Review: Aggie MacKenzie's Cleaning Products

Aggie MacKenzie has a new range of probiotic cleaning products out, and I was lucky enough to be asked to test them.

Having a small, messy and crawling child in the house, it's a daily struggle to keep the house clean and not smelling like a compost heap, with food smooshed up and rubbed into every available surface at least once a day. But I also don't want to be flinging bleach about the place willy nilly - I want to know that I can clean something, and let S carry on playing as normal, without worrying.

Says Aggie:

The potential for the use of probiotics in many areas of our lives is amazing. We've heard about their health benefits in yogurts, and now they're being used in many other areas too. Expect to see them popping up in baby products, deodorants and toothpaste. Now, for the first time, they're being used in my cleaning products too.

 There are 18 products in the range; I was given 6 to try: fabric freshener, exterior drain treatment, shoe & trainer refresher, carpet & uphosltery cleaner, power stain remover and bathroom cleaner.

All of the products are scented with grapefruit and lime, which means when you spray them, the house doesn't end up smelling like an old lady's handbag! 

I've tried all of them out, and so far I'm loving them. The chemicals have been relegated to the back of the cupboard because I feel that these products are less harsh and more suitable when there's a baby lurking about.

Here comes the science bit; concentrate!

A good cleaning involves more than just removing visible dirt. Each surface has impurities, which contain an invisible biofilm. This biofilm is like a shield, a high concentration of micro-organisms, including harmful bacteria that cannot be penetrated by ordinary chemical or antibacterial cleaners. Aggie's Probiotics are able to penetrate and remove this biofilm, for deeper cleaning and longer-lasting protection.

The secret is not to kill off the friendly bacteria that nature has given us, because that only creates space for germs to spread. Rather, what we should be doing is working with nature's very own cleaning crew, probiotics, to get right down into grime and remove all of that dirt we can see, and also the germs that we can't.

This concept makes sense to me, especially when it comes to removing nasty, lingering pongs. Of course, my feet don't smell and neither do my trainers... but if they did, then the probiotic cleaner would have helped remove the smell and let my trainers live to see another day. Similarly, the fabric freshener has worked wonders on my sofa which has now had a full year of baby puke to contend with (as well as an entire large Costa caramel latte being chucked down the side of it the other day). 

What I love about these products is that I can spray them on the sofa, in my shoes, on the rug on the floor, and not have to set up some clever cordon around them to stop S from going near. Obviously I'm not going to encourage her to sit and rub her hands in the damp recently-cleaned patches, but it's not as worrying as if you've used something with a list of chemicals as long as your arm to remove a grubby mark from the rug. 

And it's just nice to walk back into a room after a brief absence, and be greeted by a nice, fresh smell rather than that of milky vomit and spilled coffee.

The website for the product line is here, and I will certainly be popping back there once my current supply runs out.

Disclaimer: I received Aggie's Probiotics products for free, in return for writing this post. The opinions in the post are all my own, and I was not obliged to write a favourable "advertisement" in exchange for the products.

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Beautiful Mama Blog Award

Well, I woke up this morning in not-the-best frame of mind, and it didn't really improve much... Until I went onto Twitter, and found that Shareen from A Real Mummy Diary had nominated me for a Beautiful Mama Blog Award!

If I'm honest, I'd never heard of the award before - so I did a bit of digging, and found that it originated here, with Atlanta Mom of Three. I think it's a lovely idea - who doesn't like to get an award, especially with "beautiful" in the title (someone has clearly not seen the state of me this morning!)

To accept the award I must:

• Save the image, and use it in my acceptance post (done!)
• List three things I love about motherhood
• Nominate as many deserving mamas as I like, and let them know I have done so...

So here we go then. Three things I love about motherhood...

1. It sorted me right out. I've had mental issues for a long time, and had a rather spectacular breakdown a couple of years ago. I was still struggling to recover from that when I met S's father and got pregnant, and pretty much went right back to square one. Now here I am, mother of the most gorgeous almost-one-year-old, and I find that mental health is not such a major issue any more. There's little time for self-obsessed navel-gazing when you've someone else to think about, 24/7. This is not me saying that people who have kids and still struggle with mental health issues are somehow inferior or wrong; it's me saying that for me, in my situation, having S has sorted me right out.
2. At least once a day, I look over at my gorgeous little mischief machine and think "oh my gawd, I made that!!" and with every day that passes, the more I know this is my doing, and nothing her father can take credit for. It's a massive ego boost to see a child who is so happy, so sociable, so bloody amazing, and know that you might have had anything to do with it.
3. Being a mother puts things into perspective in a way nothing else can (as far as I have experienced). The list of Important Things in my life has gone from being as long as my arm to very few items. As long as S has what she needs to be happy and healthy, the rest of it really doesn't matter. (she said, wearing too-big jeans hanging around her bum, no make-up, hair not done, big grin plastered across her face). I don't care if my nails have not been painted; none of my clothes fit me; I've not been underwear shopping for well over a year. My daughter is happy and since that's Number One on my list, I don't care about the rest of it!

And now, to nominate other deserving mamas...

Laura at My Life As A Mummy

Kate at Naked Mum

Sarah at Boo, Roo and Tigger Too

I love these blogs, and you should too - go and check them out!

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Wordless Wednesday: What I Used to Look Like

Emotional Abuse: Not as Obvious as You'd Think

Over the past couple of weeks, I've written a series of posts about my experience with S's birth and first few weeks of life.

Many people have commented about my ex's behaviour. There were some clear signs that he was an abusive person, attempting to intimidate and control me. But while I was writing these posts, I also noticed some smaller, more subtle points, that many of us would not automatically think of as abusive or controlling. I thought it might be useful to collect all of these into a post, so as to illustrate the point that domestic and emotional abuse are not as obvious as one might think...

• The night before I went into labour, I was told "you're being a dick again." There was no further explanation of exactly what I had done that was so wrong; was it the falling asleep? The not eating dinner? The being ill? Whenever I was accused of being a dick, there was never any concrete explanation, this is what you did, this is how you avoid this happening again. There was no way to avoid it happening; it was not under my control.

• When my contractions stopped at the hospital, the inference was that I had deliberately stopped them, to be difficult. I was an inconvenience, as was the baby being born; he'd had to get a baby sitter, and needed to get back home. He rarely left his home when he wasn't at work, because there he is the king of his castle, sitting about in his pants and having his children (and partner) tend to his every whim. Outside of the house, he was out of his comfort zone, and in the hospital people might notice what he was doing, so he was on his best behaviour; this was difficult for him. He wanted to go home as soon as he could, so I needed to get on and give birth.

• During the birth, I felt a lot of pressure not to make a fuss, not to make any noise, not to be the centre of attention and be a drama queen. Throughout my pregnancy I had been accused of over-reacting, attention seeking and being difficult. If I did that while I was in labour, he might up and leave and I'd have to go through this without him. Similarly with pain relief, it was made clear to me that I should go as far as I could without any drugs. I didn't want drugs any way, but my changing my mind would not have gone down well. Afterwards he bragged to people that I had gotten to 10cm dilated without pain relief, as if this was somehow his achievement.

• When I asked him not to rub my back while was in labour, the response "why am I not allowed to touch you?!" made it sound as if I should be allowing him to touch me wherever, and however he wanted. This was a general theme of our relationship, that didn't stop while I was in labour, or after the birth. I was grabbed, squeezed, pushed and punched (hard) whenever he felt like it. My body was not my own, and it was not for me to say where or when he could touch it.

• After the event, he told me that when I had a big contraction and the monitor lost S's heartbeat, the midwife had not been in the room (other people tell me she was there). He had saved the day by pressing the button to call her, having seen that something was not right with me (the midwife pressed the call button to get assistance). He also told me my body had squeezed my baby so hard I had stopped her heartbeat (actually I just had a big contraction, and the monitor couldn't pick up a heartbeat through the muscle of my uterus contracting) - this was playing on my insecurities about being a mother, being capable of looking after a child. I had often worried that I was simply "not built" to be a mother, and he played on this a lot.

• Throughout my labour, he was on the phone: to his mother, his babysitter, his sister, his friends, his boss. He was on Facebook and texting people. Before he had even cut the umbilical cord, he was on the phone to his mother rather than comforting me; I was not important.

• After the birth, he told me that when S's head had first come out, the cord was around her neck and I had almost strangled her at that point by continuing to push. Nobody else recalls this; it was not in my notes, I do not recall the midwife asking me not to push so that she could untangle it. As far as I recall, once S's head was out, her body was so small it just followed without any more contractions or pushing. Still, I was made to believe I had yet again almost killed my child before she was even born; I was that much of a bad mother.

• My being kept in hospital for so long was a major inconvenience. More than once I was told he was wasting his 2 weeks' paternity leave. On the days he didn't visit us, it was because his house had fallen into such a state while he'd spent "every waking minute" (from -12-4) in the hospital with me, instead of doing the housework (or rather, making his kids do it). It was my fault his house was a mess; his assumption had always been that I would have the baby, come home, and spend my days in his house being a good housewife. What he'd actually been doing, is going home and sleeping with his ex.

• When S was in NICU, it was no big deal. At least one of his other children had suffered with jaundice when they were born; yet again I was making mountains out of molehills, and attention seeking by crying.

• He refused to ever change S's nappy or clothes; she often cried when she was disturbed like this, and he didn't want her to associate him with crying. Instead, he stood over me and watched my every move, tutting that I was so awkward, telling me I'd done this wrong, or I should have used that. The nappy was too loose or too tight, didn't I have one in a size that would fit her tiny frame? I should have put a different babygro on her, didn't I have a cardigan that would fit her? I was wrapping her all wrong in the blanket; I should wrap her in two blankets so that she didn't get cold; I was using two blankets overnight, wasn't I? The concept of babies overheating and dying from SIDS clearly did not occur to him, and I was too scared not to do as I was told, so S was bundled up in so many layers and blankets you could barely tell there was a baby in there - until one day a nurse came to take her temperature and told me to remove a couple of layers. Obviously, the next time he came in, I was told off for that too. He knew more than the hospital staff; he had 6 kids and they were all fine. Put another blanket on her.

• Every time I wanted something from town, or from my house - nappies, clean clothes, baby wipes, cotton wool, toiletries - I was an inconvenience. I should have packed my hospital bag better, shouldn't I (S was born 5 weeks early; the week before I'd gone into hospital I'd shown him, this is where I will keep my hospital bag, in case you ever need to know. He had laughed at me for having even started packing a bag yet).

• For the last few days we were in hospital, I was so down and miserable at being stuck there. My misery and exhaustion could not compete with his though; he was having to visit me in hospital every day. "how do you think it makes me feel, having to leave you both here every day?" What he didn't add was "... so that I can go home and sleep with my ex..." which is what I later found out he had been up to.

• I was repeatedly told, throughout my pregnancy, and while we were trying to establish breastfeeding, that I wouldn't be able to hack it. I had always said that I didn't want to use formula, and intended to breastfeed for as long as I needed to. He used to tweak or bite my nipples often, and when I complained that he was hurting me, his response was "you're far too sensitive, you'll never be able to breastfeed." When I started breastfeeding, he said I'd probably hack it for a couple of weeks, a month tops. I was incapable, see. Not cut out to be a mother, not a good mother, not fit to be a mother. Those words were never said at the time; they didn't need to be, because every single part of my being a mother was undermined at every available opportunity. (incidentally, S is now 11 months old, and I am still breastfeeding her. So in your face, stupid ex.)

• He never once organised for someone to pick his kids up from school for him. This is an often-used passive-aggressive way of asserting control and making me feel guilty. His kids and lack of childcare were used on a regular basis throughout our relationship - inference being that if I were a good girlfriend/mother of his child,  I would be in his house, looking after his kids 24/7 so that he could go out and do as he pleased, whenever he pleased. The last-minute texts in front of me to get someone to pick the kids up from school were designed to make me feel guilty, like a burden: you see, now I'm having to bother other people to do your job because you won't just get up off your arse and come home. He usually tried to get me to make the requests on his behalf - I was, after all, the reason he wasn't able to pick his children up from school himself, so I should organise the childcare.

• When we finally brought S home, I was obliged to dress her in the outfit he had bought, but the fact it was so big on her we had to roll the arms and legs right up, that was my fault. It was my fault S had been born early, my fault she was jaundiced, my fault she only weighed 5lb. Later on, when people commented that 5lb was a good weight for a baby who had been born 5 weeks early, he took all the credit, explaining that it was in his genes to have big babies, and he had looked after me so well (!) throughout my pregnancy, which was why S had been born so healthy. I'm not even joking; this was actually said.

• As we left the ward and walked S to the car, I was repeatedly told I was holding her wrong, I looked really uncomfortable holding her, she looked awkward, I was about to drop her, I wasn't supporting her head. When we got out of the car at my house, I wasn't allowed to carry her into the house in case I dropped her. Yet again this was telling me: you're no good at this, you are not meant to be a mother, you are awkward with your child, you cannot be trusted to look after your child.

• I wasn't allowed to spend my first night at home, even though realistically there was nothing wrong with the flat, and we would have been fine. The following night, when S and I did stay at home, my sister was drafted in to stay with us. The ex did not trust me to be alone with my own child.

• The first time S slept more than a few hours, I was told, "she would have always slept through if you had let her." Never mind the fact she would have slept through, and probably died or been brain damaged because of her level of jaundice; never mind the fact the doctors told me I must not let her go more than three hours without feeding. I had been deliberately stopping her from sleeping through the night. I'm sure he would have an absolute field day with our current sleeping arrangement.

I used to tell my midwife all the time: "I wish he'd just hit me, and then I'd know. Everything he did could have been taken another way; I might have been over-reacting; perhaps he'd just had a hard day. Perhaps I really was expecting too much, and not being supportive enough of his situation (a common complaint from him).

Throughout our relationship, before and during my pregnancy, he would move suddenly as if to hit me, and often came at me with a knife in the same way - but he never actually made contact. When I complained I didn't like him doing it, I was told I was over-sensitive, couldn't take a joke.

He knew that if he actually hit or cut me, I would know for sure that he was in the wrong, and that would give me what I needed to leave. So instead he made me permanently scared that he was going to hit me.

Flexing his muscles for a photo; a regular occurrence.

There were regular displays of his strength: he would hold me down, hug me a little too tight, perform pull-ups and lift weights in front of me. There were stories of having been set upon by two or three men, but having managed to fight them all off. A story of winning a fight against a couple of men who later notoriously kicked a young lad to death and went to prison. There was the time I woke in the middle of the night to find myself in a headlock because he was "dreaming he was being attacked." And, of course, there were all the times he hit his children, or told me about having had to hit them. The fact he didn't worry about his front door having no lock, because nobody would ever dare to come into his house. Stories of the times he'd woken up to find he was physically fighting with his wife (note: he was fighting with her, not beating the shit out of her). He told me about other times, when he'd had his wife by her neck against the wall, even when she was pregnant. I was terrified. She had deliberately antagonised him into doing it though; I would be ok if I didn't deliberately antagonise him. 

After I'd stopped seeing him, been to counselling, and felt stronger, I gave him a chance nobody thought I should give. I gave him the name and number of a lady who works for Splitz, and runs extended, long-term counselling sessions for perpetrators of domestic abuse. I told him that if he would sign up for the counselling, I would begin talking about his having regular access to S. He avoided the subject for a couple of weeks, before saying to me one day (while he was recording the conversation without my knowledge), "you make out like I hit you or something." Because he hadn't hit me, he'd done nothing wrong. I was doing my usual trick of over-reacting, making mountains out of molehills, lying.

Many women who are in horrible, abusive and controlling relationships will not have black eyes and bruises. They may never be physically attacked. That doesn't mean they're not living in hell. My ex didn't need to hit me to keep me in my place; he had broken me mentally over a long period when I was very vulnerable. I did as I was told. What he hates about me now, is not that I have taken his daughter away from him; his actions have proved many times over just how little he cares for her. What bothers him is that he can no longer control me. I escaped, and he hates it.

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Projection and Parenting

I read something interesting in my Child Development course book today: our relationships with each other usually depend on some sort of mental representation of the other person; this representation often includes elements of our own thoughts and feelings, as well as the other person's actions etc.

Say, for example, you have a child who wants your attention all the time - but you are busy. You have a house to clean, work to do, people to see. You don't have time to sit on the floor and read the same book over and over again.

"I absolutely must hold your hand and
 cling to you while I watch  TV."

You might think of this child as being controlling, trying to interfere and prevent you from doing the things you need to. The child is trying to manipulate you into reading her favourite book. Your mental representation of her is not based solely on her actions, but also your interpretation of them.

From the child's point of view, though, she is too young to understand that you need to do the washing up or there won't be clean plates for tea. Children are not born with an innate understanding of these things. Her demanding behaviour is much more straightforward than any sort of manipulation or control: she just wants your attention. She just likes that book, and wants you to read it to her. There is no game-plan, no ulterior motive.

This is the concept of projection, and it's used a lot in parenting manuals, when they tell you that your child is trying to control and manipulate you. How does a baby even know how to do those things? The child just wants a cuddle, some attention. That is what children thrive on.

You know that saying about how when someone does something that really winds you up, it's usually because it's something you do? That's projection. We often handle our feelings by seeing them as partially located in other people. This is something it's worth bearing in mind generally, but especially when it comes to interaction with our children.

This is not something I just thought up out of my head, it's not something from some wishy washy hippie magazine or website; it's in a university course book, written by a respected lecturer in child development. Therefore I'm more inclined to listen to him than any self-proclaimed "expert."

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Adventures in the Kissing of Frogs

The ex was by far the worst, but by no means the first. Here is a brief list of some of the other frogs I've kissed...

I must've been drunk to put up with this...

• When I was at college I briefly went out with a boy a couple of years older than me. He went away somewhere for half term, and called me on the Friday to say he was staying longer than expected, so wouldn't see me on Valentine's day, and could I please get up the next morning and call into his work and tell them he was too ill to come in. When he came back he sat down on a bench with me and told me he'd met a girl while he was away, and he thought she really could be "the one" so he felt he had to pursue it.
• There was the coke head who spent hours chatting me up while I worked in a pub, and would often tell his friends "yeah I'll catch you up in a minute" before leaving with me in the opposite direction - surefire way to ensure the friends hate the girlfriend. I later found out (from his supposed best friend) that the whole time he was with me, he was chasing after his ex. He told me afterwards that he had always been in love with her - as if this was supposed to make me feel better about it.
• The coke head's friend, who saw his chance when we split. He asked me out... I don't think we ever went on a date, I told him I wasn't interested. For the next couple of months I would get text messages at all hours of the day and night ranging between "oh please just go out with me I think you're lovely" and "you're such a cold hearted bitch." He drank a lot, and it seems at those times I was at the forefront of his mind. In the end I had to ask his father to make him stop texting me.
• The one my friends called "horse face" because he looked like a horse. Never took me anywhere, never did anything. Dumped me by just plain ignoring me - even though we were the only two people in the room.
• The cute one my housemates were convinced was gay. Had recently split with his short, blonde ex. Clearly didn't fancy being single over Christmas, or grovelling to her. Dumped me in the New Year by saying he didn't have time for a girlfriend... before going back to his ex, and then bringing her into the pub where I worked to show her off.
• The one who, every Tuesday, had "movie night" with a female friend. They would get roaring drunk and watch porn together before falling asleep/passing out in his bed. He couldn't understand why I had a problem with it.
• The one who was married "in name only," they were more like best friends, but they owned a house together and couldn't sell in the current climate. I found out later that he and his wife were very much together, and he had told lies on top of lies, on top of lies. About the most ridiculous things. The most ridiculous was when he told me he'd got food poisoning from a group meal he never attended, and called in sick for work telling them he'd got food poisoning from having gone-off milk on his cereal. Nobody knows what he was really up to. He seemed surprised when I turned up on his doorstep with a bag full of his stuff and told him to get knotted.
• There was one who really hated for me to use the internet at all, especially the blog I'd been maintaining for years before I met him. Went mental at me one Christmas after finding out I'd started a Facebook account. Spent the entire festive period telling me he wasn't sure he could handle it and we might have to split up. I found out later he'd had a Facebook for years.
• Another guy was manager in a hotel, and I would go and stay with him there. He owned a house with his ex, but they couldn't afford to sell it yet; he didn't want to take me home and rub her nose in the fact they'd split up. One day, out shopping, I got a call asking if I'd been sleeping with this guy. I asked why and the voice responded, "he's my fiance." I texted him asking what the hell was going on, and he replied asking me to please just lie to the girl and tell her there had been nothing going on between us.
• One guy I went out with was always either drunk, stoned or both on the weekends. We'd arrange for him to meet me from work at 3pm, but he never showed. Sometimes I would go round to his house, and find him still in bed asleep. He stopped speaking to me just before Christmas, presumably to avoid buying me a present, and then sent me an email mid-January from Leeds, where he had suddenly moved to.
• There was one guy who ran a pub; he used to come over on Friday nights with a bottle of vodka and proceed to get completely smashed, before we'd even left the house to go anywhere. I had to get drunk too. That was usually the one night a week I saw him. I don't even remember why we stopped seeing each other, but he then started seeing a "friend" of mine. I heard that the pub was closed down after a drugs raid.
• Then there was the guy who had split with his girlfriend a few months ago and moved in with his mother - but was going back to the house he owned with the ex on weekends, to fix it up ready to sell. He dumped me right before Christmas because he'd decided, despite telling me a million times that it could never happen, to go back to the ex and try again.
• A guy I had worked with a few years previously found me on Facebook and asked me out. I used to catch him checking out his muscles in mirrors, windows, any reflective surface. We went out about three times, and against my better judgement I went to his parents' house for Sunday lunch one weekend. He didn't live around here, but came back to visit at weekends. A couple of weeks later he invited me to his parents' place again. When I told him, I'm sure your family would rather see just you, since they don't see you often, his response was "you're part of the family now!" I ran for the hills. He was very bitter over the terrible way he believed I had treated him. 

Now you all know why I eat so much chocolate.

This post is not an attempt at revenge on those who have wronged me; I think this list says more about me than any of the men involved.

That said, if you recognise yourself in this list, and are offended... well, I'm not sorry; perhaps you should try to be less of a twat.

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Guest Post from Mummy With Issues

Today I am pleased to have a guest post from Mummy With Issues.
She doesn't have a blog, and for reasons that will become clear, she remains anonymous. She has written a brief account of the start of an abusive relationship...

Six years ago I moved. I wanted to get away from the life that had become boring to me. I wanted to meet new people, and I wanted to have more fun. I moved almost 300 miles away from my family, found a place to live, found a job, and two days after I landed, I met a man.

Our relationship was very intense. Within 2 months, we were living together. I hadn't really had a chance to meet anyone else, but that was ok, because I had him...

He would drop me off at work, and he would pick me up from work because that's what good boyfriends do right? Sometimes he would stay and have a drink at the bar, and the other blokes would avoid getting into a conversation with me. I just thought they were being considerate to my boyfriend... I didn't realise they were being considerate to me.

Everywhere we went, we went together. I was quickly immersed into his family, who I treated as my own family. His mother became my mother. My Mum was 300 miles away, and sometimes a girl needs a mum right there. I adored his family. I bought his nieces clothes and make up, and helped them with advice about their hairstyles and boys. I played football with his nephews. I changed the babies nappies, and fed them. They were my family.

Things were ok, but still intense and we were still always together. 6 months later, the pub bar work was starting to cause some problems. He didn't like that I had banter with the other men, so I changed to hotel bar work. This was more acceptable, as it was business men that I would be serving and they wouldn't 'talk down to me' with their banter.

This job went well for another 6 months, until the night that it was quiet, and they said I could go home early. My phone was out of credit, so I couldn't call my boyfriend to ask him to come and get me. One of the guys offered to give me a lift back and I accepted. I guess, that was my first mistake.

When I walked through the front door, he was cleaning the fish tank out. There were buckets of dirty water everywhere and he just glared at me. Asked what I was doing home already. I was obviously trying to catch him out with another girl. I was sneaking about. Had I even been to work that night?

It didn't matter how much I tried to reason with him, he wouldn't listen. Yes I had been at work. It was quiet. They said I could leave and still get paid for the full shift. I had no credit on my phone to call him.

Eventually he said that he had to finish cleaning out the fish tank. We had tropical fish. They couldn't wait. I made a cup of tea and went to bed confused about the way that he had spoken to me. Was I being dramatic?
The next morning it was like the argument hadn't even took place. We got up, had breakfast and went out to visit family. I don't remember feeling weird. I don't remember feeling on edge. I've always been the type to argue and then forget about it. I don't generally hold grudges as I think they just make you rot from the inside out.
I wasn't working that weekend so we decided to go out. We met up with friends, played pool, and I had a couple of drinks. He wasn't drinking because he was driving. One of our female friends fancied the barman there, and she asked me to speak to him for her. That was fine, I had no interest in him, but I could talk to anyone and I agreed to talk to him for her, explaining that she was shy, but would he take her number and give her a call maybe? He agreed, so that made two happy people... I hadn't realised that my boyfriend was getting more and more annoyed by the fact that I was 'flirting' with the barman. That the number I had handed over MUST have been mine...
My boyfriend decided to leave the bar, and I followed. He got into the car, and so did I. He decided that he was going to drive home as fast as he possibly could, and I couldn't do anything about it. I remember gripping the car seat. I remember holding onto the door. I remember thinking that he was going to crash straight into a lamppost, but he braked at the last minute.
My knuckles had turned white, and I had my first ever panic attack. This wasn't fun. I had never been made to feel like that in my life. He had scared me.
He parked the car and we went up to the flat. Within two minutes there was a knock at the door and one of his friends came in. I made everyone a cup of tea and his friend asked what the hell was going on. He'd followed in his car, and had seen us nearly hit that lamppost head on. He didn't understand. Neither did I.
Was this my fault? Had I been flirting with that barman? Had I 'looked' like I was flirting with that barman?
I tried to explain things again. I was giving him a friends number. He knew she was shy. I was just trying to help. I'd be more considerate of his feelings in the future. I was sorry...

Does any of this sound familiar to you? It does to me...
If you are affected by domestic abuse, don't just put up with it. Speak to Womens Aid or the National DV Helpline. Call your GP, the police, your mum, your neighbour. The first step is the hardest but it is so worth it.

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Early Motherhood: A Single Mum

This is the latest in a series of posts about my experiences of early motherhood. It follows on from this post. 

The story begins here.

The next morning, a Friday, I woke up and found the ex's message from the night before. I replied that he knew very well I had not used him for material possessions, and hadn't asked him for any of the things he'd bought. I told him I would much rather have had his emotional support over the last few weeks.

Distraught, I told him what the health visitor had said and gave him her number. I called, and he answered briefly - to say "I'm not calling that bitch when you've already told her a pack of lies about me and made me look bad." before hanging up.

We texted back and forth a little. He told me this was all my own doing, that I was hurting him and his children, not allowing any of them to have proper contact with S. "Fucking grow up, you pathetic bitch."

On the Saturday morning I was in town, buying school clothes for his kids. I tried to call to ask what size trousers to buy for his daughter, but he didn't answer. Instead he texted, asking what I wanted. Knowing how things had previously gone in this situation, I asked him if he had someone there. His response was "no, I'm not in the mood for sex... might I suggest you don't ask questions that you don't want to know the answer to."

I kept trying to explain to him: his life was more or less the same, but mine had changed massively and very suddenly; I had not been prepared for it, and was struggling to adjust. I asked him to please allow me a little time but he kept telling me I was deliberately hurting him and his children and that he had known it would turn out like this. He kept telling me to fuck off, but when I referred to his having dumped me, his response was always that as far as he was concerned we were still together, and that I should have the guts to dump him.

I offered to bring S to his house over the weekend to visit, but he told me that was a bad idea.  He said I could come up during the week, but only for the evening and not overnight. He told me that until I was prepared to show some commitment to him and his children, he was not prepared to carry on with things the way they had been. He accused me of being deceptive and manipulative and making myself deliberately isolated so as to get attention.  "The ball's in your court Victoria, grow up or lose me."

On the Sunday, he texted asking how S was. It was the first time had enquired as to her wellbeing since he'd stormed out on the Thursday.

I spoke to the health visitor again on the Monday morning and told her I thought he was going to split up with me, and I was petrified. She said that since she was visiting again in a couple of days to weigh S, I could invite him to come to that, and she would try and talk to both of us and help us sort it out. I said ok, and asked him if he would come to the appointment. He refused, citing again the terrible lies I must have told the health visitor about him; she obviously hated him now just like the midwife

I suggested I could meet him from work one day in the week, and go with him to pick his children up from school, as a surprise. He told me no, he wanted to know how often I was planning on coming to his house, and that he was sick of his children being fucked around. He was still too pissed off with me to speak on the phone; didn't I know his daughter had been crying for a week because of me? He complained he was too tired to talk properly, but he pushed me for an answer as to how often I would come to his house. Eventually, in a panic at the thought of losing him, I said I would stay 3 or 4 nights a week, but would need to build up gradually.

The idea of building up gradually had never appealed to him; when I first started seeing him, I had to be there all the time. Every time we split up while I was pregnant, when I came back I suggested we start with one night a week and build up, but I was told it was all or nothing; I had to be there all the time. We had eventually agreed that I would stay there one night a week, but I had never realised this had meant we weren't together, and that he'd had various other people staying on the nights I wasn't there.

This time was no exception; I wasn't allowed to gradually get used to staying at his house with S. He was not willing to put up with my games any longer.

On the Tuesday morning, I awoke to this message:

I don't want to keep doing this all my life, I am not going to keep walking on egg shells, I don't want to keep waiting for the next time you decide you can take coming over here.

I don't want to keep being hurt, I don't want my kids to keep being hurt, my kids need stability, they need someone who will always be there, someone who won't let them down.

I am sorry this is in a text but if I was talking I would not be able to get my thoughts out in any kind of coherence. 

I love you and I will always be here for you but not as in my partner.

I will come to see you both on Thursday if you would decide what days you would like for me to come over and visit and what days you would be willing to bring S over to see the kids.

I am sorry and I do love you and this is not easy but this cannot continue. 

I was fuming. The only reason I had been in and out of his kids' lives for the past few months was because he kept splitting up with me, kicking me out in the middle of the night and banishing me from the house.  I was so angry; I had gone into labour 5 weeks early, spent 10 days in hospital with a poorly baby, my life had been turned upside down... and yet somehow everything was still about him, what he wanted, how he felt.

Despite this, I knew that now if we were not going to be together I had to try and bite my tongue and not start a row; we needed to make an effort to get on so that S did not suffer. Because I couldn't trust myself not to be very nasty, I did not reply to the message. I had a little cry, and tried to just pick myself up and move on. I didn't tell many people what had happened, because I was too embarrassed. As the day went on, I realised that this day was no different than most of the ones that had come before it: we got up, we went out for a walk, I fed S, I changed her nappies and her clothes, we saw some friends, watched some TV. It didn't make a difference that I was now a single mother. None at all, so far.

Late that evening, when he had still not heard from me, the ex sent me a message:

God I bet you are loving all the sympathy and attention  now aren't you. Will tell everyone how I'm not seeing the baby, how I have dumped you. Bet you have not told them how you refused to bring the baby here or how you lock her in my room or how you use her as a bartering chip blackmailing the kids with her!!!!!!!

Again, I didn't answer. I didn't want to be drawn into yet another row. He was too quick for me in these situations, and I often ended up floundering, with no idea how to get my point across. He had done this to me throughout my pregnancy, accusing me of all sorts and never pausing for breath so that I could have my say. I didn't want to do it any more; I was exhausted and just wanted to move forward. Because I hadn't replied, there was another message:

And now you will just ignore and not answer, that's ok because now I have sorted  my benefits I can see a solicitor if you want to play it that way!!!

He knew that was the way to get me to respond. Throughout my pregnancy, whenever we had split up I had made a big effort to try and remain in contact and friends with him. I had spent my adolescence watching my mother and her ex-partner go to and fro to court arguing over my younger sisters, and how that had affected everyone concerned. He knew that was my worst nightmare, and that through everything I had always wanted him to maintain a relationship with my child. So I answered, telling him that I had deliberately avoided answering so as not to have a fight, and asking him to please not get a solicitor; I would rather that time, money and effort was spent on our child. I told him I was not loving any of it; I had hoped we could work things out. His response was that this was just like every other time, and I had deliberately caused this situation for the attention. I was tired and going to bed, so I just told him that now my daughter was my number one priority, and that we needed to be civil to each other for her sake. He replied that I was my number one priority, not my daughter. He said we should sort everything through solicitors and the CSA, "then me and my children can see my child!" again I told him I would rather all that time and effort was taken with S. I pointed out that solicitors would take a long time, and that I was not stopping him from seeing S. I said I was too tired to argue, and he told me to stop playing the damsel in distress.

I asked him to let me know if he was still coming to visit on Thursday, before his Anger Management appointment, then I switched my phone off and went to bed.

S was not yet a month old, and now I was a single mother.

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Wordless Wednesday: I Love You...

This has pride of place above the bed I share with S.

Awesome gift from Dagian Crafts.

Early Motherhood: Things Fall Apart

This is one of a series of posts about S's birth and my first few weeks of motherhood. The first post in the series is here.

The morning after I had looked after the ex's children overnight, I was exhausted and miserable. I could not see a way this was going to work at all. I was barely able to cope with looking after S and getting into a routine at my house, without having to add in several nights a week at the ex's house, being poked and prodded by his children and expected to do everything he wanted.

That morning we headed home for a visit from the health visitor. I'd only met her once before, but she seemed nice. She came in and sat down opposite me and asked how I was. I burst out crying. I felt I was doing everything wrong, and that I shouldn't be finding everything this hard. Normal people didn't find motherhood this hard; the ex kept telling me, "it's just a baby, anyone can do it, it's not difficult!" As I cried, the ex stood leaning against a table on the opposite side of the room, watching but not saying or doing anything. She reassured me, and told me I needed to take better care of myself. She said I didn't look well, and that I was a high risk for postnatal depression and needed to bear that in mind. She told me to stop setting an alarm to feed S overnight, and to only feed her when she woke. That scared the crap out of me, but I agreed to it. The ex saw her out, and as she left I could hear her telling him he needed to reassure me I was doing a good job. He said he kept telling me I was. That night I left S to sleep and didn't wake her to feed her. She only woke once. When I texted the ex to tell him, he replied with "she would have always slept through if you had let her."

Over the next couple of days I didn't see the ex much. Instead he would go home from work, and send me texts saying his daughter was crying her eyes out because I wasn't there with S. I remember one evening, S had been feeding constantly since about 5pm. I would put her down after feeding, and have enough time to go to the toilet and maybe change her nappy, before she wanted feeding again. Nobody had told me about growth spurts, I didn't know what was going on. I was so hungry but there was nothing in the kitchen I could just grab as a quick snack in between feeding. I felt like I was pretty much stuck to the couch. At 9pm I gave in and called the ex. He had left my house at 4pm and gone to pick his kids up from the neighbour's house. He was still there when he answered the phone, and he was drunk. He seemed to be getting drunk in the evenings a lot lately. I told him what was happening, and that I didn't know what to do. I thought since he kept reminding me he'd already had 6 kids, he might have an answer for me. All I remember is him saying "oh well" and pretty much hanging up on me. I sat and cried and wondered for the millionth time, how the hell am I going to make this work?

I spoke to the health visitor on the phone and explained (through massive, heaving sobs) that I was having trouble settling into my new life, and that the ex expected me to be spending a lot of time at his house. I think as far as he was concerned, my place was somewhere we would just have for the sake of appearance, so that I could claim the benefits I would receive as a single mother, and so that S and I had somewhere to stay from time to time if it got too much at his house. He wanted us living with us. He was cross that I had been housed in an estate on the opposite side of town from him; he had expected me to get a place round the corner from him, so that he and his kids could come and go as they pleased. He'd also talked of bringing all 6 kids to my house to stay over once or twice a week. The disruption this would cause for everyone, the fact their school was a long way from my house, the fact I only had 2 small bedrooms, was of no concern. I blurted out all of this, telling her I couldn't cope with it; I couldn't even cope with me and my baby in our house, surrounded by all of our things - much less coping with us plus the ex, 6 children, the chickens in the bathroom, the dog, the cat, the snakes, the front door without a lock, the mess, the lack of space for our things, the noise, the chaos. It's not that there was a lack of routine; there was a distinct resistance against routine. He didn't like for anything to be predictable, in any way. 

Looking back, I realise now that the refusal to have any sort of routine was another way to assert control over people. He was entirely unpredictable, in every way possible. You could never say for sure, "if I do this, he will be pleased... if I do that, he will be cross." It changed hourly. 

He had also been pestering me for sex. I don't mean just asking when we would have sex, I mean telling me exactly how many days it had been since we'd had sex (not since he'd had sex; I found out later he'd been sleeping with his ex girlfriend the whole time, and probably others as well). He told me we should be trying for another baby already, because he thought children should be close in age. There are 11 months between his second son and oldest daughter, and 13 months between his two youngest girls. He wanted the same for S. When I told him I was still in pain, still bleeding, and sex was the furthest thing from my mind, he demanded I pull down my underwear so that he could inspect the situation. When I still said I felt uncomfortable having sex yet, he demanded oral sex. I tried, but my heart wasn't in it. He made an excuse and left, and spent the next day sulking at home, refusing to visit us even though he wasn't working.

The health visitor told me that I should give myself time to adjust, and not to go to the ex's house for at least a week or so; he could come to visit us at my house if he wanted to see us, but it was important that we get used to our home and settle in properly. She told me if he had a problem with this, I should tell him, "the health visitor has told me to do this," and that if he wasn't happy I should give him her number, and she would explain it to him. I was petrified of this; he would be angry to think I had said anything negative about him to her. 

That Thursday afternoon, he had an appointment for hypnotherapy (for his "anger issues") after work. In the hour or so in between, he came to see us. As soon as he came in, he turned the heating up, complaining it was too cold. I asked him not to, because I couldn't afford the gas bill. He told me not to be so stupid; he wasn't going to see me go without, he would put money on the gas if I needed him to. Five minutes later, he went upstairs and closed a window I had left cracked open to keep air circulating. I distinctly remember him coming down and saying "the window was open in the baby's room!" He always called her that, never by her name; she was just "the baby." He sat on the sofa, holding S and we barely spoke. He asked if I was coming to his house the next day and I said I wasn't sure. He asked what I was doing over the weekend, and I said I didn't know yet. I didn't want to tell him I definitely wasn't coming to his house for a while, because I was scared of what his reaction would be. 

His appointment was soon, but I felt that we'd hardly seen him. I suggested I get ready and we walk with him to his appointment. It was his first one, and I knew he was nervous so I thought it might be nice if we walked him down there. He said ok, and I started getting things together. I said to him, if you put S's snowsuit on, I'll get my shoes and the sling ready... He said he couldn't put her snowsuit on; he was too stressed. I bit my tongue, and went and got the snowsuit myself. When I came back, he asked if I had given S a bath at home yet. I told him no, because he had told me throughout my pregnancy that all of his kids' first baths had been in the bath he had his first bath in, and that he had done them, and should do S's first bath too. He had still not been into his loft to find the bath though, and I doubted he ever would; still, I was scared to go against his wishes, so S was yet to have a bath. He made a comment and I replied, "well to be fair, you don't really seem bothered about the bath, or anything else; you don't even change her nappies." At that he stood up, plonked S down in her bouncy chair, and stormed out.

Five minutes later, he called me and asked, "how do you expect this to work if you refuse to spend any time at my house?" I didn't have an answer, and he hung up. Later I received a text message: "At the end of the day, if you want to keep S from her brothers and sisters, her kin, her family, on your head and your conscience be it!" I replied that I had been finding things really hard and had spent most of the last week crying, that I had been trying to still do everything he expected but was finding it tough and had never realised things would be this difficult. I tried to explain that my life had changed massively in the blink of an eye, and I needed time to adjust. The response I got was: "You're the one making it blatantly obvious with your totally cold and uncaring attitude toward me and my children that you don't want or need to be with me. Mind you, you are totally set up no aren't you, I have set you up with everything you needed, wanted. I no longer have a purpose, no need to pretend to care for me or the kids!!"

I now know that by this point he was actively pursuing another woman, who lived a lot closer, and had a baby boy not much older than S. Within a week, she would be his new girlfriend.

The story continues here

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Early Motherhood: The Overnight Babysitting Shift

This follows on from a series of posts about S's birth and my first few weeks of motherhood. The first post is here.

While I was still pregnant, the ex had told me of his idea to allow him to spend more time with me and the baby - he would do one or two sleep-in shifts a month at work. This would mean he slept at work, coming home at 7am and could spend the whole day with us without his kids being around. We could play house at my place, go on day trips, out to lunch, whatever we wanted. I agreed to look after his kids overnight on the two nights a month he did his sleep-ins, and he spoke to his boss to change the rotas. Then S was born early, and I forgot all about it.

When we had been out of the hospital a week, the ex broke it to me that he was scheduled to work a full day from 7am that Sunday - and then to sleep in as well. He wanted me to stay at his house on the Saturday night and look after his 6 children for over 24 hours on my own. I said no, I couldn't cope with that so he agreed to get a sitter to have the children for part of the Sunday. I told him I really wasn't comfortable having them through the day on Sunday as well as overnight, so in the end he relented, and I didn't have to go over to his house until 4pm on the Sunday. There was nowhere for S to sleep at his house though, and although she could sleep in the pram, I couldn't get that down the stairs from the flat on my own. As is his style, everything was left to the last minute. Eventually (at lunch time on the day) it was agreed the ex's sister would come and give me a lift. She picked us up with all our stuff, and took us to his house. I remember going through the door and thinking, how the hell am I going to get through this? The children were nowhere to be seen. His sister helped me bring the Moses basket and changing bag into the house, and stood in the doorway asking if I was ok, did I want her to hang around? She'd already lectured me on the way over about perhaps going back onto my medication if I wasn't coping. I was tempted to say to her, "if you were prepared to stick around why the hell aren't you looking after his kids overnight instead of me?!" I wasn't impressed at being cajoled into doing this so soon after leaving hospital, but knew there was no way I could refuse; after all, the ex was only doing the shift because I'd agreed to take care of the children. In the end the sister left. That was the last time I saw or heard from her.

One of the only photos of S asleep on her father's bed

I had been told I needed to cook tea for the children, and although I had been told to get there for 4, they would now not be home until 5. I cooked a big pot of pasta and tomato sauce, and waited. 5pm came and went. I texted and called the ex; he had no idea where his children were, or why they weren't home. He didn't seem particularly bothered either. I was growing increasingly irritated; I'd dragged my child out of our home into this hell hole with nowhere comfortable to sit, nothing clean, nowhere to put her down, nothing to do. And we were just standing around, waiting. I kept S in the sling because I didn't want to leave her in the Moses basket or anywhere else in the house - it was a filthy mess, and since there were no doors on hinges, I couldn't leave her anywhere the dog couldn't get to her. While I'd been in hospital the chicks we'd been incubating had hatched, and there were now 6 baby chicks in 2 cages, under a heat lamp in the bathroom. The heat and smell were overwhelming, and although the bathroom door was kept closed, the whole house stank. I shut myself in the bedroom and opened the window in the hope of getting some fresh air.

Eventually word came through that the children were at their grandad's watching a film, and would be home when it finished; they had also had tea. Eventually the younger children came home. It was late and I was tired. I let them come in to see S, and we chatted a little. I explained it was late, and asked the 4 and 5-year-old to please get ready for bed, then S and I would come and read them a story. We did that, and they went to sleep. The older children were less easy to cope with. I let one of them go back out to play on the proviso that he stay on the green out front, and come back in as soon as the street lamps came on. He disappeared. One of the other boys did the same. The eldest boy came in for a chat, and then also disappeared. The eldest girl came and sat on the end of the bed and chatted to me for a while. I think she'd missed having me around, and wanted to tell me all about everything that had been going on. I had asked the ex to at least make sure there were school uniforms washed and ready before he went to work, but he hadn't so his eldest daughter started about finding all the clothes and making sure they were clean. It was usually her responsibility to do this for her younger sisters any way. She found their clothes, but couldn't find her school trousers. She thought perhaps they were at her grandad's house, and wanted to go back there to get them. I couldn't let her out of the house now as it was almost dark. There was a brief tantrum before she found the trousers, under a pile of other clothes.

Eventually the boys came home, and I asked them to put the tea I'd made into a container in the fridge for tomorrow night. I could hear them play-fighting and mucking about downstairs. By this point it was past 9pm. I had to feed S again at 10, and was desperate for them to be in bed by the time I did that, so that I could get some rest before the next feed at 1am. I asked the eldest girl to go to bed, and she did to start with, but she could hear her brothers messing about downstairs and went to join them. I had 4 unruly children banging about downstairs and a baby that needed feeding. I was so tired and stressed, I didn't know what to do. I called the ex, and he told me to hit them. I told him he knew I couldn't do that. He told me to go next door and get his other sister; she would hit them. I refused to do that, either. In the end, I left S in her Moses basket and stood at the top of the stairs. I shouted down to them, "I don't care whether you go to bed or not, but I am going to bed now and you need to be quiet." I went back into the bedroom and fed S. Eventually the children came upstairs and wanted to come in and see S but she was asleep, and I wanted to be so I told them no. There were tears and more tantrums, and eventually they all went to bed.

S asleep on me. Behind her you can see some of the
piles of crap that were a major feature of the house.

The next morning, nobody wanted to get up for school. I told them if they could get themselves up and ready in time, they could come into the bedroom and see S before they left. Still nobody moved. The eldest girl was in a shocking mood from lack of sleep, and was screaming at her sisters. I went in and asked her to please just get herself dressed and help her sisters for me. In the boys' room, nobody was moving. I did some strategic removal of duvets, and bodies began to stir. The eldest girl was still screaming at her sisters. I was nearly in tears by this point; I'd had no sleep and was exhausted. I said to the eldest girl, "what makes you think I want you to spend time with my daughter when you treat your other sisters like this?!" She still didn't stop shouting at them, calling them names, pulling their hair and making them scream. This was the norm for them; it was her job to get them up and dressed for school (as well as bath time, putting them to bed, de-ntting their hair, weekend meals... anything else you'd think of as a parent's job), and she resented them for it. She was ten, and this had been her role for the last 2 years. I didn't really blame her for it, I just wanted her to be quiet this morning.

The ex arrived home and began shouting at the children. They all soon got dressed for school and wanted to come in and see S. I said no, because we had made a deal that they could come and spend time with her only if they got ready for school on time; it was now time to leave the house. I thought I would be there again in a few days, and that they could spend time with her again then. I didn't know what was coming. Their older brother took them to school, then came home to pick up his things before heading off to secondary school. As he was leaving he said to his dad, "oh, when I made the sandwiches for school there wasn't enough ham or bread, so I made sure the younger ones had lunch, and I'll just get something when I get home." The ex went mad at him, shouting that the boy would be making him look bad at school if he turned up without a lunch. He gave him £10 and said "make sure you buy some lunch in the canteen with this so they see I've provided for you." The boy went to school. By this point I had packed up all mine and S's things, and was waiting in the living room for the ex to get himself ready to leave; we had to be at my house for a visit from the health visitor. 

Eventually we left, and went to the bus stop. When the bus arrived, the girl the ex had got pregnant a few weeks previously got off right in front of me. I felt sick. I had tried my best to just ignore the whole situation, but now I was faced with it again. She pulled a face at us both, and walked off. When we got on the bus I sat at the front with the pram, and the ex went and sat right at the back of the bus. He said he had to do this; he couldn't take up the seats for the elderly or disabled at the front. I would have believed him, but the bus was empty. He sat at the back of the bus, sending me text messages about how the other girl had deliberately lit a cigarette as the bus went past her; she was taunting him because he'd asked her not to smoke while she was pregnant. He complained that he had bought her pregnancy vitamins, but was sure she wasn't taking them; she looked pasty and ill. I wanted to say to him, She's always looked that way; if you find her so disgusting why did you sleep with her when I was your girlfriend and pregnant with your child? I thought that was probably a bad idea though, so I sat in silence and prayed I would never run into her again.

That was the last time I went to that house, though I didn't realise it at the time. I remember spending the entire time looking around me, trying to figure out how the hell my baby could ever live in this place. There was no space for her, or for her things. Where would she learn to crawl? How would she survive without picking up and munching on the lid of a bleach bottle, or discarded cat food, or crawling through dog pee that hadn't been mopped up properly because a 7-year-old had been sent to do it? How would I keep her from playing with the dirty, bleachy mop bucket that was usually left hanging around the kitchen for days at a time? It was so dark in that house, everything seemed so miserable and out of place. I kept trying to figure out how the hell I could ever make this work.

The story continues here.

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Mother's Day...

I spent Mother's Day last year with the ex and his 6 children.

I didn't think it appropriate to post photos of the children,
 so here is a picture one of them drew of me last year, pregnant with S. 

He hadn't got a card for his mother, so I sat with his son and we made one. Then they got some eggs from the chickens, and one of the older kids took them round to her.

The two youngest girls had made Mother's Day gifts to give to their older (10-year-old) sister, because to all intents and purposes, she is their mother. 

As is usual for a Sunday, we didn't do much through the day. In the afternoon we decided to cook a big roast dinner, and invite the babysitter and her boyfriend over. We prepared vegetables and the ex cooked it all. The babysitter showed me a video of two of the children wrestling on the kitchen floor, that she'd taken when she'd been there in the week - the ex had gotten hideously drunk with her boyfriend, and the kids had been up late, play-fighting. 

There were just enough plates for all 10 of us, but not enough cutlery. There was one knife between the 4 adults, and most of the kids ate with spoons. The kids ate in the living room, whilst watching a dvd. The adults cleared space on the kitchen table and ate there.

After dinner the ex's youngest child, a beautiful 4-year-old girl who hadn't seen her own mother since she was 2, came out to the kitchen and told me she wished I were her mother. I tried not to let her see me getting all emotional, and blamed the pregnancy hormones. It broke my heart though; a few days previously she had come into the bedroom and lay down next to her dad, saying "I used to have a mum once, didn't I? And she did love me, didn't she?"

Before bed time, I sat with some of the children and did some school work. With the youngest, we had a sheet of paper with a letter in the middle, and we thought of all the words we could that began with that letter. I think we were up to F or G by that point, and it was proving tricky. She did quite well though, and we wrote them out together.  The older children did Maths problems I think. The oldest girl did one of those 11+ practise papers you get in those books. I remember sitting with her and going through the answers for the English questions.

This Mother's Day... it's been almost a year since I saw those children. I miss them like mad, all the time. I wonder what they're up to, whether their lives are any more settled and less chaotic. I know their lives are worse than when I was there though, and that there's nothing I can do about it. 

But I can't be sad; I have my little girl, and she is perfect. She is celebrating Mother's Day by banging my mobile phone on the floor and shouting at the TV.

This is not how I thought my first ever Mother's Day would be... I'm a bit surprised at the way it's made me think about last year, and about the children I try so hard not to think about. But I'm happy as I am. We're both happy.

Happy Mothers Day.

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Early Motherhood - The End of the Paternity Leave

This post is one of a series I have written about S's birth and first few weeks of life. The first part is here.

The next few weeks were very stressful and confusing for me. 

I have already posted about how the ex hated my midwife, and I was therefore keen to have her discharge us from hospital care. S was still jaundiced, and I was terrified they would take her back into hospital; I knew if they did this, I wouldn't be admitted with her, and would have to be separated from her. That first visit, the midwife did another heel-prick test on S for her jaundice levels and weighed her. She had lost a bit of weight and I nearly cried. She told me the best thing to do was to feed, feed, feed, and to prop up the head end of her Moses basket to avoid any vomiting. I was also supposed to express milk into a cup or syringe, and top her up after feeding. This was the most depressing thing, as I didn't have a pump and had to do it by hand; it took ages and hurt, and was often wasted as S turned her head away at the wrong moment. Premature and jaundiced babies are often too tired to suck enough to feed as much as they need to get rid of the jaundice and put on weight. S slept most of the time, and I was still waking her every 3 hours to feed.

My tiny girl wrapped in blankets

That first day, the ex busied himself unpacking what was left of the boxes in my flat, and putting things where he thought they should belong. He went out to get teabags, and came back with a microwave. He'd forgotten the teabags, so he went back out and came back with a vacuum cleaner, broom, dustpan and brush and mop and some random food: bread, jam, cheese. He wanted to provide for us. I avoid eating bread because it makes me ill. I already had a dustpan and brush. I don't even drink tea. When I took the mop out of its box, it was broken. When I pointed it out to him he shouted at me: "I can't do anything f***ing right can I, nothing's good enough!" All I'd meant was that perhaps he'd like to take it back to the shop and exchange it. At one point he told me he might not be able to get a sitter to be able to see me over the weekend, and gave me £20, sending me to the shops to buy some food for myself. I left S sleeping in her bouncy chair, and him organising things in a cupboard, and wandered into town. It was nice to be out in the air, but I felt like I was missing a limb without S. It also crossed my mind more than once that I might return home and find that the ex had taken her away. I half expected the house to be empty when I returned, but it wasn't so I sat on the sofa with S and fed her early.

Because of the damp upstairs, the council had brought over a dehumidifier the size of a cooker. It was in the bedroom, wired up to some special box because it was too powerful to run off the mains. The man who brought it showed the ex how to work it, but he never showed me. This meant I couldn't switch it off, and the noise and heat it generated were too much to sleep with. For the next week, S and I slept downstairs, me on the sofa and her in the Moses basket next to me. I was still setting my alarm for every 3 hours, and would wake up, switch the TV on and feed her, then settle her back into the basket, switch the TV off and go to sleep. Several times, I then woke up half an hour later in a panic - I couldn't remember putting S in her basket, had I fallen asleep holding her? Where was she? Oh God, you've suffocated the baby, where is she, where is she... oh wait, she's in the basket next to you. I would also regularly wake up in a panic, convinced I'd slept through an alarm and S had gone more than 3 hours without a feed. I was exhausted and it was driving me mad. All I could think about was making sure she was fed on time so that her jaundice went, and she put on weight, and nobody would take her away from me.

The following day the ex was unable to visit. My mother came round instead, with a friend. They brought gifts for S, clothes that would fit her which was good. I forget what we talked about. When they left, the friend gave me a hug and told me I'd done really well and S was beautiful. I didn't know how to respond to that; I wanted to shout at her, no I haven't done well! Look what I did, I went into labour early and now my baby is tiny and orange and they're going to take her away because I'm doing it all wrong!! I knew it was all my fault, that something I had done over the Easter weekend had resulted in my going into labour 5 weeks early. Throughout my pregnancy the ex had told me so many times that other women had been pregnant with his child and ended up having abortions, they'd murdered his babies, and that if anything happened to this baby he would never forgive me.

The midwife visited a couple more times, and then discharged us. I was so relieved at this; no more tension with the ex thinking I was telling the midwife bad things about him. More importantly, if the midwife had discharged us then I thought she must think I was doing an ok job, and wouldn't take my baby away. I was petrified those first few weeks that I would be somehow "found out" and they would take S back to the hospital, where she would be safe away from me.

My little orange baby!

The pushchair I had bought was quite large and cumbersome. I found that I wasn't comfortable bumping it up and down the stairs with my tiny baby in it. This meant that I could only go out of the house when accompanied by the ex. If he didn't visit, or came round and didn't fancy going out, I was stuck in the house. I wanted to buy a sling, but had no money until pay day. A dear friend must have realised I was going a bit mad being stuck in the house, and posted me a sling she had not been able to get on with for her baby. The minute it arrived, I read the instructions as to how to tie it, put it on, and put S in it. That day was like a transformation in me. I didn't just wear the sling to go out; I wore it all the time, happy that I could now keep S close to me. The ex insisted S would not be warm enough in the sling, and bought a snowsuit which she had to wear whenever we went out. 

The week after we came out of hospital, we went to the council offices to register S's birth. As was standard, S was wrapped in 3 or 4 blankets inside of the pram, with a rain cover over the top because of the weather. How she never overheated during those first few weeks, I will never know. She must have been boiling. When we arrived at the office, we had to leave the pram outside and go into a waiting room. The ex carried S. He held her in the waiting room, and refused to let me near her. When we went into the office to register her, he held her. At the time I felt strange, not being allowed to hold my child. Looking back at it, I  notice that I was not allowed to hold my child until I had signed the register, put his name on the birth certificate, and answered the registrar three times that yes, I was sure I wanted her to have his surname and him to be on the birth certificate. I couldn't figure out why she kept asking me, and telling me that it was my choice, and mine alone. I held S briefly while he signed the register, but then I had to give her back. We were given copies of the birth certificate, and we left. 

I was glad when S was back in the pushchair, because I was allowed to push that. I did it wrong, of course, and was constantly told I was being stupid about waiting to cross the road and not bumping up and down kirbs. His favourite trick was to suddenly take off down a steep kirb and cross the road diagonally, then turn around to smirk at me trying to get across the road and keep up with him without getting run over. He also regularly tutted at me for being too slow and cautious. On the days we took her out in the sling, again he stormed off ahead of us, and I had to try and keep up without having S bump about too much in the sling.

None of this turned out to matter though; within a week the ex had stormed out, and a few days after that he finished with me. I was soon to become a single mother.

The happy ending is on its way... 

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