motherhood

Mummy forum rant

~ Vickywoo ~ Leave a comment

Mummy forums. Personally, I find them horrifying. Like the Daily Mail online comments section, but scarier.

When you throw a question out to a bunch of sleep-deprived/shell-shocked/in-need-of-adult-conversation hormonal ladies, what sort of responses do you expect to get? And yes, I do think that us mummies can provide each other with helpful advice and support, but I also think we can confuse one another with conflicting advice and viewpoints. I guess this is why I would choose to look at medical professional sites for health advice, ‘proper’ parenting websites for weaning/naps/milk etc advice and personal mummy blogs for inspiration/comfort. I would never ask a bunch of mummies in a chat room about whether or not I can give Audrey x amount of calpol or if it was weird that she was doing so-and-so.

And NEVER go there to discuss immunisations. Yikes.

The problem is, I am a member of more than one mummy group on Facebook and various things clutter my feed… Ted says; “Just leave the group or hide the posts” and of course he’s right, I should do that… But I can’t help keeping them so I can judge/get annoyed/laugh/and sometimes (rarely) get some useful advice.

I spend a lot of time saying “Don’t these women have friends?!” Or “Haven’t they heard of Google?!?” But I guess the truth is, no, some of them don’t have friends they can ask and yes, they probably could Google it, but then they wouldn’t have an interaction with other mummies and maybe they desperately need that.

I’ve been hugely lucky in that I have several friends from school who paved the way and had kids a few years ahead of me. So we got loads of clothes, a cot and things we’d never even heard of (bumbo!). Then we did NCT and met a great group of people and shared an amazing experience together. Plus Tallulah from NCT did all the reading so I didn’t have to! Then I had some semi-blind dates with friends of friends with babies. Then there’s the local T21 group, who organise pre-school meet-ups so Audrey can meet other babies with DS close to her age (or more importantly, I can meet their mummies). There were plenty of people to sit and drink coffee with (decaf whilst breastfeeding of course!) and dissect the nap routine and symptoms of this and that and developmental stuff…

But what if you didn’t have that? I can’t begrudge these women their only outlet for baby queries and support, can I? Even if they don’t know the difference between “mummy’s” and “mummies”? Even if they ask questions that could easily be answered by a quick Google or a glance at an instruction manual? Even if they start a discussion about grooming pubic hair??

I give in. If it riles me too much, I’ll block… But for now just listen out for me muttering, “F*¥#ing Google it!”.

Work vs work

~ Vickywoo ~ 1 Comment

I used to think the stay at home mum option was the easy/lazy choice… My mother didn’t work until I was around 8 years old and even then she just did some part time work, which meant she was still around for the school run.

My sister got pregnant at 19 and decided to quit work and be a stay-at-home single mother. I honestly thought she spent most of her days in bed!

Now of course I know that motherhood isn’t one long nap or even one long playtime. Babies are exhausting and they require a lot of looking after. Yes, you might get a chance to nap when they nap… But they might only nap indoors in your arms for 6 months (thanks Audrey), so you can’t nap… Or they might prefer afternoon buggy naps (again, Audrey!), so you need to pace around when you’d rather have your feet up with a cuppa.

It’s all challenging and rewarding, up and down… I salute you if you devote your time to raising your children full-time. There’s a lot of walking in parks, but it’s not a walk in the park.

Despite motherhood not being quite the meander down easy-street I imagined, I still dreaded going back to work. I thought it would be such a shock to my system and I worried I would struggle with someone else looking after Audrey. As it turns out, it was a blessed relief! Work turned out to be easier than looking after my own child!

Since drafting this post a few weeks ago, where I basically just wanted to ramble on about the beauty of work/baby balance; I have lost my job.

I did know it was likely to happen (the company was clearly in trouble), but it was still a shock – we were all out of jobs so quickly. When a company goes into administration it can bring everything to a pretty abrupt end.

And so… a job-hunting I must go. This is where I realise that having a baby complicates things on that front. Can I get a quick-fix temp job in a shop? Not really… Unless they can give me 3 days a week that guarantee I can get across town for nursery pick up by 6. And will the wage justify the child care?

I started to contemplate full-time work (since there are 100s more full-time jobs than part-time ones) and realised how much I do value my time with Audrey. It’s not about an ‘easy’ day or even about me having the control, it’s about our relationship and the fact that; time together = bonding.

Right now I’m riding high as Audrey’s number 1. She reaches for me when someone else is holding her, she moans when she thinks I’m leaving her and gazes at me with such love… What if her keyworker at nursery became that number 1?!

And so I shall continue my quest for part-time work, to keep that work/baby balance, but in the meantime I can work extra hard to maintain my place at the top of Audrey’s tree…

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The road ahead…

~ Vickywoo ~ Leave a comment

When you have a baby, you suddenly realise you are at the beginning of a very long journey. You look at this tiny bundle that is totally reliant on you and the scale of what you’ve taken on hits you – they need you for at least the next 18 years.

Now imagine that heavy realisation combined with all the preconceptions about Down’s Syndrome…

My husband has this amazing positivity that can turn anything into a good thing. When Audrey was just weeks old he was saying how lucky we would be potentially never experiencing “empty nest”! I liked his thinking, however I had always (when thinking about having children) imagined the “pay off” towards the end when they look after you!

It is natural to always be looking to the future (Where will our next holiday be? Where is my career going? etc), but Audrey is (slowly) helping me to focus on the present. Wondering and worrying about when she might crawl, when she might get teeth and what sort of adult she might be… It’s all pointless. I can’t predict these things and why do I need to know when these things will happen?! Do parents of “typical” babies fret about these things?

One of the biggest realisations after becoming a parent of a special needs child, is that life goes on and in not much of a different way to how you imagined it. However there are times where I worry we are in denial about what having DS means to Audrey and her life. Other times I’m just thankful we are positive people and that we don’t let it get on top of us.

The fact remains that Audrey’s life will be different to that of a typical child. There will be more challenges and there will be difficult times, but that doesn’t have to be our focus, we can choose to carry on as “normal”. I have certainly said many times how glad I am that we didn’t know Audrey had DS when I was pregnant. The pregnancy was so happy and we had no time to fret or form ideas about this baby growing inside me… It was relatively worry-free.

I think the best plan is to enjoy the journey and let the road unfold ahead of us like the magical mystery tour that it should be…The ups and the downs…We’ve already shown we can handle surprises…

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Stuff and things

~ Vickywoo ~ 2 Comments

My husband and I say “stuff and things” as a reply that basically means “I can’t think of anything to say right now” or something like that. It’s difficult to explain our weird ways to others.

Anyway, I’ve decided to take “stuff and things” as a label for posts about our day to day life. Rather than all the comment on various DS/baby issues… Just a little catch up on what we’ve been up to (if anything!). So here goes, the first chapter of stuff and things…

This week I gave Audrey a cold sore 😦 it was always going to happen, I get at least 2 a year and Audrey and I kiss a lot).They don’t seem to be bothering her, but they are bothering me – mine has cleared up, she has one either side of her mouth in full swing, so we can’t kiss! Booo.

In happier news we went to Woodfest in our local park on Saturday. I held a tiny owl and Audrey watched. Then we headed to the Brighton Food Festival on Hove Lawns and Audrey went on her first fairground ride with Daddy!

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Audrey wasn’t that fussed about the ride, but she liked seeing me on the sidelines.

Sunday we went to a DS picnic back at St Ann’s Well Gardens. I didn’t take any pictures, doh! But we met up with other local DS families and Audrey managed to nap even though a little 3 year old monkey called Thomas came over to investigate and squeezed her foot. She also slept through Elliot passing by whilst roaring like a dinosaur… Ahh the toddlers are quite an eye opener!

Fun to see other little uns with DS doing well and having fun with their siblings. There was even a guy and his wife who popped by – their niece was born last week and unexpectedly had DS. How amazing that he took the time to look into the local DS community, his sister having only given birth last week! What a fab uncle.

Last night Audrey had her sleep study to hopefully sign her off from the care of the hospital (and confirm she doesn’t need to go back on oxygen at night), no idea how it went as she is in her own room these days. The probe was off her foot in the morning though, wriggly little lady! Fingers crossed….

Future DS Mama…

~ Vickywoo ~ Leave a comment

I was sent an email (along with a handful of other DS mummies) this week… A woman in our area is 16 weeks pregnant and has had a blood test that has revealed a 99% chance of Down’s Syndrome… She has reached out for advice and I was more than happy to speak to her. We squeezed in a ten minute or so telephone chat whilst I wandered on my lunch break and she found a quiet spot in her office. And of course I came away thinking of all the things I should have said…

Unfortunately I couldn’t offer her the perspective of someone who had a prenatal diagnosis of Down’s Syndrome. I simply do not know what it’s like to be told that the life in your tummy is 99% likely to have DS and for that mysterious “bad news” to be hanging over you throughout pregnancy.

Ted and I have always said we were glad we didn’t know. I imagine the pregnancy would have been ruined by the dark cloud hanging over us. But then, is there something to be said about preparation? Would I have felt more joy/relief/love when Audrey was first born, had the DS been expected rather than a shock?

I spoke to the lady in question, starting by letting her ask questions, she kicked off with; “Well my mother said I wouldn’t be able to work if I have this baby, I’ll be at home caring for him/her, but obviously you’re at work? – Does nursery cost more?”

Yes I’m back at work three days, Audrey is at nursery twice and spends one day with Grandma (or Bibi as we have chosen). I said that possibly nurseries find a child with special needs a positive thing – they get funding and guidance on sensory toys etc. but at the moment, her needs aren’t very different, so it’s not a big deal for her to be at nursery.

We talked about health issues (Audrey being on oxygen for 6 months), the fact that once we got over the shock, we just had a baby to deal with… And she told me they have the heart scan for the baby this week so I said that could be helpful in putting their mind at rest. If baby escapes a heart issue, that’s a good sign… She did say they went for the amniocentesis but she couldn’t go through with it – she got upset seeing the baby on the screen. So I guess she’s not keen on termination. However the discussion revealed her partner was perhaps leaning that way.

She was going to meeting with another DS mama that evening and I think there were at least 4 of us on the email. But I still felt I had to get her more help, so I emailed some contacts and sent on the email address of someone who did know they were carrying a baby with DS. I’ve passed on the contact and stepped back.

I desperately want to email her a ton of blogs and websites, as well as say; “No matter what, I guarantee you will love your baby” and basically flood her with positivity in the hope she will keep this baby, but of course that’s not the right way to go about this. She needs space and not some crazy person begging her to keep a child with special needs!

I guess I’ll know which way things go when she either turns up at a DS group… Or we never hear from her again.

Fear and Self-Loathing in Motherhood

~ Vickywoo ~ 2 Comments

Last week I was suddenly ill. It was a time to be very thankful my husband now works only 5 minutes away, as I started being sick very suddenly at around 5pm and it didn’t let up until around 1 or 2am in the morning.

I could not have looked after Audrey alone that evening, the sickness was unbeatable, plus I kept falling asleep for 10 minutes or so between the vomiting. Yep, it was pretty brutal (just ask the bathroom door who bore the brunt when I didn’t reach the toilet on time!). So the next day Ted had to work from home whilst I slept a lot and then in the afternoon he took Audrey into work with him.

This was a difficult day for me, but not really because I was so weak/exhausted/nauseous, more so because I had to completely relinquish control over Audrey. I didn’t touch her for 48 hours after I was sick. So Ted was in charge of food, milk, naps, nappy changes, play time, outfits… The lot. I’ve been her dictator for so long, it was bizarre taking this step back. Definitely something I couldn’t have done so easily were it not for the fact that I was utterly exhausted and concerned about passing the illness on. If I’d have been well, I would have meddled. Ok, so I still meddled from afar, but I would have meddled more!

So the routine shifted and her outfits didn’t match. But life carried on and she still slept through (needed waking at 7am in fact). And Ted also managed to get her to self settle for her morning nap 3 times (I’ve been rocking her to sleep). So lessons were learnt thanks to Daddy!

But the whole experience left me feeling… Depressed. Guilty. Utterly useless. For some reason, since becoming a mum, I seem to have excelled at beating myself up about stuff. I just cannot get enough of questioning whether I’m a good enough mother, whether I’m doing things right and in questioning those things, I find myself crying and apologising for having such doubts. It all gets quite messy.

Ted is more level-headed (don’t forget, he’s a rock) and always manages to make me feel better, but nevertheless the self-loathing continues… Having not fed her for two days I started to feel like I couldn’t face being in charge again. The thought of our days… Bottle, nap, lunch, nap, bottle, dinner, bedtime routine, rinse, repeat… Filled me with dread. The monotony! This then spirals into guilt… How could I feel like this about my child? My responsibilities to her? And so the bad mother feeling resurfaces.

I was so focussed on all this and the dread of pulling myself together, I forgot something key… Audrey. I forgot that once I got to hold her again and make her smile, all the “monotony” would fade into the background. And so here we are, back to our routine… Accept now she’s napping and I didn’t have to rock her to sleep!

Thank goodness for my wonderful husband and daughter…

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