Mother & Baby Big Heart Awards

Yesterday afternoon I was lucky enough to attend the Mother & Baby Big Heart Awards at the Dorchester Hotel in London.

Kit with her super-proud daughter Kate, the award, and Jenny Frost.

Anyone who knows me (or reads this blog) will know that S's birth was fairly traumatic for me. During my time in hospital, a nursery nurse called Kit offered me so much help and support, and really helped me to find my way as a parent. I wrote about the first time I met Kit here.

In November last year, it was World Prematurity Day and Twitter was awash with tweets and photos of new mums with their tiny babies doing "kangaroo care." I posted a photo of myself with S and mentioned that I wouldn't have even known what kangaroo care was if it weren't for Kit. They suggested I nominate her for a Big Heart Award. I took a look at the site, and then emailed in my nomination. This is what I wrote:

When my daughter was born 5 weeks early, she had no suck/swallow response and so was fed formula through an NG tube. The morning after she was born, Kit came down to the ward to feed Samaire. Kit told me about kangaroo care, and how all of the mothers on NICU were encouraged to do it. She undressed my baby and put her on my bare chest, then put a blanket over us.

After a couple of days, my daughter had jaundice so they moved her into NICU. I was distraught. I wanted to breastfeed, but my milk hadn’t come in yet. While Samaire was in NICU, Kit got screens to put around me so that I could sit next to my baby and keep trying to express milk to encourage my milk. When they tested for bilirubin levels Kit would bring the chart into me and show me where her levels were, and what it meant. When we went back to the ward, Kit came down to help with every feed when she was on shift. She worked really hard to help us establish breastfeeding. She helped us try different positions. When I was tired and fed up, she showed me how I could feed my daughter whilst laying on my side. She stayed with us while my daughter fed, and would always tell me well done, you’re doing really well, look how well she’s feeding, she’s really getting it. 

I was in hospital for almost two weeks. By the last few days I was really fed up. Kit came in one day and told me we couldn’t go home yet because my daughter’s bilirubin levels had gone back up, and she needed to go back under the lights. I was distraught at the thought of being separated from her again while she was taken back to NICU. Kit stayed and talked to me until I’d calmed down. She told me that although it felt like the end of the world now, it was just a few days at the start of a long life. She went off to speak to some people and came back with a lamp. She told me we could have the lamp on the ward over night, so that we didn’t have to be separated. Then she had me take my shirt off, laid my baby on my chest, and set the lamp up above us. I suddenly went from “oh no they’re going to take my baby away again” to complete contentment, cuddling my baby on my chest and felt relaxed for the first time since she was born.

I felt like more than just a patient to Kit. She seemed to take a personal interest in our wellbeing and really helped and supported me. She never made me feel like she was too busy to spend an hour sitting at my bedside helping me. I will be forever grateful for the extra work she put into helping us establish breastfeeding. My daughter went on to breastfeed until she was 17 months old.

I forgot all about the nomination, until last month when I received an email to tell me Kit had won the award. I sent her a message to warn her to expect a call, and she thought I was joking!

So yesterday we went up to London for the awards ceremony. There was free champagne and fancy sandwiches, and even a few celebrities - but the main point of the event was to celebrate amazing people who've done amazing things. There were a lot of tears as very emotional stories were told, and I was a bit of a wreck when Kit's award was announced. 

Me with Kit enjoying some champagne!

We had a really lovely day and despite Kit's insisting, "I was just doing my job!" everyone else agreed that she regularly goes above and beyond what is expected of her. She is passionate about her work, and rightly so. She's not just looking after sick babies, but helping their shell-shocked parents to come to terms with what's happening, and helping the whole family to figure out how to cope. She spends endless hours helping women to express milk, to learn to breastfeed, to change nappies, to deal with the emotional hell that can be having a baby in NICU.

I know how lucky I am that S was only 5 weeks early, and that she was relatively healthy. I feel even more lucky that Kit was on shift that first day. Since we left hospital I've heard horror stories of how other women have fared in similar situations. The world needs more Kits in it, for sure.

Well of course, when you go to these things you need to have your photo taken with the doormen!

Lonely and Miserable or Just Tired?

The last week or so has been really tough.

I went  back to work.
S started nursery.
S is cutting at least 2 teeth.
S has had The Neverending Snotfest cold.
I have had a cold.
S has had trouble sleeping.

A rare occurrence.

With the weather being nice last weekend, and S being a screaming, snotty, clingy mess, I couldn't bear the thought of staying in the house all day. So I took her to my mum's for the day, thinking that might give me a bit of a break. What it actually did was make things worse. S went into meltdown when it looked as if I might leave her side, and nobody else could console her. When I went to the toilet, I had to take her with me and even then she screamed when I sat her on the floor next to me.

As long as she was close to me (as close as possible, preferably with one hand on my boobs at all times), she was perfectly happy . The only problem was, I really just wanted some time out to relax.

At one point I was desperate for the loo, so I got my sister and brother in law to come and sit with S on the blanket we were playing on while I literally ran into the house. S screamed as if the world were ending. When I came back out it took me 10 minutes to calm her back down. In hindsight it was probably predictable that my mother spent the entire time at the other end of the garden saying "oh you're so mean, you ran away from her! Poor S, she's so upset because you were so horrid to her!" In the end I had to tell her to shut the ***** up because she wasn't helping. 

This is the extent of the support I have received from my family whilst returning to work and doing my best to deal with leaving S at nursery, her teething and having a cold. 

Ok then, fine, I'll just get on with it on my own, same as I have for the last 13 months, for my traumatic pregnancy, for my entire life.

Yesterday I was so tired I spent the whole day walking around with a lump in my throat as if I was about to cry. This wasn't helped by S falling off a swing at the park, and my feeling like the world's worst mother for it. She was fine; I was most definitely not. This was followed by a ridiculous evening of alternating wailing and wanting to play, and no sleep until 11pm. By that point I was about ready to just get up and walk out of the house.

Having gone to sleep so late, S slept pretty well and didn't wake up until 8am, meaning I had some time by myself this morning to sort some things and have a bath. It was only about an hour, but it made enough of a difference. 

I've had some sleep and a bath, and I've tidied up some mess upstairs. Things are looking a lot better this morning. I might be in this alone, but I've survived the last 13 months so there's no reason I can't continue.

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Things I Learned in 2012

So here it is, the last day of 2012. This year has been the best of my life, but also probably the hardest.  The thing about having a hard time though, is that it tends to teach you things. These are some of the things I learned in 2012:

• If you didn’t have a fantastic relationship with your family before you had a child, the baby will not magically improve anything at all. It might even make things worse.
• We are all stronger than we give ourselves credit for. Having been through this year, I know there is not much I cannot cope with now.
• In your hour of need, help can come from the most unlikely direction. People I had not seen for years (around 20 in some cases) have given me things, offered advice and support, turned up at my door with a smile and a shoulder to cry on and generally overwhelmed me with how amazingly supportive and caring people can be.
• Everything sounds a hundred times louder when your baby is asleep. Especially if said baby has a strained relationship with nap time.
• You can stay single indefinitely, and you won’t be hurt and humiliated like you were before; but you also won’t feel as happy and cared for as you never did before.
• It is around a hundred times easier to make conversation with new people if you have a beautiful baby on your lap. 
• If it hurts, it's not love. Walk away.
• Dignified silence trumps arguing your point every single time. In the end the people who matter will find out the truth; nobody else matters.
• Everyone has an opinion on what you should be doing, and none of them matter.
• Most things happen at an inconvenient time.
• Hospital food is not so bad, but it does make you crave fresh, crunchy vegetables
• Breastfeeding in public is really not such a big deal.
• A lot of people do lack the common decency taken to step out of the way of a woman with a push chair, or to hold a door open for her. This one really surprised me, since I was brought up to always hold the door for the person behind me.
• Actually - and this is a big shocker - I can be a bit of a clean/tidy freak and get rather thingy when my living space is dirty or messy.
• Life is as easy or as hard as you want to make it. You can be faced with a million difficult things, but if you adjust your attitude slightly, you can still drag life towards a nice sunny walk in the park.

Happy New Year, everyone. If my 2013 is half as awesome as this year and half as shitty, I'll be happy. I hope yours brings you whatever it is you want/need.

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What a Difference a Year Makes.

Today is one year since I had my 20 week scan. I remember the date, because it's also the ex's eldest son's birthday, and that's still written in my diary.

S&I at 23 weeks

It's strange to think about how much has changed since then. The day itself was not pleasant for me. I'd not been getting on with S's father at all, but agreed he could come to the scan. He arrived late, tried to figure out the sex of the baby on the monitor even though we'd agreed we wouldn't find out, and talked over the lady when she tried to explain things. We'd been arguing in the weeks leading up to it, and I think he'd only started being pleasant so that I'd allow him to come. We'd not seen each other for a while, and I found that I couldn't bring myself to even look at him. I felt incredibly sad that for most women the 20 week scan is an immensely happy thing, holding hands with their partner and looking forward to meeting their baby. I had none of that. While I was glad the scan showed a healthy, normal baby (and so relieved, after all the stress and worry I'd been going through), the day was mainly filled with sadness for me. I had hoped that when I had a baby it would be born into a happy, loving relationship; that we would be a family. Now it was becoming clear to me that there were problems with my relationship that could not be fixed, and I was bringing a child into a very difficult situation. I felt powerless to do anything about it, though. I was sad and tired and beaten down by it all. After the scan he handed me a wad of cash before getting a lift back to town from his ex, who had waited for him in the car park. Thankfully, I had brought my sister with me, so I wasn't alone for the experience. I was dismayed that he had chosen his ex, of all people, to give him a lift; especially when my sister had offered him a lift with us, and the buses run every ten minutes. Looking back, it was clearly a decision taken purposefully to put me in my place - something that became a theme of our "relationship" after that point. It is very telling of my mental state that, although I was cross about him bringing his ex to the scan, I only managed to be angry for about 2 days before just giving in and playing nice. Things were easier if I didn't rock the boat.

Not long after the scan, I went and stayed in Oxfordshire with friends for Christmas. It was an almost stress-free, peaceful Christmas, like being on holiday from my life. I felt like I'd run away to hide from it all, and was petrified of returning to my life and the myriad problems I felt ill-equipped to deal with. While I was away, the ex was texting me and being perfectly nice and reasonable, kept telling me he wished I was there, that Christmas wasn't the same without me. I found out afterwards that their Christmas consisted of going to his mother-in-law's house, where the adults got very drunk very early, and didn't cook a Christmas dinner, while the children presumably did their best to stay out of the way. This was my fault, obviously. If I'd been there we would have had a perfect family Christmas. The fact I went away for Christmas, took his unborn baby away from him for Christmas, was something I was still being chastised for in April.

As it was, my Christmas last year was surreal. Whenever I visit my friends in Oxfordshire, I feel like I've been teleported to a different planet where the usual problems don't matter. One night there, and all of a sudden my shoulders go back down to shoulder level rather than being bunched up about my ears. To be there over Christmas was a dream. Everything was so laid back; we watched movies with our feet up on the reclining sofa whilst eating party food, visited family, went to the cinema on Boxing Day. Christmas dinner was something everyone played a part in preparing, in between watching the Grinch and listening to carols. I almost forgot what a mess my life was in, and what I would be returning to the day after Boxing Day.

Now, looking back at that time, it feels like I'm talking about someone else. It all seems so strange, to have been in such an awful position, to have been so scared and felt so alone and confused. I felt like that a lot during my pregnancy and the first few months of S's life; it was a very trying time for me.

This Christmas though, my life could not be more different. S and I were invited to Oxfordshire again for Christmas, and I was very tempted to accept the invitation; except I don't think my mother would ever have spoken to me again! Instead, S and I are entertaining my mother and sister A for Christmas dinner. I have all the things I didn't have this time last year. I have the world's most beautiful, amazing daughter (biased? Me?) who will have no understanding of what Christmas is, but will no doubt enjoy unwrapping presents and being spoilt rotten by friends and family alike. I have an awesome, supportive boyfriend who will happily allow S to spend an hour clawing at his face if it'll make her happy. I have a home that, thanks to my fantastic brother (whose praises I will never stop singing), is now the sort of place I want to invite people to visit. We're having people over to visit throughout the festive period, and although that means I'll need to actually tidy up at some point, I'm really looking forward to it. I have the most wonderful, supportive friends around me who have proved their worth time and time again.

S&I last week

If you'd told me last Christmas, "don't worry, next Christmas will be a lot better." I would not have believed you. Stuck in the middle of it all, I could see no way out and felt thoroughly miserable about it all. I had nowhere to live, a turbulent relationship with the father of my unborn child, little support, no money. I spent most of my time around the festive period alone in my room in a shared house, drinking soup and wondering what the hell I was going to do. Now there is rarely a day I don't see someone I love and am happy to have around. My evenings are spent with HYM or wondering how the hell I'm going to wrap all these presents before Christmas morning (or how the hell I'm going to get S to actually go to sleep). I still have no money, but who needs money when you have what I have. Money can't buy this.

And now I've made you all gag at the sick-inducing schmaltz of it all, I'm off to cuddle my little girl and my handsome young man. Merry Christmas!

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Thanksgiving

Welcome to the November 2012 Authentic Parenting Blog Carnival: Gratitude and Traditions This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Authentic Parenting Blog Carnival hosted by Authentic Parenting and Living Peacefully with Children. This month our participants have written about gratitude and traditions by sharing what they are grateful for, how they share gratitude with their children, or about traditions they have with their families. The Authentic Parenting Blog Carnival will be taking a break in December, but we hope you will join us for the great line up of themes we have for 2013! ***  
It’s Thanksgiving season in the States. I’m not American, but I am thankful.
My life over the last year seems to have been an exercise in the Nietzsche quote, “that which does not kill me makes me stronger.” I was pregnant with nowhere to live, coming off anti-depressant medication with an on-off partner causing me untold stress. Then I was moving house at 33 weeks pregnant with no basic necessities like flooring, saucepans or a cooker. Then I was in labour 5 weeks early. Then I was in hospital for 2 weeks with a jaundiced, premature baby under the care of NICU. Then I came home to a flat whose roof had leaked so badly the bedroom wall was drenched. Then I was unceremoniously dumped via text message and became the single mother of a tiny baby. Then I was dealing with accusations and abuse from S’s father as well as finding out some particularly unpleasant things I wish I’d known sooner.
Would I rather things were different? I’m not so sure. Yes, I would like to have a partner. I would like S to have a father in her life. I would definitely prefer to be able to look back on my pregnancy and the birth of my beautiful daughter with more happiness. But on the other hand, all of those things, all the pain and the tears and the fear and negativity, have brought me to where I am now. It hasn’t killed me, and it has definitely made me stronger.
When you split up with someone who has had a somewhat detrimental effect on your life and wellbeing, one would generally be heard to utter such phrases as “I wish I’d never met him.” I can’t say that; I can’t regret meeting S’s father because that would mean I wouldn’t have her. And despite all the trouble we’ve had, I have never once regretted having her, even for a second.
The famous serenity prayer used in 12-step meetings the world over asks, “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.” I cannot change this situation. I have spent much of the last year trying to change the unchangeable, blindly banging my head against a brick wall that has not moved an inch. So now, I have to accept the situation, and be grateful for what has led me to be in this position.
Being pregnant and having nowhere to live has made me so grateful for having somewhere to live now, and being housed before S was born – it turned out to be a fairly close call! The fact the house was completely unfurnished, whilst being a bit inconvenient, meant I was able to choose everything and make it mine and S’s in its entirety. I will be eternally grateful to my friends S and B who drove down here from Oxfordshire while I was still in hospital to decorate S’s room, assemble furniture, and unpack boxes so that when we did come home, it looked more like “home” and less like something from a shocking exposé documentary. The fact we had so little provided an opportunity for my friends to show their staggering and incredible worth. A friend from a church I’ve not attended for fifteen years arranged for one of his fellow churchgoers to come and paint over the damp left by the leaks. Numerous friends and family members gave me kitchen equipment, baby clothes, furniture, toys, books. My brother has proved himself worth his weight in gold by laying floors throughout the house, and by acquiring me a washing machine and fridge-freezer. My sister’s boyfriend has come round and put things up for me. My sister Z has played taxi for me more times than I care to remember, picking up shopping and furniture orders to save me money on delivery charges. She also helped me to choose paint when I was given a compensatory decorating voucher by the council, and did some painting too.
The fact S was born 5 weeks early was very scary for me, both because I felt entirely unprepared for it, and because of the risks associated with a premature birth. We are both so lucky that she was born healthy and relatively large, and although we were in hospital for 2 weeks, only two days of that was spent in NICU, and a lot of parents and babies are in a much worse situation. As one of the nurses said to me at the time, it seems terrible being hospital for 2 weeks now, but it’s just 2 weeks at the start of the years you have to come. I am thankful that she is happy and healthy, and at 7 months old, you wouldn’t know how tiny and delicate she was when she was first born
The situation with S’s father is more complicated and unpleasant, but ultimately I am thankful that things ended when they did, before anything bad could happen, before S was old enough to understand anyone had disappeared from her life. Things are far from ideal, but they are definitely the best they can be, under the current circumstances. I am grateful for all the help and support I have received from so many different people and places in the last few months. People I would not have expected anything from have turned up here with a friendly face, a shoulder to cry on, encouraging words, food and smiles. They made me finally realise that I don’t need that in my life, that I can do this on my own and do it better than as a part of that particular couple.
It really is true: that which does not kill me really does make me stronger. I’ve had simultaneously the worst and best year of my life, and now I know that I am capable of so much more than I ever imagined. If I were American, I would be spending my Thanksgiving remembering all the reasons I am so very lucky.
*** Visit Living Peacefully with Children and Authentic Parenting to find out how you can participate in next year's Authentic Parenting Blog Carnival!   Please take time to read the submissions by the other carnival participants: (This list will be live and updated by afternoon November 30 with all the carnival links.)

• Counting My Blessings — Jennifer at Hybrid Rasta Mama expresses the importance of reflecting daily on all of her blessings, a ritual she shares with her daughter. Jennifer also shares a few things that she is most grateful for. .
• Thanksgiving — It really is true that what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger. Vicky at Single Mother Ahoy had no choice but to be thankful for all the things that had a good go at finishing her off this year!
• My little gratitude list — Stone Age Parent provides a summary list of all that she is grateful for in her life, including her son, her family, her home, her friends and her country.
• Baking Bread and Nurturing Wonder— Amy W. at Me, Mothering, and Making it All Work shares her way of keeping family traditions alive and nurturing a sense of wonder and thankfulness for food through preparing homemade bread during the Holidays.
• Going Inside for the Winter Holidays — Mandy at Living Peacefully with Children reflects that going inside, both physically and figuratively, allows her family to enjoy the winter season in peace and reflection with plenty of time for appreciation of the most important people in her life.
• Traditions — Sustainable Mum discusses the difficulty of establishing traditions that were important in her own childhood for her own children.
• Giving thanks for parenthood — Can we truly give thanks for both the darkness and the light on our parenting journey? Shonnie from Heart-Led Parenting shares her perspective on how gratitude for all that life offers is possible and essential.
• A Tree for the Birds— Alisha at Cinnamon and Sassafras shares her family's new tradition of skipping a traditional Christmas tree in favor of one in the yard.
• Cultivating Gratitude In Children — Lindy at Poppy Soap Co. shares her unique plan for helping her son understand just how blessed they are as a family.
• Are You Truly Grateful — Laura at Authentic Parenting ponders about the ramifications of gratitude as a characteristic.
• Maintaining Traditions Through Family Changes — Jenn from Monkey Butt Junction talks about how changes in her family have led to changing traditions.

Two Visitors!

We had two visitors today; a lady from Home Start came to review our situation with D, and a nursery nurse came to chat about S’s sleeping and eating.

B is the Home Start co-ordinator for the area, and the person who “matched” D to us a couple of months ago. She came back to do a review, which they do periodically to check everything is ok, the volunteer is being useful/helpful and still needed, and that everything is ok. They do a lot of paperwork. S was busy playing with her toys when B got here, but soon decided she’d rather be part of the conversation so came and sat on my lap playing with a book while we chatted. B wanted to know how things were going with D, so I told her the truth: I look forward to her visits but worry that she must feel she’s wasting her morning, since all she does is drink coffee and play with S while I make a couple of phone calls and maybe do the washing up. B said no, that’s what a lot of her volunteers do and they come round to be company and reliable as much as to help with practical things. She had a good old chat with S, and held her while I filled out a questionnaire. It was one of those ones where there’s a statement and you ring a number from 1 to 5 for how positive you feel about it. I did one before D started coming, and despite the fact S has given up sleeping, the house is a mess and my bad hair day has lasted 2 months, my scores have improved. It reminded me of the depression questionnaire my GP makes me do every now and then: they ask you a bunch of questions, tot up your score and tell you how you’re doing at life. I suppose they have to do something to justify their work though, and show they’re being effective. She marked down on her paperwork that the “goals” we set when she first came (I don’t remember them, but hey ho) are “partially achieved” so that there is a reason for D to keep coming, which was nice because I enjoy her visits and think it’s good for S to have someone constant and reliable in her life. D turns up every Wednesday at 10:30, she’s always in the same chipper mood, she always smiles and plays with S, and gives me good advice for my myriad problems. Of course, we have other visitors and S sees other people, but I think D is the only one who has a set day and time that we stick to every week.

B saw my nice pile of fluffy clean nappies (I’d just done a load of washing and stacked them neatly in the corner) and commented that I’m her ideal mother. Then she asked if I was breastfeeding still, and we had a conversation about how more people should do it because it’s best for baby (in most cases) and easiest. She told me she complained to the Advertising Standards Agency about a Cow & Gate advert because she felt it was promoting the use of formula over breast milk. The ad is amazing, but she has a good point. It was refreshing to meet someone who seems to have the same views as me. B is a single mother herself, so she understands why it’s so important for us to have D visit once a week, even if she’s only there as someone to chat to. She doesn’t need to be told about how difficult it is to keep up with housework and everything else when you’re the only person there to look after a baby, and you’re hell bent on doing not just a good job but the best job possible. She got on really well with S and told me she thinks I’m a great mother – which is always good to hear! My feedback will be passed on to D as well, which is nice because when asked how things were going I looked at her and said “the woman is a legend, I really look forward to Wednesday mornings!”

Once B had gone, I just had time to put together a lamb casserole and stick it in the oven (from scratch, with no packet mix, get me!) when C, the nursery nurse, came to visit. She was sent to see us after I called the health visitor begging for some help with the sleep situation, and came last week to discuss weaning and sleep plans. This week she came back to see how we were getting on. The truth is that S is still not sleeping fantastically, but her naps have been improving, and it’s just the hours between 6 and 10pm that are a problem now. Also I think my attitude to the situation has improved as well, in that I’m less bothered by it and more inclined to just take the time to get her settled to sleep even if it takes two hours. Hopefully the fact she’s eating lots more will help her to sleep more too. S sat in her bouncy chair and had a nonsense conversation with C, which they both enjoyed. She also showed off her mad skillz at bouncing the chair with one leg whilst casually slouching in it like a teenager. I have absolutely no clue what I will do with her when she finally gets too big for that chair! We discussed the local children’s centre, and she left a leaflet with me, suggesting I go to their baby group and also that I could go to the breastfeeding group to be support for new mums. At first I laughed at the idea I could offer advice to anyone, since I still spend a lot of my time feeling completely out of my depth. But even I can see that I’ve come a really long way and since I feel so strongly about breastfeeding I’d like to be able to share that. I might even take S to the baby group to make some friends!

I chatted to C about being a single mother, and how in the evenings once S is asleep I will creep downstairs for my tea. I often sit on the sofa, shovelling food into my mouth as quickly as I can because if S wakes while I’m eating I can’t afford to just throw food away, but I also can’t leave her to cry, and it’s times like that I really don’t enjoy the fact I’m doing this on my own. She seemed to understand what I was talking about, but also pointed out that as it’s just the two of us, we can do as we please, go where we want, eat when we want, and don’t have to follow anyone else’s schedule.

So there we are: one day, two visitors, one inflated ego. Having had two professional people who know what they’re doing tell me they think I’m doing a good job, and that S is doing really well, has made me feel a lot better. On the nights where S is not at all interested in sleeping, and I’m knackered and desperate for the loo but she cries every time I leave the room, I tend to have an attack of “omg, I’m rubbish at this, he was right, I can’t do it on my own, S is going to grow up damaged because of meeeeeeee…” it’s nice to have someone who knows what they’re talking about, and sees this sort of situation all the time, tell me I’m doing ok.

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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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Counting my Blessings

As my recent blog posts may have hinted, I’m having a pretty rough time at the moment. Whenever I am awake in the wee small hours, I often find myself getting pretty angry that I’m doing this on my own. This is not what I signed up for. When I got pregnant I was in a relationship. When I gave birth I was in a relationship. I assumed that when my baby was 6 months old and having trouble sleeping, I would still be in that relationship, and would therefore have a bit of help and support in dealing with extreme stress and sleep deprivation. I also assumed that my family would be there to rally round, that I would have a whole hoard of people I could call upon to come and lighten the load, either by helping with housework, or looking after S while I had a break. The reality is that I assumed wrong. And when I’m so tired and so  fed up I can barely see, and I’m walking into door frames and pleading my child to please just go to sleep, I find myself pretty cross about that. Where are all these people who are supposed to rally around a new mum? Aren’t they supposed to be helping me? I’m not meant to feel this alone and isolated.

It’s times like this that I think I just need to take a step backwards and look at the facts, reminding myself why I prefer my current position to any possible alternatives. Count my blessings, as it were.

• I may be the only person having to deal with S’s grumpy moods, but I’m also the only one who gets her regular cuddles, smiles and giggles. All her love is just for me and I don’t have to share.
• As pointed out by numerous friends on numerous occasions, I’m actually doing pretty bloody well on my own. The whole “look how far you’ve come” argument really is valid, as evidenced by the “diary entries from early motherhood” posts I’ve put up lately.
• I know from bitter experience that sadly we really are better off without S’s father – and that even when he was here, he didn’t help out with anything I would find useful at 3am. He bought us a cooker and then he buggered off, and it was the best thing for all concerned.
• Most of my family might not be banging down the door to offer their help, but lots of other people are. My Home Start lady is truly amazing, and I have some of the best friends a girl could wish for, who I know will help if I ask.
• Despite the current blip, and even for fleeting moments during the blip, S is a happy, healthy baby. I’d rather have this situation than one where she is less happy, less healthy, or perhaps in an unsafe situation.
• I might be tired, but other mothers are dealing with much worse, more worrying and stressful situations than just a baby who is not sleeping well.
• From what I’ve been told/reading lately, all babies go through an unsettled stage at 6 months. And at the moment a lot of babies are not sleeping well. There are a lot of sleep-deprived mamas on my Facebook; I’m not alone in this!
• Despite having a hard time, I have not compromised my beliefs with regard to how I want to care for S. I have resisted the urge to dump her in the cot and run away! She has a slightly more frazzled, grumpy mummy, but she still has a mummy who gives her lots of cuddles and kisses.
• As per yesterday’s post, this is a lesson in patience and acceptance. I’m doing my best to learn to just sit with it, take a deep breath and do what needs to be done – a life lesson that will no doubt come in very useful a few more times before S is old enough to fend for herself!
• I’m knackered and fed up, but at least I’m not sleep deprived and having to get up and go to work in the mornings! If S keeps me up all night, I can always share her nap later in the day, or go to bed earlier the next night.
• Because I’m alone in this, I don’t have to make an effort to maintain other relationships while I’m this tired and fed up. I would imagine couples going through this end up having an awful lot of arguments about nothing even vaguely important, because their fuse is too short to do otherwise! If I feel crappy I can cancel my plans with friends or family, and therefore avoid sniping at them over nothing.
• There is nothing in this world more awesome right now, than the look on S’s face when she’s pulled a blanket over her face to play Peekaboo with me. And it’s just for me.

There are a million other blessings I could, and probably should, count, but I’m too tired to think of them. It helps to think of the positives though, and remind myself that right now I’m in exactly the right place, doing the right thing, with the right people around me. Everything happens for a reason, and I’m learning a lot from this experience. You learn a lot more, a lot more quickly, from uncomfortable situations.

I’m trying to keep telling myself this.

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Buddhism for Mothers?

You know when you have an argument with someone, or they’ve irritated you in some way, and you just don’t feel like talking to them? So you don’t. Because you don’t have to.

Having a baby is a whole different kettle of fish. The other night, S was clearly knackered, but would (could) not sleep. I was also knackered so in the end, tired of the draft coming from her flapping her gro-bagged feet in her bouncy chair, I took us both to bed. I would have fallen asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow… but S had other ideas. I tried begging, I tried pleading, I tried rocking her, cuddling her, feeding her. I even tried putting her in the cot I’ve finally installed at the end of my bed (whatever made me think that might work, I cannot tell you – sleep deprivation causing dereliction of mental capacity probably). This sort of situation tends to make me panic. Not in the way you might think, though. My panic has more to do with the fact I have no control over this situation. Usually, if I do not like the situation I am in, I can get up and walk away – and I normally do. When I can’t just remove myself from something that I don’t like, it makes me quite agitated. When you are a single parent, you are often stuck in situations you have no control over, and no immediate way to resolve. There’s nobody to take over the rocking and cooing so that you can go to sleep; you just have to suck it up, pretend you’re not mortally tired, and get on with the rocking.

This is yet another of those things nobody warns you about. I don’t mean the tiredness (though really, no amount of explaining can prepare you for that); I mean the whole idea that you are no longer your own person, you can’t just go to sleep when you want to, or go for a walk when you feel like it, spend all day in bed, whatever. Obviously, single parent or not, your life changes dramatically when you have a child. But when it’s just you looking after them, the change is that much more noticeable. If the baby is crying but you need the toilet, you have to make a decision: do I comfort the baby, and hope she calms down before I get to the dangerous stage of needing the toilet, or do I leave the baby to cry and hope she doesn’t get to the house-screaming-down stage of crying before I flush, wash and return? S spends a lot of time sitting in her Bumbo seat in the bathroom doorway.

As I’ve jokingly lamented in a previous post, you can’t reason with a baby. You can tell them, “I’m just going to get a drink, and then I will feed you” but they won’t understand; all they see is that you are walking away, while they are very hungry. Similarly, the other night when S was clearly very tired but not sleeping, it was very frustrating for me not to be able to explain to her that if she just went to sleep we would both feel a lot better. I couldn’t say to her, “fine; you stay awake and play with your toys, but I’m going to sleep.” I also couldn’t say “for the love of God would you just close your damn eyes, I’m dying here!!” – tempted as I was. Also the next day, when my eyelids felt like sandpaper and I was far from on top form, there was little point in my saying to S, "sorry mummy is not moving quickly enough for you; perhaps if you had let mummy sleep last night..."

Every evening, I put S to bed upstairs and then creep quietly back down. Lately she has taken to waking again within an hour, and I have to go back up to her. Sometimes she takes 10 minutes to settle back down; other times it can be an hour, or she doesn’t settle at all, and bang goes my evening. It’s hard to do, but I find that if I just go back up and lay there with her, and don’t look at the clock or think about the dinner I could be eating or the TV show I could be watching, or the mountain of washing up that’s waiting, or the clothes I need to put away or the million other things I could be doing – it doesn’t feel so bad to be stuck there. I sometimes even enjoy laying there quietly for half an hour in silence, with no distractions. It’s an exercise in just accepting things as they are, without fighting against something I am powerless to change.

When I first had S, I downloaded a lot of parenting books onto my Kindle. One of them was called “Buddhism forMothers.” I think perhaps I should read that one.

Hooray for Home Start!

Tomorrow is Wednesday, which means my Home Start lady is coming round. As I sit here on a Tuesday evening, I’m surprised to find that I’m really looking forward to her visit.

You know when you have a week off work, and you get to Thursday and suddenly think, oh bugger, I have fewer days off in front of me than behind, my week off is almost over, I’d better Do Something? I’ve had that feeling periodically since having S: the feeling that I’m wasting my spare time, and it will be at an end soon and I should be doing more, appreciating it more. Of course, I know that eventually I will go back to work, S will go back to school, we will have less time together, and this time will seem like a far-off utopia of days gone by – but I tend to get a more urgent feeling, akin to the sort you’d get if you were going back to work after the weekend. Just lately, it has occurred to me that this is it: this is how my life just is now, and it’s not going to change any time soon. We have very little to fill our days with, and often spend large chunks of time wandering aimlessly around Sainsbury’s. I’m not going back to real life on Monday; this is real life.

This last couple of weeks has been really tough. I’ve realised just how much I need S to sleep well, even if that’s just so that I can have an hour watching TV or doing housework without having to try and simultaneously entertain her. It’s physically and mentally exhausting for her to be awake constantly, especially when her lack of sleep means she is usually grumpy as well. I’ve been doing this on my own for six months now, without a day off or more than an hour to myself here and there. On the one hand, there have been several times lately when I’ve been desperate for someone – anyone – to take S off my hands for a couple of hours so that I could have a break. On the other hand, the minute she is away from me, I miss her terribly, and feel horribly guilty for being apart from her.

There’s an episode of How I Met Your Mother where a little girl brings Lilly a picture of a rainbow several times, and each time she says “oh wow, what a beautiful rainbow!” and then, the last time she brings one up Lilly loses her cool and says “seriously, are you kidding me? Another rainbow? Aren’t you sick of them?” This is what I feel like sometimes. S cries or gets grouchy over something, and most of the time I’ll go to her and calm her and chat baby talk at her and play with her toys or cuddle her or do whatever it takes, for however long it takes, until she’s ok… and then there’ll be an evening where I’ve been up and down the stairs to her five times, and I’m starving and about to bite into what is now a barely lukewarm dinner, and she cries… and the words I utter as I trudge up the stairs are a little more along the lines of “Another rainbow?”

I was talking to a friend yesterday about having a night out. The difference between us is that she is married, so if she goes out her kids are with their dad: they love him, they feel safe with him. She knows they will be looked after and she has nothing to worry about, and that they probably won’t notice much of difference than if she were there. For me, if I wanted a night out I would have to consider leaving S with someone largely unfamiliar. She has aunties and uncles, and I have several amazing friends, all of whom I know would do a good job of looking after her, but she only knows any of them as someone who’s danced around the living room with her for a couple of hours here and there. There’s nobody completely constant in her life with whom I could leave her and know she wouldn’t be upset by the disruption. And, of course, there is still the massive guilt at leaving here anywhere, with anyone – as if I don’t want her around.

I was toying with the idea of going to the health visitor to see if she would look into getting me some funding for a nursery place a couple of mornings a week, just to allow me a bit of a break and some breathing space from time to time. But this is largely unrealistic, since S is still mostly breastfed and won’t take a bottle (even if I could work the ridiculous pump I have enough to get a bottle full of milk for her). And I know that I would probably spend the entire time she was in a nursery, sitting at home pining for her and feeling guilty that I’d left her.

Wednesdays are my salvation at the moment. D only spends a couple of hours here, but during that time she will largely take over looking after S. She bounces her on her knee, plays on her play mat with her, pulls faces, sings songs and sometimes spends half an hour rocking her back and forth until she falls asleep. I do things like catch up on phone calls to the electricity company or sorting through paperwork. We have a cup of coffee together and I tell her about my week, and we chat about whatever comes up. She’s like a therapist and a babysitter in one! Plus, she always brings milk for coffee, and usually cake or biscuits too.

Our Week, 8-13 October

Monday 08 Oct

After a rather unsettled (and somewhat screamy) night’s sleep, we got up and walked across town to pick up some baby clothes. We were also supposed to walk to an out of town superstore in another direction to pick up an order, but I couldn’t be bothered. We came home instead, and spent a fair amount of time playing. And then a nap, and then more playing. Bed time appears to have become a two-stage thing, where S falls asleep and I sneak out, only to find her awake and crying 15 minutes later. This happened again, but fingers crossed it’s not a permanent change!

Tuesday 09 Oct

Walked in the pouring rain to the big out of town Next to pick up an order. Turned up at 9:45 to find they didn’t open til 10. Got drenched. Came home, got changed, and went to see the health visitor. My one has been off sick for months so I saw yet another lady I’d not seen before. It’s a different one every time these days, and far from an ideal situation.

Wednesday 10 Oct

Our Home Start lady came and brought cakes for me and two teething toys for S. In the afternoon my sister Z came round with some rice krispie cakes she’d made and I ate until I felt sick. We didn’t leave the house all day.

Thursday 11 Oct

Up and out early to run some errands around town. Home by 11am to attempt housework, but S had other ideas. Her poor sleeping pattern over the last few days has been getting gradually worse, and today she had no naps at all, and then couldn’t sleep at bed time. Ended up bringing her downstairs and pushing her back and forth in the pushchair until she fell asleep, then camping on the sofa.

Friday 12 Oct

Another day where we didn’t leave the house. Had plans to go out for a walk with a friend but after another poor night’s sleep I cancelled in favour of trying to get some rest. S actually managed a morning nap, and was in a fairly agreeable mood, meaning I managed to get a fair few things done. Unfortunately her afternoon nap, during which I was planning to sleep, was interrupted by a loud knock on the door, and so I spent the afternoon trying to distract S from grizzling; no mean feat. Despite this, I still managed to do some decorating, cleaning and washing – so not a complete loss.

Saturday 13 Oct

A slightly better night followed by a lazy morning. When it became clear S did not intend on having a morning nap, I took her out in the sling instead. She finally fell asleep after half an hour of wandering around the shops, so I stayed out for as long as I could in order to keep her asleep. Certainly feeling her weight gain in my back these days! When we came home she was in an agreeable mood, and even had a long afternoon nap, so I managed to get a lot done – baking, stewing and pureeing foods, cleaning the kitchen, washing up, more decorating, posting a gazillion items on Ebay. She is now in bed, but I’ve been up to her twice already. Fingers crossed she stays asleep now, and I get to have a lazy Saturday evening after a somewhat stressful week!

Our Week 30 Sept - 6 Oct

Sunday 30 Sept

S slept fairly well the first part of the night, but I woke up after a few hours feeling ill. It took  me a couple of hours to settle back down, and just as I did, S woke up thinking it must surely be time to get up and play. It took another couple of hours to get her back to sleep. On the plus side though, she did let me sleep in until 8:30 this morning so I can’t really complain. We had a lazy day: lots of laying on the play mats and giggling. We had a brief wander into town to buy a paper, but forgot the paper and came back with baby clothes that had been discounted in Sainsbury’s instead. And as it was a Sunday, I had a massive roast dinner delivered to my door in the evening too. Perfect.

Monday 01 Oct

S seems to have developed a body clock that thinks 4am is the time to get up and play. This is happening daily now, and really quite annoying. We slept late again, which was nice but not terribly useful, since we had an opticians appointment to keep. Walked to the optician, located inside a large out of town superstore. They took a ridiculous amount of time to do very little, and then so as not to have wasted the trip we wandered around the supermarket a bit, and bought some food we could have done without. Since S fell asleep as I walked back toward home, I decided it would be a good idea to wander around town a little. She read my mind though, and woke up as we got into town. So we had a little wander, then came home and spent a lot of time playing. S decided she really did not need an afternoon nap, which was fine until about 4pm when she turned into Grumpzilla. A friend came round and finished painting the living room wall, while S whined and cried and rubbed her eyes and I assured him she really is a happy baby most of the time. Ended up putting her to bed at 5:30 again. Have capitulated and ordered a copy of The No Cry Nap Solution from Amazon in the hope of sorting out this anti-nap stance she has developed. Evening spent writing a blog post I had really got into, and speaking to my OU tutor, who approved of my first essay submission.

Tuesday 02 Oct

We were up almost hourly all night. On the plus side, 8:30am seems to be our new wake-up time, which isn’t too bad. Weather was rubbish and I had things to do, so we stayed in this morning. I put the furniture back after the living room wall was painted yesterday, moved the flooring into a pile in the corner, washed nappies and towels, moved half my (rather large) book collection upstairs ready for the floor to be laid, moved a book case upstairs for the same reason, broke the loo roll holder I only fixed to the wall last week, and stewed some apples for baby food. S sat in her chair, lay on her play mats, and had a brief play in her door bouncer, resolutely refusing to nap until tiredness finally overcame her early afternoon. When she woke up we went for a brief wander into town to get out of the house for a while, bought a nice babygro from a charity shop on the way home. S had a second nap when we got in, which was nice, and she still went to bed on time.

Wednesday 03 Oct

A better night, and a slightly earlier wake up. Our Home Start volunteer came to visit, bringing milk for our coffee and post biscuits, which was nice. She stayed a couple of hours, long enough for me to make some phone calls and sort some paperwork. Managed to get S to have a nap, which was good. Afternoon was spent doing washing, watching a TV show about breastfeeding and tidying. Yeah, I’m living the rock and roll dream!

Thursday 04 Oct

S was awake half the night, which was not much fun for either of us, but worse for her as she seemed to be suffering tummy pain. Set an alarm for the first time in months to ensure we were up, bathed and dressed before the man from the council came to fix our windows at 9am. Received a phone call at 8:30am to say sorry but the man was ill. Appointment re-booked for next Thursday afternoon. Had a brief visit from a friend who brought a toy over for S but then had to leave because her daughter was poorly. S had a rare morning nap, during which I did fun things like take the rubbish out and sort the washing, and then we went for a walk around town. Narrowly missed running head-on into S’s father and his new girlfriend and child, which was a bit of a nightmare. Bought some material to attempt a home-made dribble bib. Came home for lunch and attempted an afternoon nap; it lasted 20 minutes, and then we played and blew raspberries for the rest of the afternoon. My sister came to visit for a while, which was handy as she played daft games with S while I dyed my hair.

Friday 05 Oct

A much better night’s sleep, though I did wake up several times in a panic because S hadn’t woken up to feed! One time I had to put the light on and pull at her arms until she moved because until that point I couldn’t hear or see her breathing. Panic stations at 2am do not make for a restful night! S had no clue though, and was sound asleep. Went to visit a friend this morning, which was nice for all 3 of us. Stopped in town on the way home to run some errands, though am sure I missed more than one. S played with her feet on her play mat for a couple of hours when we got in, and even had a short nap, but then got super grumpy and upset about something and was inconsolable until bed time, when she went out like a light. I think perhaps she is having a Wonder Week.

There is no entry for today yet, as it hasn't happened! We are off on a road trip soon to visit Big S (who my little S was named after). We've not seen her for aaaaages (since S was about 3 weeks old) and we're both super excited. 

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.

Have You Ever Heard of Home Start?

This morning we had our first visit from our Home Start volunteer.

Home Start is a charity set up to support families who need a little help. They provide volunteers who will visit a family and offer support and guidance on a variety of different things. Home Start is a relatively small charity, but they  offer an invaluable service, going out into the community to help families who might otherwise feel isolated or struggle with things like post natal depression, bereavement, mental or physical disability of a child, or perhaps just trouble getting used to parenthood. Their services are available to all families with a child under five. Their website says they aim to create " a lasting, positive impact on the development of children and the health and welfare of the family." I was referred to them by my health visitor but a lot of people refer themselves to the service. Until the health visitor mentioned them, I'd not heard of Home Start before, so I thought I'd write a little post about them, in case anyone else could do with knowing about their services.

My volunteer is called Dawn, and she is lovely. She turned up this morning with flowers, coffee, cake, and a gossipy magazine for me. Who could ask for more from a visitor? 

Dawn will visit us once a week for as long as we need her support. The idea is that she will be someone to chat to (moan at!), distract Samaire while I make important phone calls that might prove difficult without that help, and to come to appointments with me to do the same sort of thing. She can't babysit for me, but she will come to the council/CAB/solicitor/whoever and keep Samaire entertained while I sort things out. She is also there to come to mother and baby groups etc with me if I don't want to rock up on my own, which is handy.

Today we just sat and had a coffee and a chat; Samaire and Dawn got to know each other, and I filled Dawn in on our story and why I feel I need the extra support of having her in my life right now. For me I think a lot of my benefit of having Dawn visit will be that I'll actually have to get things done. It's been easy to put off making phone calls, booking appointments, because there was always something to distract me. If Dawn has come round specifically to play with Samaire while I call the electricity company about my incorrect bill, then I may actually get around to making that call!

Home Start offer support to families in the UK, but also to the families of British Forces personnel in Germany and Cyprus, which is something you don't often think about with these sorts of things. As they are a charity, they rely on donations and sponsorship to keep going - and, of course, volunteers. They currently have around 17,000 volunteers who go out into the community to visit families, and another 2000 who run their local offices. I am sure they will always welcome new volunteers though so if you have free time that you'd like to spend making friends with a family and playing with kids, click on over to their website and take a look!

One great way you can support Home Start without even really trying is by going to this site and signing up; then they will donate a percentage of the cost of anything you buy through their site. You still shop at the normal websites, and it doesn't cost you a penny!

I will leave you with a quote from their website, which I liked:

If families crumble, communities disintegrate, children suffer. By working in the home to make families strong, children thrive. So we help give children the best possible start in life by supporting parents as they grow in confidence, strengthen their relationships with their children and widen their links with the local community. We work with the families who, for whatever reason, aren’t getting the help they need. Very often we’re the last chance they have.

Squeaky Clean Like a Rubber Ducky

This week, I have been medication-free for a year.

I had something of a colossal breakdown in the summer of 2010, which resulted in my being signed off work for a month, and eventually taking voluntary redundancy. I scared a lot of people, lost a lot of weight, and developed a fairly ridiculous drinking habit (Pisang Ambon, anyone?) I tried a few different medications before finding one that seemed to take the edge off it, and after a couple of months things settled down.

When I fell pregnant and it dawned on me I would have to come off the medication, I was seized by panic. I knew there was no choice but to come off it, but I was petrified I’d end up going back to the comatose, suicidal heap I’d been before. I came off the medication, and between the withdrawal, the usual first trimester hormones, and problems with S’s father, my first 12 weeks of pregnancy were something akin to hell. My GP was keen for me to go back onto the medication as soon as I reached 12 weeks – apparently after that first 12 weeks it’s not such a big deal any more. I had an appointment with her, where she told me: “you can go back onto them, and only a small amount will get to the baby. It’ll only have a bit of withdrawal when it’s born, which will probably just mean it cries a bit more and you probably won’t notice that. Or if you’re breastfeeding, the drug will still be passed to it through your milk, so it won’t have any withdrawal.” I was horrified at this concept – I’d read articles previously about antidepressants and the argument over their being given to children and adolescents; the argument against that use was that a child’s brain is not fully developed, and antidepressants affect the way the brain works. The thought of feeding my baby a brain-altering chemical as it developed inside of me made me sick, and I refused point blank to go back onto the medication. Also, once I’d gone through the pain of coming off them once, I didn’t want to then go back onto them, knowing I’d have to go come back off them and go through it all again at some point. And so, instead of medication, I agreed to regular appointments with my GP (so she could check I wasn’t going mad, and do that ridiculous depression questionnaire they do), and to go back to the Community Mental Health Team for counselling. Both were rather useless when it came to day-to-day functionality.

Looking back, I would say the last 12 months have been some of the hardest in my life. This is not only because I was unable to fall back on self-destructive habits that had seen me through in the past (over-exercise, self-harm, weird eating habits, drinking, sleeping pills), but also because I was wracked with guilt over my responsibility for the life growing inside of me. Because of my situation I felt I had let the baby down before it was even born. Every decision I made now had to take into account how it would affect my unborn child. A lot of those decisions were, in hindsight, not the best ones – especially those involving S’s father.

At 30 weeks I lost weight two weeks in a row because of the stresses I was facing. I moved house at 33 weeks, and S was born at 35 weeks, when I had a chest infection. We were kept in hospital for 11 days, and when we came home the roof had leaked and we couldn’t spend our first night at home. Once we were home, I faced pressure in my relationship with S’s father, and looking after his 6 children at his house. I remember the health visitor sitting on my couch one day and saying to me, “you have to look after yourself better because you’re at quite a high risk for post natal depression.” I burst out crying and told her I thought I was already there.

I stuck to my guns though, and refused time and time again, often through floods of tears, to go back onto the medication. S is now nearly 6 months old, and I have to say I’m really quite proud of myself. I know that the medical profession advises it’s perfectly safe to use the antidepressants I was on after the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, and I know that nobody would have thought any less of me if I’d gone back onto them at any point between then and now – especially those who had faced the task of trying to deal with me when I was at my lowest. But I know what I am like, and I know that if I had begun taking them again, I would have blamed myself if anything was wrong with S, at birth or at 25 years of age or any point in between, I would have thought back to those pills I took while I was pregnant and breastfeeding.

I didn't just do it on my own though; I've had a lot of help and support, both from professionals, and from my friends. My health visitor and GP have been amazing, going above and beyond what I could reasonably have expected from two over-worked NHS employees, and my friends have reduced me to tears of gratitude and joy more times than I care to mention. People I wasn't particularly close to before S was born have gone out of their way time and again to help me both practically and emotionally. For that I am eternally grateful.

When I came off the medication, it made me horribly sleepy and out of it, and I had to tell my boss why I’d come off it because he wasn’t too impressed at the desk-snoozing I kept doing. He told me he thought having a baby might just be the thing to sort me out mentally. At the time I thought he was talking utter bollocks, but now I think about it, he appears to have been right. Don’t get me wrong, I do still have bad days when I feel awful and want to crawl under my duvet and hide… but you can’t do that when there’s a baby there wanting to be fed and changed and played with. I’m lucky; I know for a lot of people having a baby can make no difference to their depression, perhaps even make it worse. But for me, so far, I seem to be doing pretty well. 

Edit: since this post was published, the safety of using antidepressants during pregnancy has been questioned. It is now not considered as safe as the medical profession thought at the time.