I was convincing myself that this was the right thing to do because, surely, he could have my milk in a month or so and easily switch back to the breast, right?
I was scared, scared that once I stopped pumping that was it, I wouldn’t get it back. Once I stopped, I would be throwing away the opportunity to bond with my baby.
I would miss out on the one thing I wanted to work so badly.
Truth is, it just wasn’t going to work for me. I am sure the persistence would work for some women but for me I needed to let it go.
It was the hardest thing I had to do yet, but despite that, I knew it was the right decision for me.
And when I say for me, I mean, for me.
There is one thing that spoke volumes to me on days like these: you have to do what works for you and not worry about what everyone else is doing or telling you to do.
—
Unlucky for me I didn’t have friends or family who had recently experienced being a first-time mum. The only glimpse of newborn routine I got was from my own mother who told me I was the perfect baby who slept a solid 12 hours at night from the day I came home from hospital. To this day I don’t believe her and am not sure who she is trying to kid!
The other light reading I would do while pregnancy hormones flooded my body was about the unconditional love that mothers have for their children (sure, while this is totally true, it’s not very useful on those dark days).
There was one conversation. One conversation in my whole 9 months of pregnancy. It was covered by my midwife in a routine antenatal appointment. She had asked if I had heard about the very likely possibility of the baby blues and post-natal depression. I am pretty sure I was half-heartedly listening to her and, before I had even made it out the door, I had dismissed it as ever going to affect me. The justification for what I would now describe as ignorance, was that I truly believed this was not going to be me.
I had it together and would find a solution. How stupid was I?!
I was comparing raising an unborn child to my job, where meetings and deadlines are tidily arranged into an outlook calendar and if a project went over time or over budget, we would find a way around it.
Truth is, there is no way around the days, weeks and months after giving birth and the emotions that come with it. Sure, there are some things that make it slightly more bearable (like a hot shower, coffee and food being cooked for you) but I can’t remember having it together for even one whole day. The only thing that I often wanted to do in that newborn bubble, was burst it. I wanted my sleep, my freedom and the old relationship I had with my husband. I wanted to stop trying to fix everything that I thought was wrong with my baby (which was often triggered by a web search of “Is it normal for my x week old baby to…”).
—
So, after all of that, to the exhausted and emotional mumma in the thick of it all, I won’t say it gets easier because it feels like it never will (and probably everyone else has said this very line).
What I will say is you just have to do you and know that we have all been there.
We have all self-taught: even when the learnings and realisations of nurturing our babies seem small, they are all wins. One of my most prudent discoveries was finding out you didn’t need a knife to level out a formula scoop, and that there is a lip on the underside of the tin! Yep, it was amazing, so much so, I’m proud to say there were no tears that day.
For all the soon to be mummas enjoying the glowing weeks of pregnancy, continue to indulge in all the pre-baby to-dos. However, I am hoping that in reaching out, I make the fall – whether that be steep or not – a little smoother. You will struggle and the days will be dark, no matter how tough, strong or I-have-got-it-together type of woman you think you are. For me, and I am sure many others, they have been the hardest, most unforgiving and trying weeks of survival.
Yours truly,
A real mumma
Katrina Farah kept notes of her journey through the first few months of having a baby and shares her story in the hope it might help other mums and soon-to-be-mums.
