Not keeping mum 🤫

When I was very pregnant everyone was determined to make sure I knew how terrible it would be to have a new baby. Forget swollen feet and heartburn, morning sicknesss that made me vomit, they all swore I didn’t know how bad it was going to be until I had a newborn around to ruin my life. 

As if it were a secret, they told me I would never truly sleep again, would age overnight and lose my identity, my body would sag, I would hate my partner, life would transform into drudgery and red wine, with everything covered in poop.

The relentless low-grade negativity sent me running to the internet to search “best things about parenting a newborn.” 

The discouraging results warned me of Top Things You’ll do Wrong as a New Parent, How to Survive Having a Newborn, and Biggest Mistakes New Parents Make. Not a single one was positive, and I really needed some reassurance around then.

So here I am, safely on the other side of the first twelve weeks of newborn parenting and I can proclaim that a lot of it is simply wonderful. Here’s why: 

My baby is real!

However it happened, ive successfully had a child. Might be 2nd time lucky after loosing the last one, it comes with a lot more guilt and antagonising memories. 

But hey, ive done it!! 

It was the longest, most anxious 2 years of my life. 

But, determined me did it! 

For so long ive been living around the idea that i might one day have a baby.

It was so hard for me to feel like my baby was real before she was born. I knew every kick and roll, and I knew that she had hiccups pretty much every day, but she still felt more like a concept.

Now I don’t have to wonder what she is like. She changes every day. She still has the hiccups. She also stretches and raises her eyebrows and nods her head as she finishes eating as if to say yum yum yum. 

Someday she will look at pizza that way.

Like the rest of our family do! 

I’ve realised I’m the best at everything. (With one hand) 

The reality is that until you’ve done it,  you don’t know for sure that you can. 

Because babies need about six things on repeat, you will get really good all of them. 

Within hours if not days, if not weeks… you will have it down. The nappies, the feeding, the tiny clothes. Most of it isn’t that hard.

The first time I got my baby to latch in the middle of the night without turning the light on, I felt like I was a superstar. (That’s only recently) but nevertheless I had

To give myself a high five.

Because… 

When you are able to transform a primal witching scream of hunger or discomfort into pure silence, and then your baby gives a little sigh and falls asleep on your chest, you will be the champion of parenting. Just like I do! 

I can watch all the TV, scroll social media and read all the books I want. 

This gives me legitimate reason to spend hours and hours motionless on the sofa and demand that my partner refills my water. 

Watching my partner become a parent is full of unexpectedly sweet moments

I have so loved watching my Tom become a dad. (He has a son from his first marriage, whom may I add is awesome! I was later on the scene and didn’t witness him becoming a father back then) 

So…

I don’t have to tell you it broke me when I walked upstairs to him tunelessly singing ’70s rock ballads (my girl - by the temptations) while she gazed up at him adoringly. 

I love seeing his mother as a doting granny who wants nothing more to cuddle her and buy her things she doesn’t need. 

It’s like parenting isn’t a new chapter of a book, but you literally turn the page and end up in another dimension. And I get to watch that happen.

How lucky am I?? 

Newborn poop doesn’t smell bad and is water-soluble.

Truly, it smells like cereal and washes out of things. Most of the time, it is contained. 

Plus she’s breast-fed she explosive poops once a week and I feel after feeding her I’m ready for it! 

Parents don’t help future parents by describing that one time they got smeared with poop just before a party, They forget to mention the hundreds of times they deftly changed a nappy and walked away spotless.

My body is mine again (not quite) I look forward to doing my buttons up on shirts and having my small breasts back. 

But forget all of that business - ‘getting your “body back” in a cosmetic Instagram way’ and enjoy that instead of having to lug the baby all over town inside your enormous belly. You can hand them over to someone else to carry! 

No one is physically pressing on your bladder, stomach, or other organs. Your body may have changed, but it is yours. What a relief.

Rest assured, babies are even cute and a little bit hilarious when they are screaming. 

Maybe the others weren’t all wrong when they told you how hard it would sometimes be, it’s testing!! 

But they probably also spent hours making faces at their baby to see what would coax out the sweetest smile in the world. 

I think they just forgot to tell me that part, and that it is all worth it.

Ps… sex life will return.

I thought I’d never go near him till ‘2023! 

But it’s twelve weeks in and my Mojo is back.

Ultimately, that’s what led us here! 

Again, it’s all worth it! 

Laid bare - Mum of Fearne Frances,  

                - Step Mum to Taylor Thomas,

                - Soulmate to Tom.