9 months of reflections!

Going back to work after 9 months off is a strange thing in itself, without the added depths of leaving your baby, overcoming mental health needs, a worldwide pandemic and feeling trapped in your home. When the lock down began we all felt certain elements of worry and stress but what struck me was my sense of loss, my loss of the end of my maternity leave. I sat crying as guidelines were imposed about the ending of groups, the ending of support and the ending of a time i had started to enjoy.

As i have documented in other blogs sadly maternity leave didn't start as planned, Albie didn't show up for some time and when he did i spent my first 3 months in a postnatal haze feeling low, tearful and really confused at how i should care for my baby and if i had the ability to. I couldn't feed him, the midwife made me feel i wasn't caring for his needs and my own mental health went into nose dive at the expectations i felt i wasn't meeting. It changed at 6 months, properly anyway, i suddenly got it, i knew him, he knew me and i had friends, networks, groups, family and knew what i needed to do at certain times of the day to make the day easier. We got into a flow and it suddenly felt natural, i still missed work, i missed that part of me, but life didn't feel as lost as it once had. We had around 2 months of this, then it changed and my process of moving into lock down was definitely of grief, that the end of maternity was starting to look like the start, a hazy mess feeling slightly lost. I felt bad for feeling this, i felt guilt at my selfishness but i felt it important to recognise and understand why lock down was feeling more of a struggle and why i couldn't accept what was happening.

I also was coming to the end of my counselling and this stopped (my choice) due to it moving to online, again something i was working on that i felt was taken away. Then i was going back to work at my old job and i was starting a new job one day a week for another charity, something i was looking forward to for so long, being with my work peeps and engaging with incredible young people, again this all changed when i was told i would be working from my spare room. I have adjusted, i have had to, i have processed, i have had to, i am not the only one feeling so many losses right now, my losses feel insignificant to the reality of what is happening, but there mine and they feel important to voice as it also feels were not allowed to talk about the smaller things anymore, small things that can feel big things in a already complex world.

Maternity leave hasn't been the sabbatical i thought it would be, it wasn't the dreamy days of lying feeding my baby with the sun shining in and a relaxed playlist in the background. It was hard, so fricken hard, it was exhausting and more confusing then i ever imagined. It was beautiful in a whole host of ways and it was confusing, all the things i expected didn't happen, all the things i hoped for didn't happen, i had to adjust and change and keep alive a new small being, whilst being so mixed up about what my feelings were for this new life. I had to be open and raw and admit i sometimes wanted him back inside as he was safe there, my body knew how to care for him, i had to be open i wasn't in my own mind at times and i had to cry, i cried a river there were so many tears but i had to trust in love, that it would grow, that it would allow my heart to open and be vulnerable and i had to understand there was no running, i was staying put however hard that felt at times and still does, my home was my boy, my beautiful boy.

The naivety i felt pre pregnancy sits with me and i love it, i love the beauty of believing so much can happen, i love the realism i held vanished due to this life growing in me and this exciting new adventure to come. What i learnt was you have no control at times and that's okay, the minute i accepted he was in control of what happened next i started to understand and the adventure changed but not always in a bad way. That acceptance sits with me and the learning's i have had over the last 9 months are some of my strongest lessons. I have realised that i can be so insecure at my own abilities as a women, wife and mother, i am not forgiven on myself and have unearthed a part of me i don't like, it's negative and struggles to see optimism, but i am working on it and i am aware of it and that is the only way change can be made. I have learnt i am selfish, which i don't feel is a bad thing, i miss my old life, it will never be how it was but i hope it can have resemblances, i wanted to be a mother for so long and when the time came i questioned if it was something i had always wanted, which also made me feel such guilt that i was questioning something i had worked so hard to get. I also realised how strong i am, that i spent 3 days in labour and 8hrs in pain without help, they didn't know how to help when nothing else was working, the midwife shared after she had never experienced what happened to me, at the time i didn't know how to react but when i look back now i am so thankful i survived as at one point i wasn't sure i would. I understand my job more, i understand flashbacks and trauma more, so although i wished i had never gone through what i had in labour it has led me to be able to understand when someone talks of the impact of flashback's as 9 months on i still experience them now, i manage them but a song, a smell, a programme with labour in it brings it all back. I learnt that fertility treatment is traumatic and will never leave me, that process of 3.5yrs of appointments, prodding, poking and loss has burnt a place in my heart and when it was all over i was so happy but i was also lost, the feelings fertility treatment leaves you with is so complex and the only people who understand are those also going through it, were sisters and warriors, we survive the battle and keep throwing ourselves in to get what comes so easily to others.

I have also learnt new ways to love in my relationship, it's true if you survive the first year of having a baby you can survive anything, the amount you have to give up is commitment beyond belief. Sam has literally saved me on so many occasions, he has been 100% and has had his own challenges but has always been present and available and when it comes to parenting, he is by us every step. A new love developed when i watched him feed our new born baby with teeny cups in the midst of the night, when he encouraged me to feed in other ways and never told me not to cry when i needed too, i saw he was willing to do anything to help us survive in those first few weeks even at times when he himself was breaking.

The main thing i have learnt though is a love so strong it makes me gush with emotion, at times Sam even laughs at me as every day this small human makes my heart explode, explode with pride, happiness and pure greatness at my achievement as he is my greatest achievement.

and then we hit 6 months.

Not yet, but nearly, its like another point in the many milestones of motherhood, my niece was born this weekend and it left me with all the feels, thinking about Albie's arrival into this world and those special moments straight after. Sam and I have spent a lot of this weekend talking about those first few hours and the difference in what we remember and chose to remember, there's a lot both of us have put in that box of 'things we don't like to think about' but there's real special moments of just us and Albie that warm my heart and make me feel such great love.

I thought Sam going back to work after Christmas was going to be hell,  i believed my anxiety monster would be back in full force and everything would feel so overwhelming, but surprisingly i have shocked myself (and Sam, i think) as it's not been too bad. I have a little pattern now of classes we go to, friends we see, popping into my Mum and Ron's, walking the dogs and suddenly being at home (alone) isn't such a challenge. I don't know what's changed, if it's me, Albie or both of us, but i suddenly feel like i know my little guy and i know what he enjoys and what noises means he wants change. He kind of naps, but those 20-30mins give me time to eat, drink tea, sometimes catch an episode of something and maintain my me time, which felt so lost at the start of this journey.

These first 6 months have been a rollercoaster, one i haven't always enjoyed, one i wouldn't change but one i wouldn't chose to repeat either. Having a baby is an amazing new chapter but it also closes an old one that when i reflect i wasn't fully ready to close. Maybe if the start of our journey with Albie had been smoother it may have been different but it wasn't and that i am coming to terms with slowly. I am recognising that the first part of our journey still impacts me, brand new babies are now not all squishy to me, there new, fragile and something im okay with not fully interacting with. I still feel tearful when i listen to my favourite playlist which was also our labour playlist, when i hear the song Skinny Love, by Bon Iver i could be back in that labour room, wishing something they did would help stop the pain, sadly i still remember nothing did until 5am that morning, 5hrs after they first administered the first epidural, it took for the 3rd one to make any impact. I have my birth reflection on Thursday which is where you go through your birth with a midwife, it helps process but also make sense of what happened and how traumatic it all was. I have chose to access counselling privately as i feel guilt at not enjoying my so longed for baby. I feel guilt that for 4/5 months i sometimes wondered what had i done and if i could survive the rest of my maternity leave. I feel guilty at one point i wanted to go back to work, i wanted to be away from this world i had just created and spent 6yrs trying to create.

What's changed i do recognise is i am ready to talk about this and i recognise those feelings i felt weren't only mine but so many others too, we just don't like talking about it.

Maybe this is why this 6 month mark feels easier now as i recognise i don't want to go back to work right now, yes in time when my maternity ends but right now i want to squeeze and giggle with Albie, i want to be present here with him. Sometimes days are boring, dull, repetitive but i am now starting to recognise i will never have this time again and i want to appreciate every minute as come April i am back at work and not with my babe every day.

I have realised i need to talk about what happened and i am ready to, it's painful and hard but it can't be locked in as it's not healthy for me, Sam and even more Albie. I want to grow him into a child who knows truth, speaks about his feelings, open's up and isn't misguided from the truth. How can i grow a child into all this things if i don't look after myself and support myself with what i have been through and what my mental health has.

We have so many words for those feelings after birth... baby blues, post natal depression, post traumatic stress... who knows what name i  have experienced, does it need a name? i just know making a baby, pregnancy, labour, birth then having a baby is a a massive assault of shock on the body, mind and life, everything has changed and people who say it's all okay i sadly just don't believe as how can anyone be that ready for such an attack of hormones and just take it in their stride. I read somewhere it takes eighteen months for those pesky hormones to calm down, well only another year left.

Whether my playlist always makes me cry, whether Albie's birth always brings back sadness, maybe i will always feel the guilt around how i felt when he first arrived, maybe the truth of Albie never having a sibling is because of how crazy this journey has been to bring him, whatever i know i am doing my best to adjust, make sense and enjoy the final stages of maternity leave. It's nice to know another rainbow appears and the journey feels somewhat brighter after such a storm.

2019 a year of reflection.

As my babe has his early morning nap and I drink my morning coffee it feels a perfect time to jot some words down and reflect on 2019 and what's to come in 2020.

It's been a wonderful year in many ways, the stream of texts I have received sharing nothing will beat this year as Albie was born, it's a strange one as although it was a year of greatness due to the birth of my long awaited boy there's a deep part of me that is definitely ready to say goodbye to 2019 and welcome 2020 with open arms.

2019 did bring us Albie but it also brought us 7 months of worry before he was born, questions of would we be lucky enough to get to 9 months, was this really happening for us, learning to understanding a new world of pregnancy and saying goodbye to an old world of fertility treatment (which yes is great but it's also all we have known for 6yrs and had defined part of me in a lot of ways). I also held and still do guilt that we got our rainbow baby and all my friends still in the struggle of fertility hadn't. I also wasn't ready to forget the journey to get Albie as much as others had, it is and was part of our journey and it isn't easy to just forget it.

Albie came with a huge bang and although my honesty is hard for others it wasn't the enjoyable few months I had imagined, he was our world but our world also felt like it had crashed down and shattered around us and my mental health plummeted. I never thought that would be the case for me as I firmly believed years of trying would only bring pure happiness. I didn't cry when he was born, I felt relief we had survived. I loved him but didn't know him and felt very confused by what I could provide and what others expected from me. I am still traumatised from the birth, something I so hoped wouldn't be the case.

Albie came along which was wonderful but the impact it had on me emotionally and physically and on our relationship hasn't been great. I move into 2020 with plans of how to take care of myself, I have started in the last few months writing more, swimming, making plans for adventures and even setting some exciting new projects up in my work ready for when I go back in April.

As Albie has become more 'human' and not a squirmy ball of squish I understand him, enjoy him and love him harder every day. I feel my fierce lioness protecting him but its took time and I am not ashamed to admit that.

I chose to write openly and honestly as I hate the lies that parents are forced or choose to give about parenting being this 'easy ride' this glow of perfect paternal beauty, maybe it is for some but from what I find, when your open and honest, you allow someone else to be too and that in itself is so empowering for Mum's but also women supporting women.

So 2020 brings me going back to work, a change in my hours meaning more time with Albie but also a good balance for me to find me, I have worked hard to specialise in what I do and I am not ready to lose that, I am more than Albie's Mum.

It brings a holiday to Malham, Portugal, Isle of Arran, Italy and Shambala festival and many more adhoc van adventures.

It brings Sam sharing maternity/paternity leave and having 3 months of with our wee boy.

Mostly it brings a year of focusing on us, the five of us, our little family, we are complete now, and I am ready to embrace us as a whole and start this year focusing on the beauty we have between us, putting 2019 to bed and moving forward with a year full of fun and adventure.

The light at the end of the tunnel.

As we come near to the 6wk mark of Albie I finally understand what others  have said around 6wks feeling more manageable and there's definitely been a shift and change in how I am coping, crying and behaving. My labour and birth story is for another blog, when it's time and when I am ready, for now this blog is to process, focus and put some rambles down of how it's been and how unprepared I was for the emotional shift on my energy.

I haven't been diagnosed with depression but I know I have lows that can be very intense, I manage them, I have worked with them and been through years of therapy to understand them, since meeting Sam, my nest builder they haven't been as frequent, even through IVF he helped me manage those left field turns and always guided me back. As I have mentioned many times, Socks, our wonderful greyhound was also an instrumental part of keeping me well, due to these lows being so little over the last few years I never expected to feel anything but joy when Albie arrived. We had been trying for him for years and years, I had put my body through numerous rounds of IVF, medication and stress to have him, he was so wanted, of course joy was all I would feel. However how wrong I was, when I think I know myself, having a baby defiantly teaches you a lot more. 

To start with Albie was 10 days over, 12 days by the time he came earth side, my labour was intense, powerful and traumatic, we then had feeding issues due to past surgery, ivf drugs and c section, meaning the first few weeks with a newborn and the mix of the above was not plain sailing. It's a 6 week recovery period from c section, I had 0 hours, I was high as a kite due to the long labour, had suddenly gone through major surgery and was then passed a baby. 

We came home and the masses descended, family wanted a bit of this beautiful boy, we wanted them there but it didn't stop and when all I wanted was to be alone, I wasn't allowed as I needed to care for my boy and smile at the cooing everyone was giving him. 

The continuous questions of how is he feeding, are you breastfeeding, how was the labour, does he sleep, the expectations of what you should answer, what are people wanting to hear as I knew they didn't want the whole gory truth, that's a conversation stopper right there. These questions put extra strain, pressure and stress on me, I know people didn't mean to but I was vulnerable and being bombarded with powerful questions I wasn't in a place to manage.

When the question around a 2nd child came that was the truth blower. NO FUCKING WAY. The idea of doing all of the last few years again, it astonished me people would even ask, it's like think before you say something and also my child is 2 days old! 

What I had never realised was the expectation on myself, labour, feeding and being a new mum. The loss of Sam and I, who we were, the freedom of our life and our dogs this teeny being requiring everything from us. I cried a river those first few weeks at the loss of us, me and my life before Albie. I didn't for one not want him but I did at times want what I had back and realised the life we had built was great, this is the next adventure but at that moment I couldn't see to the end of the day, never mind a van holiday/festival fun. 

I don't want to label what I was feeling, who knows what it was extreme baby blues, post natal depression, one of my lows, newborn struggles, a sense of failure in feeding, mum guilt, loss, selfishness, maybe all of these things but I knew my brain wasn't right and I needed to tell someone.

Sam had started to work it out, he was calm, patient and went above and beyond to support me, even when at times being firmer may have helped him. My Mum quickly sussed and wrapped her love around me and helped me see what would help and what didn't. Mum allowed me to take back what I needed from this continuous assessment from health professionals around me and Albie's weight. I started to be more open and honest with myself and when I did that, things began to change, the fog lifted and I took control over how I fed Albie and ultimately cared for him.

No one tells you about weight checks, bleeding for 6weeks, possible injections for 6wks, pain that felt like bricks weighing me down, hormones and tears that are so powerful they take over, checks done by health professionals on the worst days of 'baby blues', the input of others and feeling like my baby wasn't my own, varying information and feeling like you have to stick with the line. My confidence was knocked but when I started to believe and trust in myself and my ability as a Mum I started to take it back and motherhood became more bearable and more joyful.

No one can share the honest truth as everyone's experiences is their own but one thing's for sure is nothing prepared me for what hit me, without the support in place and having people around it may have lasted longer, I cry every few days now rather than four times a day, however I am learning about myself, my boy, my husband and my dogs, we all have needs to be met at this new time and were slowly working them out together.

What I did start to realise was a sense of relief, it was all over, no more ivf, no more fertility questions, no more tears when others fell pregnant, no more pain and suffering around will we have a baby, he was here and this challenging period of fertility was now over. Some of those river tears I cried I believe were the sense of relief I didn't have to do any of that anymore.

and no, were not having anymore.