These notes of mine were lost until this week, written in an old blog, long ago forgotten.
Reading them back now, I can hear two things in my voice: total commitment to my new life and love, against a backdrop of quiet desperation I couldn’t admit to at the time. Sharing in case it helps anyone else feel more normal!
Another day of caring for my baby is coming into darkness with him sleeping at last. I could never have imagined just how challenging, and at times overwhelming, the tasks of mothering really are.
My child does not like to surrender to sleep in the daytime - which results in him having decent sleeps overnight, but the longest days of intense work I have ever experienced.
The roller coaster of our days together involves the highs of passionate motherlove at his beautiful soul and 'magical' leaps of development, closely followed by the lows of being unable to escape the intensity of our dyad for long enough to reflect, relax or have any space for myself.
The constant demands of a baby give me one of the greatest opportunities life affords, to practice deep unrelenting compassion, acceptance and love for another human being.
My love for him conquers all obstacles that arise each day, however, becoming a parent in this last year has been the greatest test of my ability to practice acceptance and manage my emotions. The hardest is my roller-coasting anxiety.
At times I have struggled, as many mothers do, I think, with feelings of exhaustion and inadequacy. I have also sometimes experienced grief at the loss of my hard-won and much loved pre-motherhood life that took so many years to create and fully inhabit. Despite it being replaced with something infinitely richer - the old life will never exist again. It’s a big adjustment.
So what do I say now, 20 years later?
It was the greatest experience, bringing up a child. He’s an adult now. But I will never sugar-coat the anxiety, or the sense of heavy responsibility to keep another being safe and developing optimally. It was the joy, and the challenge, of my life to date.
I think finding support and connection to other adults in a similar parent-stage is deeply helpful, it certainly helped me.
As did the words:
The days are long, but the years are short.
I hung on to those words to get through fear and fatigue, and they certainly turned out to be true.
Love to you,
,
As women who of us has ever been able to predict how we will manage those initial months of new motherhood? That sleep never comes easy to a new baby is something that no one ever said to me. I worked so hard at getting her to have day sleeps as well as sleeping in the night time, I gave up 'mothers group', but that was hardly a sacrifice. My issue was poor milk supply. I was starving my little one, with common sense being talked down by lactation consultants. Six weeks in I finally gave over to formula, baby started sleeping better, but nothing stings like a maternal/child nurse virtually accusing me of starving my precious baby. She chubbed up quick smart and the rest is history. The time just flies from then on, as you so beautifully say. I would have loved to have had a second child, to really do a good job perfectly, hahahaha, and that is the punch line. We are imperfect mothers, always have to be. Love to you, Doctor. x