Yeah I know what you’re thinking. Bit convoluted. Bit meta. Bit cliche. But Edie turned the grand old age of one the other week and about halfway through her second slice of cake, just as her little eyes started to go all swirly and Cheshire Cat, I realised I was already a markedly different parent to the one who’d sworn, shrieked and shakily brought her into the world a year before. So in a wildly self-indulgent mood, I decided I’d write down all the things I’d say to 2017-me.
Ditch the birth plan.
You’re a planner. It’s what you do. You cram as much researched information into your head as you can, to act as a comfort blanket, in an attempt to control the situation. But you can’t control this one. This will be expertly demonstrated the second your fanny touches the water in the bath your husband cautiously and meticulously runs for you (according to said plan), complete with Clary Sage oil drops and soothing vanilla candles, and the way your insides immediately scrunch up and your brain shouts NOPE NOPE NOPE. Almost everything you think you will feel or want during labour will be different. And that’s fine.
There’s nothing wrong with being a yeller.
You’ve told yourself that you’re ‘quite good’ with pain (also where did that come from? You’ve never even broken a bone) and your lovely NCT instructor sent you those insanely misleading hypnobirthing videos, so you think you’re basically going to sigh the baby out. When it all comes down to it you’re going to be less serene, more Ork. More shouty. And on that note, you probably should have read about all the painkiller options. You skipped Pethidine because you knew you were having gas and air. The thing is, you’re going to hate gas and air. The mouthpiece is clunky and plastic-y and the whole thing clashes horribly with the way you want to push against the wall to ride the overwhelming feeling of being ripped in half from the inside. You’re going to have Pethidine and sink into a deep but fractured sleep, like Ewan McGregor in Trainspotting, then wake up and swear like a Paratrooper on a piss-up. But so what. No one is judging you or measuring you against anyone else. Your baby (it’s a little girl, by the way) is healthy and happy and you can airbrush the details depending on who’s asking anyway.
Don’t baulk when the midwife mentions an episiotomy.
And when I say baulk, I mean push downwards with all your might until your poor lady bits split at the seams from front to back like an overripe fruit. Several months later; when you’re stuck in a hot, windowless room and a nice lady is making small talk while performing a rectal examination with an unnecessarily enormous piece of plastic to see if there’s any lasting damage, with Edie wailing miserably (oh you think you’ve got it bad?!) from her pram in the corner, you’ll wish you’d just accepted the damn thing and skipped all this twattery.
Stop worrying about “knowing when to push.”
To be honest, you don’t need to know. Your body knows and is going to do it all for you; carrying you over the finish line while you quietly float up to the top of the room and watch an angry, sweaty woman squatting over a bed, as a little dark head keeps peeping in and out; like a newborn Whac-a-Mole. Just breathe. No, really. That bit’s quite important.
Don’t overthink it.
Because sometimes the answer is more simple than you realise. At your six week GP check, you’re going to leave, white-faced, clutching a bumper bottle of Lactulose and the very real fear that you have some weird, postpartum poo problem. On reflection, the GP should have realised that obviously, with a tiny, mewling baby who’s permanently hanging off your knockers like a slightly clingy boyfriend, you haven’t exactly got ten minutes to leisurely do your business. It’s more like one (and let’s definitely not tell Edie about that one time you had to go while you were doing the whole baby-wearing thing), since she refuses to be put down and left alone. This is also why you have dirty hair all the time, you don’t eat breakfast until midday and your showers, more times than you’d care to admit, are a hastily applied wet wipe. You’re fine. And it’s taken some time and patience, but your body is just fine too.
She’s stronger than you think.
That first night in the hospital is a bit nuts, you’ll spend half of it gazing at Edie like a lovesick teenager and the other half of it leaning your battered body over to the little plastic cot to check she’s still breathing. The first night home is even weirder. She’ll be in the moses basket, a mere foot away that feels like a thousand, while every fibre of your body prickles and quivers, listening to her little breathy snores and shuddering gasps. Every time you pick her up you’ll stare at the little roads of blue veins and think how thin her skin is; how tiny and bendy her little fingernails are and how soft her fontanelle is as it leaps up and down with her breathing. But she’s tough. She won’t break when you lie her down on the changing mat or when you hold her in your arms. She’ll continue to bowl you over with just how strong she is; like the time she has a fever after her jabs, which rages through the night, leaving you and Carlo feeling helpless and Edie deathly silent, and the next afternoon as her temperature slowly begins to creep down, she’ll still manage to have a giggling fit.
Instinct is, actually, a thing.
Apart from the insatiable crunchy peanut butter cravings, your body is stubbornly silent during pregnancy. In those early days of Edie, maternal instinct will be there – cajoling you along and quietly nudging you, but it’s clouded in post-pregnancy hormones, still pinging wildly around your body, and hidden in a fog of overwhelming confusion; so you’re not tuned into it just yet. Everyone will tell you you have it – the midwives, your mother, your friends – and you’ll nod along with a frozen little smile while panic screeches inside you I CAN’T HAVE ANY MOTHERLY INSTINCTS BECAUSE I HAVE AN APP THAT TELLS ME WHEN SHE SHOULD EAT OR SLEEP OR PEE AND I SPEND HOURS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT MANIC GOOGLING PARENTING TIPS AND HOW TO KEEP MY CHILD ALIVE. But it is there, actually. You’ll find it when your health visitor says something that clashes or grates and makes you think, you know what, no. I’m going to ignore that little bit of advice you gave me. And again with your mother, and then again with some of the stuff your mum friends do. Advice and suggestions will always be helpful, but becoming the first person you consult is amazingly empowering and something of an epiphany.
Don’t let anyone make you feel small.
Ignore that stupid old bat in the library who, when she asks what Edie’s favourite nursery rhyme is, raises her eyebrows disapprovingly when you mumble that she doesn’t have one. SHE’S THREE DAYS OLD. You haven’t got round to brushing up on your nursery rhymes yet – mainly because you’ve been concentrating quite hard on trying to work out what your baby wants. Also you’ve only had about three hours sleep. And once more, she’s literally three days old. You’re not sure if she likes anything. (Side note: until she finally smiles about five weeks later, this is something that will plague you constantly. That’s normal. Once she learns how to smile it will be the most heartwarming, lovely thing and you’ll be able to stop wondering if you gave birth to the most ungrateful child on the planet.) After many, many hours of music time with your friends you’ll be a nursery rhyme pro! You’ll know all the verses! Even the extra ones people always forget! But right now, you don’t need to be judged by someone who doesn’t even know you.
You will get time to yourself again.
You love Edie. So, so much. I mean, more than anything or anyone in the whole world. But you also feel like a bad mother when you daydream about leaving her in the house and popping out for an unplanned, casual drink or go all wobbly-kneed at teeny tiny handbags that could barely fit a mobile phone in. The thing is, you will go out with your girlfriends again and squeeze your milky melons into a proper, sexy bra. You’ll carve out that precious commuting time and rediscover podcasts and old music and interesting books and just being on your own. You’ll get your hair done; you’ll have a long, hot bath; you’ll eat a meal and get to finish it before it goes cold and plastic-y; you’ll leave the house without a change of clothes (for both of you), two packs of wipes JUST IN CASE and a million nappies. Your wardrobe won’t be dictated by a fiendishly hungry human who needs direct access to your boobs at all times. You’ll claw back some autonomy and reclaim the things that make you, you, outside of being a mother. Edie will always be responsible for waking up feelings and emotions inside of you, that you never knew were there. But she won’t define you. And it won’t be long before you realise that that isn’t something you should feel guilty about.
And you know what? You’re doing good.