Motherhood

While I was pregnant the entire focus for me and the people around me was the birth process. I’m now a 20 day old mother, with a 20 day old son who has yet to come home and I can tell you now, giving birth is easy compared to being a mum. I’ve mentioned to a few people, and in a comment on my thankyou post that being a Mum is the hardest and most worthwhile thing I have ever done. I feel as though every single thing I have learnt and done up until now has been in preparation for this moment.

No-one told me it would be like this. At least no-one in the culture that I have been living in, except one person: my Mum. I have to say I wasn’t listening very hard when she told me. And she didn’t say it to me directly like I’m doing with you now. She told me in a thousand ways, but most especially she told me by being a mother to me. I know that what my mum has done for me has been hard, but I never recognised it. I think this is not unusual in our culture, let me explain why…

The language we use when describing mothers and motherhood is very revealing. People might ask “What does she do?” and the response might be “Oh she’s just a mum”. There is a kind of contempt that someone could only be a mum, or that being a mum could be the primary focus of your life. Because it’s easy isn’t it? It has to be easy because its natural, women have been doing it since we existed, and everyone has a mum that’s done it – so if she can do it anyone can do it. Well I don’t know how easy it is for other mothers, but I know what it’s been like for me over 20 days, and I’ve had 30 years of observing my own mother. Motherhood is not easy – its fucking hard. And I’d like some recognition of that thankyou, and I’d like it from people who aren’t mums. And I especially want it from people who are mums. (Sorry I got a bit carried away, I know I can’t have everything I want.)

We talk about motherhood being a ‘job’ a ‘role’, a ‘position’ something to juggle between being a wife and, oh I don’t know – maybe an information architect. Well it is not a job, calling it a job is so lacking as a word to describe what it is. The only adequates words are ‘mother’, ‘mum’, ‘mummy’, ‘ma’, and you might know some other words in the same vein. Because being a mum is a place in the heart. It’s a place in my heart and in my son’s heart. Spike and I, we didn’t make this place, it was made for us, totally outside of our control.

Now Spike has father – J. And J also has place in his heart for Spike, as does Spike for him. It also was made outside of their control. Fatherhood is just as special as motherhood. But it is very different. In the same way men and women are equal, yet different. Think about the times you go to your father. For me I go to my father when I want advice on things like: building a bookshelf, how a car works, politics, etc. So when do I go to my mum? I think the times we all go our mothers is best illustrated with a story about the ANZAC soldiers. A chaplain who was at Gallipolli described what the men and boys wanted when they were on their death beds. At first they wanted the chaplain so that they could pray to god, but in the last moments of death or when they were in incredible pain, they called for their mothers.

I believe we go to our fathers for logic, reason and rationality. I believe we go to our mothers when we need emotional guidance and support. The thing is emotion is not valued in our culture as much as reason. So no wonder we undervalue mothers. Also, emotions are scary, you can’t really explain them, and they are uncontrollable. I don’t think I’ve really explained very well what I think is the difference between mothers and fathers, but I could put it this way: Your father is prose, and your mother is poetry.

P.S.
The P.S that was originally here has been removed by me, because I now think it would be better as a separate post.

Thankyou

Thankyou everyone for all your messages of support and love. It’s really good for J and me to know that there are lots of people there for us if we need them. Spike is still in hospital, which is hard to bear, but not as hard as it was at the start. We know that he will be out of there eventually. I didn’t expect a lot of things that have happened to me over the last two weeks, but what I really didn’t expect was for me to be a casualty of the situation. I’m suffering from depression, and I think it’s safe to say, given that I’ve just had baby Spike, that I have Post Natal Depression. While I knew this could happen, I didn’t think it could happen to me. I’ve read that it’s more of a risk for women who have premature babies. And women who are high acheivers. And women who are prefectionists – otherwise known as control freaks. I think I would add that it is probably more likely for women who have multicultural families. Anyway, it’s really good for me to write these things down, and it’s also really good for me that people who know me are reading what I have written. My entire landscape has changed, and at the moment I’m trying to work out my place within it, and to create a haven for my soul.

This Week

I think you could say I’ve had a big week this week. It feels a bit like the day I got married: it seemed to never end, and be over in a moment. Anyway, below is a summary…

Day 0
12:00pm: Was reading in bed and felt a sort of jolt, or at least something moving, or dropping. I got up and felt a gush of liquid running down my leg. I also felt my heart in my throat. I immediately called the hospital and spoke to a midwife, she clamly and matter of factly got the info out of me that she needed, and then said that it would be a good idea if I came in to the hospital. She then asked me if I’d felt the baby moving. I had to quietly answer “No.” I called Jeremy who arrived in about 5 seconds on his bike and he drove us in to the hospital, as an after thought I asked him to bring the bag that we’d packed for the hospital stay.

11:00pm: No sighting of our private obstetrician ( J calls him the ‘bloodsucking vampire’), but he has been in contact with the hospital right from the start and has been directing them at every point. If feels like I’ve seen about 20 different hospital staff, ranging from excellent to incompetent. Mum has been and gone, and we are not sure if I going to have the baby shortly or in a weeks time. I thought about calling my friend V but she started a new job this week, and maybe the baby won’t come yet… A nurse has come up from the ‘Nursery’ and shows us an album of pictures of babies that have been born prematurely. I don’t really process what this all means, but J does, and he tells me his mood has darkened.

12:00am: I’m getting contractions. I know I am, but the last nurse had be hooked up to a machine that told her I wasn’t. I’ve never given birth before so I supose how the hell would I know, but I can feel that my uterus is contracting, it aches to the point that I can’t talk while it is happening, and it is happening every few minutes. I call to J, but he’s asleep! I finally wake him up and we call for a nurse. This time it’s a different nurse, she hooks me up again, comes back in 15 minutes and says “Yup. Contractions. We’ll be sending you down to the labour ward”.

12.15am: A midwife (K), has wheeled me in to a rather large clinical room with a bed and various other equipment that I can’t recognise. This is totally unlike the bedroom like atmosphere of the Birth Centre rooms that we had planned to give birth in. I ask K if I will be giving birth here. She says “Yes.”

2.36am: I’ve given birth to a baby boy. There’s not really much point trying explain what it feels like to give birth. Like most things, if you’ve never done it you’ll never know. In my earlier post I mentioned the fear of pain that I imagined in women who have not given birth. Even though I couldn’t talk during the last contractions, to me the ‘pain’ was nothing, and having a brilliant baby boy makes the memory of the discomfort fade into oblivion. But then like Henry Ford said, “If you think you can, you can. And if you think you can’t, you’re right.”

Day 1
Over the moon about the baby. Immediately after the birth we were taken into the Nursery – the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. As J and I were looking at our son in the humidicrib with all the wires and probes on him J says to me, “What do you think of the name Spike?” I love it. I ask J where he got the name, and he says he doesn’t know, it just came to him. I’ve expressed that I wish Spike to be breastfed, and that means expressing breast milk, a nice nurse shows me how to do it.

Day2
This is weird. All my life I’ve relied on my brains to get the things I want and to get me out of trouble. My brain is not in charge any more, its my body. Expressing breast milk is really hard. There are lots of things to remember, every midwife gives a different version of what you need to do, I’ve never done this before, and I’ve got to share equipment with the rest of the mothers in here. I’m told to just relax, the milk will come, and then I get a call at 1am saying we need breast milk NOW. I can hear mothers trying to soothe their crying babies in the night. But I can’t hear Spike, because he’s not in my room, he’s not even on the same floor as me. When I pass another parent carrying their baby, they smile at me, and I look at the floor.

Day 3
I haven’t slept, the food here is awful, and there is no privacy. Even though we have a great private room to ourselves medical staff seem to bust in at all hours, usually at the precise moment you don’t want them too. Of course when you need them they’ve vanished. It’s all John Howard’s fault, why doesn’t he give the bloody baby bonus straight to the maternity wards, then I might be able to find a breast pump that works and not have to share it. I’m starting to be scared about Spike. He’s a completely normal, bigger than average 33 week old baby. This means he has a tube going straight into his stomache via his mouth so he can feed, he’s stopped breathing several times and had to be resusitated, he’s jaundiced so has to receive light therapy which means we can’t hold him very much. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve held him. Like the doctors keep saying – totally normal. We watch as a catheter gets put into his tiny arm so that he can receive a drip and a dose of caffeine to stimulate the part of his brain that regulates breathing. The nurse gives him a dummy soaked in sucrose to take his mind off the pain. J wanted to tell the medical team that we wanted to wait until Spike was at least one year old before starting him on crack.

Day 4
Very bad day today. The counsellor told me to be prepared to leave Spike in the hospital while I go home. I think I’m going insane. Definitely paranoid and delusional. The slightest comment seems to set me off. The only thing that really calms me down is talking to J. I wish complete strangers would stop asking me how I am.

Day 5
Back at home. Walk into our bedroom and see a picture of J and I. I immediately slam it face down and start to cry. J comes in, see’s what I’ve done and says gently, “Don’t like that picture?” All I can say is “Where’s Spike?”

Like I said just a summary. Stacks more has happened, but I don’t really feel like going into it right now. I think this is the happiest and saddest time of my life.

Umm.. I’m pregnant!

Well I’ve finally bitten the bullet and started my blog – oh and I’m pregnant as well. I just got inspired by the blog of an old schoolfriend of mine Marina Blythe (nee Wooley), and I can’t sleep that well at the moment so – voila. As some of you may know I’m a bit hopeless at keeping in touch so hopefully I’ll keep this blog updated at least weekly. For the moment my news will probably be just on pregnancy, but I promise I’m interested in more than just that! It’s just that birth is the big event on the horizon at the moment.

So anyway there are a few questions that people always seem to be asking me, so I thought I’d post my answers here (So you don’t have to bore me with your stoopid questions :p)

When are you due?
I’m due sometime in late December 2006.

Is it a boy or a girl?
Don’t know – J and I want to wait until the big day to find out. Yes I know it’s the 21st century but I like surprises. However, when we find out, you’ll be the first to know!

Are you excited?
I think expectant is probably a more accurate description. I was excited at the beginning, but I’ve been pregnant for more than half a year now, so the excitement has waned really. I think I’ll get excited again when the contractions start…

Are you scared?
About the birth – no. Should I be? Actually when I think about it the only people to ask me this question are women of childbearing age who have not had children. So I think the question is really “Are you scared? I would be!” So for those women all I can say is this – giving birth is a natural part of life. Yes it’s going to hurt, so what? No pain no gain ( Easy to say now, not sure if I’ll be actually saying this when in labour). In terms of actually raising a child, thats a bit more complicated. Much as I hate to admit it, I think it’s inevitable that I’m going to make mistakes. I’m just going to have to keep my fingers crossed that I don’t do any lasting damage.

You must be sick of being pregnant by now?
Actually no-one has asked me this question, but it seems to be implied in some of the comments I get (e.g. ‘Oh you poor thing’ or ‘Don’t worry it’ll be over soon’.) I’m actually quite enjoying being pregnant, even right from the start when I had ‘morning’ sickness 24/7 for the first 20 weeks. J assures me that I was misery to live with over that time, but I don’t remember it that way! It’s quite amazing how your body changes and prepares itself for birth. For me my ligaments have loosened up quite a lot which has resulted in pubic symphisis , but that is nothing compared to the feeling of a baby moving inside you. Although J is convinced I have some kind of alien in there.

So anyway, I’d better go to bed now. please comment , so I can see that people are actually reading this blog!