age. She was very mobile at 8 months, able to easily cruise around furniture and crawl at a fast pace. We flew home to Canada for a week and I was amazed at how well she did on the plane. No crying at all. She had really come a long way. She thrilled everyone who laid eyes on her and stopped traffic with her gorgeous smile and big blue eyes. She was also learning quickly how to make people's hearts melt with one sweet gaze. She was healthy and strong and not afraid to voice her opinion. She was everything I wanted in a little girl. When she laughed it made my heart sing, when she was hurt I felt it it too. I was her and she was me, we were together, her and I against the world.
I needed to do some major self repair. I didn't even know where to begin. So I started baking. Cookies, cakes, pies, bread, croissants, cinnamon rolls, you name it. With Kiri on a proper routine for a few months now, I could confidently time my baking so I could finish what I started, uninterrupted. The glorious smells wafting from my kitchen and the therapeutic feeling of kneading my hands through warm dough did the trick. I slowly started feeling more confident and just a little bit like my old self. Okay, it wasn't the healthiest way to get back on track. But I was creating something, all on my own. Something that had nothing to do with Kiri. When I got a compliment on my baking it felt good knowing that I was getting praise for something tangible. I felt myself slowly making a change. I had been back taking care of the house and cooking meals for some time, but I really started making an effort. It became a pleasure coming home to a clean house and I started really enjoying the cooking and planning of meals.
A minor setback occurred on my 30th birthday. Gavin threw away the rest of the Christmas turkey before I was finished taking the rest of the meat off for Kiri's lunches. For whatever reason, my whole world fell apart. I was furious and felt pathetic for trying to celebrate my birthday. I couldn't raise my eyes to look at my friends and I suddenly felt old and tired. I didn't want to drink, all I wanted to do was run far away and never come back. Those old familiar feelings had returned. Luckily I have some of the best friends in the world, who on that day insisted that we arrange for me to get out of the house at least once a week to see them. This has had a profound effect on me. Time without the baby had been a necessity that I refused to acknowledge, only having been out of the house on my own a few times since Kiri's birth. I felt too guilty to leave the house, what if something happened? Who could I possibly trust other than Gavin to look after her? I eventually had to come to terms with the fact that I needed to take care of myself too, and that included doing my own thing, even if it was only once a week for a couple of hours.
Kiri started walking one day before ten months old. She's been running ever since and is even happier than before. She says Daddy, Ducky, Doggie, Kitty and Mum. She randomly lays on the floor for what has become affectionately known as 'floor lobster'. She runs headfirst and jumps into a beanbag. She 'talks' on the phone and imitates every noise she hears. She's independent and carefree, loud and obnoxious and affectionate and kind. She has become a little girl and I am proud of her every day. She will have her first birthday in a couple of weeks and I find myself longing for the days when she was an infant, little and helpless. I feel proud to walk down the street with her in the pram, she is my baby and she has given me a gift that I never thought I would have; the ability to start loving myself.
The whole time I had been angry and sad and self pitying because of the challenges I had faced, I never realized that for the first time in my life, I had a purpose. All those sleepless nights and torturous days were building toward something, my transformation from a scared little girl to a confident woman. I could no longer run away from my problems or make them go away with substances. I had to look at myself, straight into my soul and see all the self loathing and doubt that had built up over the years from bad decisions and reckless behavior. I had a little girl to look out for, a helpless being that depended only on Gavin and I for food, warmth and shelter. The time for self pity was coming to an end. No one was going to feel sorry for me or hold my hand. Nobody was going to make my problems disappear. I just had to deal with it. It's been hard, so difficult. But I am finally seeing a light at the end of the tunnel.
After Christmas we went on a health food kick and I stopped baking so much. We both dropped some weight and dare I say, I have even been known to feel sexy from time to time. I'm not going to lie and say it's like it was before, but it's slowly getting better, as I learn to love myself more each day. I have started seeing friends more often and going outside more. Gavin and I are loving each other and I am treating him like the ally he is rather than an enemy. We are going on holiday to Scotland so Gavin's parents can finally meet Kiri. I'm sure they'll be happy to babysit so we can go out, and I'll be happy to let them.
Things are moving forward and I have decided to move with them. It's still a hard road ahead but among the most valuable lessons my daughter has taught me are that to truly be a Mother, you have to learn to be selfless. If you want your children to love themselves, then you have to love yourself, be confident in the abilities you know you have and discard unwanted advice instead of taking everything to heart. Share with your partner and your friends in the sorrows as well as the joys. Discover and confront what you don't like about yourself so you have room to expand on the things you do. Don't be afraid to admit the truth, that you are human and will often have terrible thoughts. Most of all, have faith in your abilities as a Mother. Easier said than done, but something to work toward.
Kiri still doesn't sleep through the night, but she only gets up once for a quick feed. I still feel guilty all the time, especially when I am writing or busy and can't give her my full attention. She has become quite independent but is still very close to me and clingy. She thinks it's hilarious to pull my hair and scratch me. She pulls folded clothes off the table, and pulls clothes out of her drawers. She puts my phone on the internet. She yells at the top of her lungs when I take too long to get her food to the high chair and throws the food off the side to tell me when she's had enough. She makes funny faces at me when I'm angry with her and when I shake my head no because she's done something bad, she gets a serious face and shakes her head too. Then she does it again. She's a rebel child and a troublemaker. When she hears a sad song, her bottom lip quivers. She loves to read and begs me to open a book whenever I sit down. She's ripped the CTRL, H and TAB keys off my computer. Sometimes she comes over to me and wraps her arms around my neck and lays her head on my shoulder. It's the best feeling in the world.
I love being a Mom.
