Diary Entries From Early Motherhood

Wednesday 4^th July (12 weeks, 2 days)

It seems like these days every time S wakes from a nap she has learned something new. She’s cooing and gurgling a lot more these days and reacts to my presence more, which makes life more rewarding for me. She was weighed the other day and is now on the 25^th centile line for a full-term baby. I know her father would get a massive kick out of knowing this; that sort of thing always interests him, but I daren’t contact him to tell him. S is awake more during the day now, which is fun but also difficult. We play together, but I find it mentally exhausting to not have so much time to myself.

Monday 9^th July (13 weeks)

Today S is 3 months old. I can’t believe how quickly time has gone by. I’ve been a mother for three whole months. On the whole, I do feel like I’ve come a long way since S’s father left, but I still feel like I’ve failed her somehow. This is not at all what I imagined when I was pregnant. I’m not sure how I ever thought things would work, but this situation never crossed my mind. I am tempted on a daily basis to ignore all advice and common sense and take S to see her father. I know that would be a bad move; I know the people who have advised me are right. I know it’s best to do this now, before S is even aware of what is going on, so that she never has to know what it is I need to keep her away from, before she can grow attached to someone who would no doubt be all sweetness and light and dote on his perfect little girl until the next one came along or his head was otherwise turned. I know I have to stay away and be strong, but it’s difficult. I know the things that are being said about me by certain factions who know only one side of the story, and it bothers me more than it should. I feel like I want to get up and shout at them, tell them my side of it, ask them what they would have me do to keep my daughter safe other than keep her away. Perhaps they have less regard for the way their own children are raised; I know from some of the things I have seen this may well be true, but I find it hard to believe they can condone his behaviour in any way. I don’t understand how anyone can.

Thursday 17^th July (14 weeks, 3 days)

We went to the health visitor again last week for S’s 3-month check up and it ended up being quite a boost to my confidence. She was impressed with how S can hold her head up, and how much eye contact she makes with me when she’s in the sling. S was in a good mood and smiled and cooed to the health visitor, which made me giddy with a pride I’ve never experienced before. I feel like I might actually be good at this motherhood lark, despite snide comments by my mother or unkind words from S’s father. He has been in contact again, and I sent him a picture of her. I have asked him to go to counselling, even gave him a website and a phone number. So far he has done nothing though, and I can’t put S at risk by letting him see her until he takes steps to sort himself out. She seems to be doing pretty well without his input though!

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Diary Entries From Early Motherhood

12^th June (9 weeks, 1 day)

Today S had her first set of jabs. The nurse who did them has worked at the surgery for years and knows most of my brothers and sisters; she told me S looked exactly like my younger sister Z at this age. S cried a little with the jabs, but not too much. Once I’d got her back in the sling she seemed to forget there was ever a problem! These days, every time she wakes up from a nap it’s like she’s learned a new sound or expression. It’s amazing fun to discover her latest thing. Lately our favourite way to spend time is for her to stand on my lap while we take turns in kissing each other’s noses. Well, I say kiss – she generally just opens her mouth and slobbers on me, but I’ll take that!

23^rd June (10 weeks, 5 days)

S is not really sleeping much at the moment. It’s pretty difficult because if she doesn’t sleep then neither do I. I don’t mind though; I just have a little nap in the afternoons if I get too tired. She’s started making little noises, using her voice rather than grunting. It’s so sweet to listen to! Argh she is crying again… evenings are not much fun at the moment!

24^th June (10 weeks, 6 days)

S seems to be suddenly growing and changing really quickly, we saw a friend today who said that S had definitely grown since she saw us a week ago. She interacts more now too, which makes time spent with her a lot more rewarding. I’m feeling a bit more positive about things, but it’s still difficult a lot of the time. I worry about taking her out around town in case we bump into her father; I don’t want to deal with the confrontation, the accusations. Tomorrow we are going to visit a friend to have some photos taken, and he lives really close to S’s father. I know I can’t let something like that stop me from going out and doing things, but it’s tough right now.

25th June (11 weeks)

We went to see a friend today to have photos taken. S cried throughout, so it was largely a wasted journey. We saw one of the ex's friends on the bus up there, which was a bit nerve-wracking as I'm sure she will have texted to tell him we were headed in his direction. I walked home because I was nervous standing at the bus stop waiting for the bus. That wasn't much fun either, but once we'd got off the estate it felt a lot better. Good to get some exercise. I need to sort my diet out too, I've been eating crap and it's not doing either of us any good. I need to get more organised with the house work, it's like a bomb site round here lately and it's starting to do my head in.

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Diary Entries From Early Motherhood

29^th May (7 weeks, 1 day)

Today we went to see the health visitor. They like for you to go once a month so that they can check you’re not damaging the child. When we first came out of the hospital and S’s father left we had a couple of weeks where the health visitor and her nursery nurse were coming out to see us twice a week – so once a month is really nothing, I take it as a good sign they think I can go a month without doing something awful. They seemed happy with us; I kind of feel a bit like they should be asking more questions or be more concerned, as if perhaps they’ve just not noticed I’m doing it all wrong yet. I was surprised at how short the appointment was.

Although S is 7 weeks old now, she was 5 weeks early so developmentally she’s only expected to be 2 weeks. By that expectation, she’s doing really well and very alert. People keep saying to me, Oh isn’t she alert – but I’ve nothing to compare it to. As far as I’m concerned, she’s a baby and she’s alive and kicking, no different from any other baby.

I’ve stopped trying to settle her back into her Moses basket after night feeds. Now she goes to bed in the basket, but after she wakes to feed I just put her down next to me on my bed. She seems to settle a lot more easily if she’s next to me, and it will hopefully mean I can get more sleep!

1^st June (7 weeks, 4 days)

Tomorrow is my 31^st birthday. This is not how I imagined it would be. I’m having quite a negative time at the moment if I’m honest. I know I have S but I will be spending my birthday largely alone apart from her; and she can’t exactly wish me a happy birthday or anything. She’s been fairly difficult this evening; she slept most of the day so I couldn’t get her to sleep at bed time.

I feel bad for her when she’s like this; she only has me to look after her so when I’m all frazzled and have had enough, there’s nobody to take over and be all fresh and nice with her; instead she gets me, begging and pleading with her to please just be quiet and go to sleep as I try not to cry. I wanted better for her than this, I wanted better for both of us. I didn’t want to be a single mother living alone on a council estate with no support. I feel like I’ve let us both down with the way things have turned out, S is suffering because of my poor life choices. I don’t want it to be my birthday tomorrow; I don’t want to sit here on this bloody sofa on my own, wishing I had someone to share it with. Wishing I’d done things differently, because even though I know it wasn’t my fault and her father was looking for any excuse to go and sleep with someone else, and wasn’t worth my effort any way, even though I know we are both a hundred times better off without him in our lives, it still hurts and I still feel like perhaps if I’d done something differently, things would be better for us now. As it is, I’m alone and struggling.

9^th June (8 weeks, 5 days)

This morning S’s father turned up unannounced with 3 of her siblings. We’d agreed he could bring them, but he didn’t contact me to finalise a time, so I wasn’t expecting them first thing in the morning. S wasn’t best pleased with it either, and was horribly sick all over her brother. The whole visit was quite stressful for both of us, and I was glad when they left. S was sick again a couple of times – the kind of sick that requires outfit changes for both of us – and then slept all afternoon. She didn’t even stir when I changed her and put her in her Moses basket at bed time, or when I picked her out of the basket to have her sleep in the sling because I was worried about her lack of movement. Eventually I called NHS Direct. They had me check her body for rashes etc, and although I could find nothing, they told me to take her to hospital to be on the safe side. Of course, the minute we got to the hospital she woke up and was as alert as ever, and I felt stupid; but they did check her out thoroughly so I could at least put my mind at rest.

Diary Entries from Early Motherhood

I'm still working on a proper blog post, so in the meantime here are some more diary entries from earlier this year...

19^th May (5 weeks, 5 days)

Today a visit from another dear friend: C drove all the way from Oxfordshire to see us. He had to be somewhere else though, so could only stay for an hour or so. It’s strange to see people I’ve not seen for such a long time, and jarring to think of who I was the last time I saw them. It seems incongruous to now sit before them with a sleeping baby in a bouncy chair at my feet, my only topics of conversation how she is sleeping or what is going on with her father.

My mother came round in the afternoon; I find her being in the flat at all very irritating. I always feel that she is judging me, comparing my efforts with the way she successfully dragged 6 of us through childhood with no major injuries. I wait for her to tell me I’ve done something wrong but she doesn’t; instead she makes snide remarks about how rarely she is allowed to hold her granddaughter. Since my brother is not speaking to her, my mother tries to have S play the part of the two grandchildren she doesn’t see, as well as herself. S is too small for this responsibility. I don’t have the energy for an argument over it though, so I just pretend not to hear the comments and accept the gifts graciously. I feel ungrateful because the new baby clothes do not make me happy and I am too tired to smile; I just want her to leave so that I can share S’s next nap with her, before it is too late for a nap and I have to begin the bedtime routine.

I have made black and white patterns on old postcards and stuck them on the wall next to the table where I change S’s nappy. Apparently babies like to look at simple patterns and pictures of faces. I thought it was just one of those stupid things you read that turn out to be complete crap, but when I put her down for a nappy change today, she was completely mesmerised by my crappy drawings. I feel like I’ve finally done something right; perhaps I’m not such a rubbish parent after all.

20^th May (5 weeks, 6 days)

I have started going for long walks with the pushchair in the mornings. I don’t often use the pushchair, preferring to have S in the sling close to me, but now I take her for long walks and she has a nap. It kills time when we have gotten up early in the morning and the day is stretching out before me like some endless sentence of boredom and nappy changing. Today we walked a couple of miles, and then came back into town and I bought a cloth book for S. I’m hoping my recent success with the monochrome drawings will translate to a book with crinkly pages and pictures of faces.

Today S is wearing a baby-gro her father bought for her the day after she was born. She has only just grown into it. I love it, despite its reminding me of the life I thought I would be leading now, and the massive difference between that and what I actually do with my days. It was my sister’s birthday so we all went to Harvester for a meal. S slept through most of it, which was lucky as I am not so keen on breastfeeding in public places.

21^st May (6 weeks)

Today I did not leave the house at all. I know this was a bad move, because even before I had a baby I needed to leave the house at least once a day in order to feel normal. I feel lazy. My daughter has had no fresh air all day, that can’t be a good thing for her. I was just so tired though, and there was nothing I needed to do in town, no money to go frivolously shopping for baby clothes, and most of the stuff in the shops doesn’t fit her any way. She’s still wearing clothes for a newborn. Does 6 weeks still count as newborn? It feels like she’s been here forever now, no longer new but just as precious and breakable.

Although we spent so many hours in the flat, I cannot say what we actually did. We played with the rattles my mother bought for S, but she is a bit too young to even notice they are there. We played with the book, but that appears to be the same situation.

A lady from the childrens centre came round, I think the health visitor sent her. She had that sort of look a lot of people seem to have with me lately, the “oh poor you, you’re a new mum and there’s nobody to make you a cup of tea…” sort of expression. She gave me some leaflets and we signed up to do a baby massage class. I don’t think I even offered her a drink while she was here, what a terrible hostess. I should make an effort to go down to the centre though, I know it would be Good For Me to meet other mums; it’s just depressing because other mums invariably have a husband to share things with, and they invariably have that “oh-you’re-so-brave-you-poor-thing-I-could-never-do-this-alone-and-wow-she-was-early-too-however-are-you-managing” look once they know about me. I try to like other mums and to get on with them, but I tend to just feel jealous of them, which is never an endearing quality.

22^nd May (6 weeks, 1 day)

A friend came to visit today. She does not live locally so I’d not seen her since S was born. She had a baby a few months ago herself, and seems to have had a pretty rough time of it, though she doesn’t really mention it in much detail. She brought presents for the baby – clothes and such – but also some home cooked pasta for me, and some brownies. The perfect gift; I wish my family would take note of this. We sat and chatted for a long while, and she made me feel better about things. When she left she gave me a massive hug and told me I’m doing really well. I feel like I should be doing better though. Poor S only has me to rely on, I need to be two parents to her. When other babies are crying and their mothers are tired, their fathers take over the cooing and rocking. I don’t have that luxury; I cannot get tired. I am so lucky S does not cry very much, and seems to be a fairly chilled baby. When she does cry though, or when it takes her a long time to settle to sleep at night, I feel bad for her that she doesn’t have a second parent to come in and be all fresh about trying to get her to sleep. She just has me, begging her to please go to sleep. I’m sure other mothers don’t resort to leaving the hairdryer switched on in the bedroom for hours at a time each evening. I’m sure other mothers have more patience than me and for that I feel endlessly guilty.

18th May 2012 (5 weeks, 4 days)

This was written in my diary shortly after S's father had left. At the time he was still visiting occasionally. I was fairly miserable and unsure of what I was doing, and S was still very small and looked really quite breakable.

S sleeps in my bed now. At first, she would go to bed in her Moses basket, and each time I fed her I would put her back in the basket. And then, I just gave up on trying to get her to go back into the basket, and after the first feed she sleeps next to me in my bed. She seems to go back to sleep a lot more easily, and wake less, if she is beside me. Sometimes she reaches out and pokes at me in the night with her tiny little fists.

We wake around 7 most mornings, and S sits in her bouncy chair in the bathroom door way while I have a bath. If I am lucky, I have time to dry myself, apply moisturiser and get dressed before she gets fed up and starts crying. Occasionally I even have time to dry my hair. Once I am dressed I bring S downstairs in the bouncy chair with her clean clothes. I tend to remove her clothes before feeding her the daily dose of vitamins they recommend for all premature babies, as the iron can stain. Then we get her dressed, and I will usually feed her before we venture out of the house.

Today once we were both dressed and ready, we went to a friend’s house. She has three children of her own and is much more confident with babies than I am. She is also one of the best friends I have ever had, giving me her daughter’s old baby clothes and toys, tidying the house when she visits, offering advice, and most importantly telling me I’m not mad and I’m doing the right thing, whatever it is (unless I’m doing the wrong thing; then she’ll tell me that instead – the mark of a true friend).

S’s father visited briefly today too. I didn’t want him here; it makes me nervous and uncomfortable to be around him. I feel like he is running an appraising eye over my entire life, judging me and looking for the slightest sign that I may have done something wrong, something that may disadvantage his offspring in some way. He treats her like a possession. He brought us food and nappies, which I didn’t ask for or need, but one should never look a gift horse in the mouth, so I said thank you and crammed my freezer with meat I don’t have time to cook, and microwave meals full of salt and flavourings. He left £15 on the side when he went.

After he had left, C came round with her daughter. I went to school with C, but hadn’t seen her since we were about 12. Now she has a 7 year old daughter and runs her own business, she seems so much more grown up than I. She and the friend I saw earlier both make me feel like this motherhood lark is a doddle, and I’m perfectly capable of doing it on my own, with or without £15 left on the side by the ex.