Dear Brand New Mums...

Are you ok?

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Dear Brand New Mums…

About this time, eleven years ago, I was where you are now. I’d given birth to my first on the 16th November 2013 and things were not going well. So, I thought I’d share some of the the things I was feeling at the time, just in case you’re struggling and it’s exactly what you need to hear.

Evolution saved us both

I really, really didn’t know how on earth to connect or bond with this teeny-tiny little baby. For some reason, with my first born, I tried to approach everything intellectually and, frankly, I just kept getting in my own fucking way. You can’t intellectualise the new born period so don’t even try. It’s all emotions and vulnerability and surrender and nothing else. My inability to be comfortable with any of those things meant that the only thing I was really able to feel was the evolutionary, genetic contract that existed between me and her. I would have jumped in front of a bus for her, but know how to love her? It didn’t come naturally to me.

I was worried I’d never be able to have a bath again

I remember coming home from the hospital and putting her in the middle of the living room in her car seat. I remember sitting down on the sofa and thinking how amazing it would be to have a bath. And then it hit me. I can’t leave her. I can’t be away from her. Ever. There was to be no more baths. I’d love to say in the early days, my focus was on the little life I’d gained, the bundle of joy that was now mine, but really, I spiralled into anxiety about all the things I felt I was losing and that were changing. It was overwhelming. Also, I did of course have a bath…lots of them.

Breastfeeding was traumatic

I don’t use that word flippantly. It was traumatic. With a capital T. Again, I definitely got in my own way with it but that doesn’t change the fact that I would shake uncontrollably every time she woke up from a nap because I knew I’d have to feed her. My boobs were cracked, bleeding, blocked. I got mastitis three times in the first 6 weeks. I was on antibiotics constantly which resulted in me getting nipple thrush and infecting her. Nothing seemed to work and the pain was constant and excruciating.