What you Don't Expect: The First Five Years of Motherhood

Chapter one - The First Year

Chapter 1 – The First year

Coming Home

Anyone who has had a new born knows that your whole life changes in more ways than one. It quite literally feels like a bomb has exploded and you are surveying the rubble around you. As the days go on you start to build your new life brick by brick. When we brought Harry into our home it felt like this. I remember my husband placing him down in his tiny car seat and us just staring at him in our living room. I went upstairs to rest, sore and exhausted after not sleeping for days. Just as my head hit the pillow I heard it, I wasn't sure what it was at first, was it a cat? Then I realised that the noise I was hearing was Harry crying. He cried and cried. The sound was so much more piercing in our quiet house than in the hospital. After four days there I had been desperate to get home, but I suddenly missed the comfort of having midwives on call to help me. I had half a mind to tell Will to get back into the car and take us back there. We can't seriously be trusted to keep this tiny human alive. Surely someone would find us out soon. It was like having imposter syndrome on steroids. The crying was still happening downstairs, did he need changing? Was he hungry? This was my big moment to 'know' and I just didn't. I remember picking him up and taking him back to our room, feeling as equally fragile as Harry looked and wondering what on earth to do.

Why isn't it working?

When you attend NCT classes there is a lot of focus on how you will feed your baby. On one rainy October morning alongside my husband, we turned up in a conference room which was full of other expectant parents. I waddled in with my fellow mums - to- be and felt like I was attending a class at school. There was power-point presentation, displays on the walls about feeding and lots of different equipment to look at. We were told about the importance getting the latch right, what tongue tie might mean, what position works well for breastfeeding and how tiny a new baby's tummy actually is (The size of a ping pong ball if you are interested). I remember feeling excited and positive afterwards, I knew I wanted to try breastfeeding and after purchasing a breast pump which at the time cost more than our monthly shop, I felt ready for it.

Fast forward to a month later and me holding my screaming new born and all the confidence around this had melted away. Pretending to feed with a doll as we had done in the class was a completely different ball game to the real thing. No one tells you how stressful it is holding an angry baby who is starving whilst trying to hold their head and help them latch onto you whilst you leak milk everywhere. We were told it would be painful if not done properly, and it was at times – but there is no one there to help your baby latch at 2am, and panic can quite easily kick in. Why isn't it working? The textbook said to do this with him. The NCT class said the same thing. I remember bringing Harry upstairs still screaming and sitting on the bed with my brand-new breastfeeding pillow getting ready to feed, having no idea whether this would actually be successful or not. It wasn't. There were lots of tears over feeding to begin with, we both cried a lot. Me feeling useless and that I was failing my baby. If I couldn't fulfil the most basic need of providing food, what hope did I have for the rest of parenthood? I would stress about inadvertently spraying milk at Harry during those early days, as my supply was still adjusting to his needs. The vision of that amuses me now, it is amazing how time can change your perspective on things. I wish I could go back and tell that helpless new mum that it would get better and just to be patient. After lots of practice we did eventually find a rhythm to it at home, and I began to finally like it.

You can't however stay at home forever, even though it becomes this safe space for you and your baby. When my husband was on paternity leave, I did feel like it was justified for us to stay in the baby bubble together – our new little unit. We had lots visitors bringing gifts and it was so nice to see close family and friends with our new addition. The house looked like a florist and smelt like one too. This lovely time unfortunately cannot last forever and two weeks after Harry had arrived D-Day was here – Will was back to work, I would be alone with him - shit got real.