JUST HANGING IN THERE

Just like a beautiful butterfly emerges from the cocoon, a mummy is born the moment your new baby is lovingly placed in your arms…..

Really? Who comes up with this stuff?

I get the cocoon part. When I was pregnant with my first child, I wrapped myself in cotton wool. In the early months (8 or so…) I would come home from work and fall on to the couch; genuinely rendered immobile whilst the husband got dinner ready. All I could move was my eyeballs as they silently pleaded with him not to cook anything with any type of odour (For the love of God; please no mince meat!!). I rubbed my growing belly and excitedly nurtured this tiny baby I was growing. I chugged back my vitamins and walked a fine line checking and rechecking the ever changing list of foods to avoid. Oh I thought it was all so hard.

Then they did hand me that baby.

My beautiful son.

And no butterfly appeared.

Rather I was hanging off a cliff; the tips of my fingers clawing the edge whilst I frantically flailed my legs wildly about desperately looking for a foot hold. My husband saw me hanging there, and grabbed on tightly to an arm, whilst friends and family held on for dear life to his feet so we both didn’t slip over. Just when I thought the constant exhaustion would be too much, my foot connected. I shifted my weight. I got into a better position. My other foot found land and I began the slow crawl towards the top. Slowly, painfully upwards, but my people were encouraging me and pulling me towards them. I made safety.

But I soon discovered there was no pinnacle. No moment when I looked around and said, “I’ve made it”, because I am still climbing that mountain daily. But this time I have equipment. I have someone right beside me. In fact, most days I actually have no idea what direction I am meant to be heading, and that’s OK. I can write those days off and keep looking up the next day. Even after my second baby, when I thought I knew where all those foot holds were, I was actually blindsided and plummeted back down to the bottom; but this time I was clipped on safely and together we made our way up.

Whilst this may sound dramatic, I actually did not suffer from *PND. I suffered from a difficult delivery, exhaustion and one hell of a shock about the expectation that I would just slip into this ‘new me’ like everyone else around me appeared to. This ‘new me’ that I had wanted so passionately.

It was an incredible shock.

And then last week, I saw a glimpse of the top. We had gone out for a family dinner. I had packed pencils and stickers and snacks and my bag of small toys. We went to a nearby family friendly bistro, that had loads of things for the kids to do. We ordered a drink and watched them play. I was actually able to have a conversation with my husband and we back patted each other as we remembered our time on the cliff edge.

There was a loud cry and every parent sought the sight of their own children playing, as two parents frantically rushed to where their little boy had fallen. The daddy made it first and swooped him up in his arms. He was fine, but I watched the mum as she hovered and patted her little boys arm and danced around behind her husband to get a better sight of her baby. The feeling hit me. I knew she just needed her baby in her arms to know he was OK. I am guilty of my beautiful husband attending to one of our own kids when they had fallen, and despite knowing he had it perfectly under control, I would NEED to hold them. I would need to pull them close, run my hands over their trembling body to check it was all OK and then kiss their little tears away.

It seems the butterfly did eventually arrive.

I am a mummy.

All those times I have stood in the supermarket and rocked an empty shopping trolley.

The times I have jumped online for some downtime, only to find myself scrolling through kids clothes whilst mentally tallying their wardrobes and the upcoming season.

The heartbreaking last piece of chocolate I have sacrificed.

The times I have burst into uncontrollable sobs thinking about all the things that might happen to my kids.

The nights I have woken in anticipation of their cry, or glided to their rooms to slide an extra blanket on, eyes stuck closed on autopilot.

And so I may have made it back safely on to the side of the mountain, but I am not even sure anymore whether I want to reach the top. Because what exactly is the pinnacle? Is it when they hit 18? Leave home? Some nights, when I am lying hunched under a blanket on the end of her bed so she will go back to bloody sleep, this seems like a fantastic achievement. But the light of day reminds me that I am happy to keep wandering around. Because maybe there are lots of little peaks; little daily wins?

Though I muckup an embarrassing amount of times, I am theirs and they are ours.

I am their mummy.