What can I say about motherhood? Nothing and no one quite prepares you for it. My mother always made it sound like a walk in the park whereas I’ve found it to be more of a walk in the jungle! The unexpected is always inevitably hiding around the next bush. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve enjoyed every minute of it so far (who am I kidding, it's the toughest thing I've ever done and from what I've heard it doesn't get any easier!). However, while still childless (and utterly naïve), I clearly remember telling prospective parents that kids don’t have to change your lives …of course now I feel rather foolish. My life bears very little resemblance to what it was almost 5 years ago. I’ve gone from career woman to mother and housewife. Of course it’s all absolutely instinctual, so there’s nothing to worry about …not! You get back from the hospital babe in arms and after all the excitement and hoopla from the family in waiting, off you go to bed in nervous anticipation of the night ahead. Meanwhile, your husband assumes you being a woman, you’ll know exactly what to do. Good grief, where the hell did he get that idea from? I was thinking we must have forgotten the manual at the hospital. Or are we women supposed to come with one attached at birth? My daughter must have left hers in the bloodied waters of her birthing pool because I didn’t see it. No one actually thinks to ask you whether you know how to change your first nappy. Luckily for me I had younger cousins and a younger brother as guinea pigs some years before, so I wasn’t a total novice. Even so, when the nurse turned up a few hours after our daughter was born to see whether she’d made her first deposit, I jumped at the chance to let someone else change her …in hindsight, a wise choice given the number of nappies one has to change from that point on.
However, I see I’ve jumped ahead of myself. I suppose I should have started at the beginning, when the little being who was about to change our lives forever made her grand entrance into the world. I had decided to go the natural route …no pain relief, I’d be armed only with a birthing pool, my yoga breathing and some aromatherapy oils. After about an hour in the pool and I was beginning to think I might have been a bit misguided. The words “bugger” and “not sure I can do this” sprang to mind. Perhaps now would be a good time for it to learn to crawl …preferably backwards. Then a tiny bit of panic crept in when I realised, at this stage I probably didn’t have much choice in the matter. At this point I look up from my oh so ladylike squatting position to see the doctor had arrived. Meanwhile the contractions are getting stronger and I instinctively start doing my caveman impression. I start to feel like I must be doing a pretty good job because I sounded just like they do in the films, when the doctor pipes up and tells me I’m not doing it right. Not doing it right!!! What the bloody hell did he know, it’s not like he’d ever given it a go! It was all I could do not to launch myself out of the pool and across the room to throttle him …it’s lucky for him that I was weighed down by what felt like a rather large watermelon trying to exit a small hose pipe.
I decided instead to get back to doing my damnedest not to swear profusely between breaths. My mother had assured me I wouldn’t swear …too beautiful a moment and all that; I had assured her I would. However, considering that not long before I could easily have had a job as a trooper, I was doing remarkably well with only minimal blasphemy and the odd four-letter word. However, the beautiful moment definitely comes post-partum. Oh my God it’s all over and we’re all alive …my husband too and he hadn’t even fainted bless him (I imagine the fingernails digging into his palms probably helped keep him lucid). There’s nothing quite like the sense of relief when you think there’s no pushing left to be done. It’s easily got to be as good as any great orgasm …no orgasm has ever made me cry with sheer joy and disbelief at the feat I’d just achieved. I had to actually ask whether it was out because I was afraid to believe it. In fact, I was so happy I almost forgot to ask what sex the baby was! Of course it’s not actually over because shortly after being lulled into a false feeling of serenity with new gorgeous perfect pink babe in arms (at this point even if she had looked like an armadillo I would have thought she was perfect, in fact, I think the beauty of your child is directly and proportionately related to the number of hours you spend pushing!), you’re asked to start pushing again and this time there’s no long awaited prize at the end of it, just a big lump of flesh you’d probably rather not have had to see. To top it all, the bundle of joy you’ve just started bonding with has been whisked away to have all its bits poked and measured.
Once my second delivery of the morning was over, the doctor informed me that I needed a couple of stitches (my daughter had exited with some enthusiasm and shot out like a torpedo with a target). “Stitch me up nice and tight, I’d like to have good sex again,” I announced to the surprise of everyone in the room. I couldn’t tell whether the look of shock on the faces of my midwife, my doula and the doctor was due to their being a fairly religious lot or because they were stunned that I could already be thinking of sex less than an hour after giving birth! As it was, contrary to popular belief that the last thing one can imagine after giving birth is having sex, as my husband and I settled into our tiny double hospital bed I declared that I could definitely imagine having sex again, but I couldn’t imagine ever going to the loo again! In fact, it took me three days before I could muster up the courage …to go to the loo that is, not to have sex. By that time, I had realised the wonderful feeling of numbness down below had been due to the injection I’d been given prior to being stitched up. As soon as that wore off sex disappeared into the deepest recesses of my mind and stayed there for quite some time I can assure you. When at my six week check up my doctor seemed surprised that we’d only had sex twice since the birth, I thought the man must be mad …or then again perhaps he was just a man. I let him know in no uncertain terms that I was still rather sore and his solution …we should have more sex! Talk about a one-track mind!!
By Mummy Dearest
