My Most Important Role…..Being Mom!

I went on like this for years. Even when I got married at 30 I was then asked the age old frankly sexist question of “Oh so you having children now?” Errrhhh No! I just wasn’t in that place. 

Yet something happens in your early 30’s, that was my experience. I suddenly was looking forward and wondering what life would be like if we didn’t have children. My husband always wanted them and it was me who said no! I wouldn’t even have a dog haha, I didn’t want the responsibility. Something in me changed and I thought long and hard about what we would do. We decided that yes lets do it, lets create a new human! 

And so the journey really began. 

What I have learned about becoming a parent is everyone’s journey is very different. After a year of trying we found out that I was pregnant. It was a shock. We had kind of thought well what is going on but then when it did happen it was a wave of new emotions. After many mix ups with the doctors I finally saw a midwife when I was a few days off 13 weeks. I was told off by her for only coming now which I found pretty interesting as I had no idea what I was doing, it was my first time. Two days later I was in the hospital as I was bleeding and three days later I was in a private clinic (the NHS didn’t do emergencies at the weekend and told me to go home and come back on Monday!) being told “Your body is in the process of miscarrying your baby, I’m sorry it never developed and you are having what we call a blighted ovum misscarriage. Your foetus never developed and your body is now rejecting what is there.

I had no words. My husband broke down and cried and all I wanted to be was pregnant. It was such an interesting feeling. I had never been maternal, yet in this moment all I could think about was I was no longer pregnant and I wanted to be! What happened next was pretty shocking. I was pushed from pillar to post, left in a really bad way and pretty much told to get on with it. It was a tough time and I suffered badly physically and emotionally. Importantly so did my husband, I know they can get lost in the whole process. 

The years that followed. 

Now part of the aftermath of the missacrriage was I wouldn’t have a certain procedure as it meant we couldn’t try for 6 months or that was the guidance and that simply wasn’t an option is my totally overwhelmed and shell shocked state I was living. What I didn’t know is that it would be another 5 years before I got pregnant again! 

The years rolled on and well we started to give up. We accepted that may be it wasn’t for us. Neither of us wanted to go down the road of tests and fertility treatment, we just said ok let’s live and enjoy life. Then as you hear so often I realised I was pregnant. Now that in itself brought up a whole host of again, new emotions. Now I want to share at this point that back then I had no idea how to process emotions like I do now. I had been conditioned into the whole “mindset” way that simply never worked for me and thus I ended up in a place of trauma for years. That is a blog post for another day! Back to this, so I requested an early scan as one of the things in my first pregnancy that was so hard to deal with is that I felt a fraud. I couldn’t say that I had lost a baby because there was never one there. Now I have healed that but at the time I was totally paranoid. I was so convinced that it was the same again that when I went for the scan I told my husband not to come as I knew it was going to be the same. So off I went with my Mom, who insisted I couldn’t be alone for the scan. When they told me all was well, I was again lost for words. How could this be, I had felt the same as the first time yet this time there was a heartbeat and this little blip on the scan picture was going to be my little girl. Now just to be clear I had no idea obviously at 7 weeks that it was a girl other than I knew in my soul she was. The next 34 weeks were a very interesting time. Each milestone we reached was huge. Each development was a step forward and daily I had chats with my little lady about life and the universe.

After 68 hours of labour and an emergency C-section Olive came into the world. She made no sound when she came out. I couldn’t hold her as they had to put me back together! I maintain to this day it’s a pretty eye opening thing having a section. It was a tad disturbing how violently my body moved as they were putting me back together. Whilst this was going on, Olive had snuggles with Daddy, skin on skin and lay there so very content with her 4cm blood ring on her head where she had been trying to come out for days and well I wasn’t dialating. When I finally got to hold her, I felt like I had come home. My most important role ever was about to start for real. I was overwhelmed with love and joy for what was about to happen. 

The last 7 years of wonder. 

When you have a baby it’s a super interesting time in your life. You have this “couldn’t care one iota what is going on outside of your little bubble.” I couldn’t stop looking at her. She was the most content little thing. She just slept and slept. She was so cuddly and well I was in awe that we had made this amazing little human. 

The days and months went on and well life got pretty hard. There were some super challenging days, one day it will make a pretty amazing book, could even be a film with all that went on yet the constant throughout it all was Olive. She needed me. My husband works away a lot so it was me and Olive a lot of the time. I had to get up, I had to show up because I was her everything, there were days when without her I’m not sure I would have made it. 

Me and My Mom.

Now my relationship with my own Mom was a tad difficult for many years of my life. She was an amazing lady yet she a lot had of emotional trauma. Becoming a Mom really made me see her in a new way. We had made some amazing moves in the years before Olive yet as I said, it changed when Olive was born. What I didn’t’ know at that moment in those early months of Olives life, is how short the time we had together would be. When Olive was only 11 months old my Mom was diagnosed with terminal cancer. I felt like I had been hit by a juggernaut. I was in a place where I had the baby I never thought I was going to have, I needed my Mom more than ever and she was slipping away before my eyes. I had to find this strength to be all they both needed and I had no idea how. I asked for guidance and well I am proud of me for what I did in the last few months of my Mom’s life. From the actually diagnosis to her passing was only 10 weeks. She died on a Saturday morning. I had spent the night with her in her last 24 hours here on this plane and I held her hand as she left us to go to the next world. I told her it was safe for her to go. I sat there in a place of surreal, like an out of body experience as she slipped away. My Dad and I were holding her hands and each others and she finally left us for a new life on the other side. I was utterly broken and lost. How the hell was I going to do this now?

She always said “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

My Mom was a truly amazing and inspiring woman. She achieved so much in such challenging circumstances. She was a baby boomer born in an era when the world was starting anew after the second world war. She was the eldest of 8 children and had never really had a childhood as she was always lent on to support her own Mom. It caused so many issues for her. She had a myriad of emotions, many angry ones and simply felt lost. I now feel for much of her life. My Dad is an amazing man, yet does admit back in those days he was pretty selfish and my Mom really carried far more than she ever should have.

They ran a very successful business and my Dad was so determined to be successful, which he achieved that family wasn’t really the first priority. We had a wonderful life in many ways as children and were very blessed with wealth and abundance yet it was at the detriment of family. Something I know my Dad now regrets. We have talked much about it over the years and I have said it is what it is. Living with regret is a harmful energy as you can’t change the past, you can only learn from it and be different in the now and the future as a result of it. The thing is when they got to start really living and doing what they wanted with life, only a few short years later my Mom was gone. That is again another story for another day. So for me it was a huge part of my journey to learn from this and be a very different parent and person in many ways so that I could be the conscious parent I chose to be and not fall into the trap of other peoples opinions and ways of thinking and being. 

Being a Conscious Parent and the challenges that brings. 

As I said earlier this blog was inspired by some posts I saw on LI and a memory of 5 years ago today of my little sunshine Olive. One of my favourite pictures popped up on FB of Olive and then I was reading a post on LI about how life changes when you are a parent. Then another post about questions that only women get asked when they have a baby and turning them around to men! It inspired me and here’s what I said about being Mom to Olive.