One woman's perspective of (twin) parenting (and other thoughts about things)
The following post was written for the second edition of Letters To Other Women: Let’s Talk About It, although they decided to go in a different direction in the end so it wasn’t used. The first edition of the book features this piece.
TW: surgery, poorly baby, neonatal care, blood, panic attacks, anxiety
A couple of months ago, my husband and I were chatting with a friend about the trials of early parenting. Instead of just telling us that it gets better (why do people think that’s helpful?), this particular friend offered a far more realistic opinion: parenting is a neutral experience. For them, there are simply good bits and bad bits and they kind of balance each other out. They break even.
I have never been more reassured by a conversation with another parent.
We are nearly 10 months in now. We definitely haven’t broken even yet. But that’s okay, because I can see that we are getting there. It’s like a set of scales - the good stuff is certainly piling up on one side these days, but there’s a lot of emotional debt from the early months that still weighs heavily on the other. I think this is a relatable concept for a lot of (first time) parents, and the factors that cause this debt will be different for everybody. For me, though, a large chunk of it is down to the (perceived) pressure to Do Everything Right.
Let me explain.
*
One cold November morning, in the depths of Lockdown 2.0 (remember when we thought the pandemic would only last 3 weeks?), I arrived at hospital for my elective C section. At 9am, I was signing endless paperwork. At 9.30am, I was a mum. Of twins.
Now what?
2 hours post-birth
(I say 2 hours, I’ve honestly no idea. It was some point after surgery and before I was moved onto the postnatal ward.)
A lovely midwife pops in and asks whether I want to try breastfeeding. I do. Neither baby is especially bothered, but to be fair, they’ve been fed without any effort (on their part) for the last 9 months, and suddenly everything is very bright and very loud. If I were them, I’d want to sleep too.
We decide to express some colostrum for syringe feeding. Between us, we manage to manhandle my breasts into a position where they produce something, and then before I know it, I’m essentially being milked. Like a cow.
I thought breastfeeding was a super easy, super lovely, super natural thing that everybody should be able to do and - dare I say it - enjoy…
This doesn’t feel like how it’s meant to be.
The midwife, at this point, utters words that delight me: “ooh you’re not going to have a problem with supply!”
That’s more like it.
24 hours post-birth
I have slept for half an hour since I woke up yesterday morning, nearly 30 hours ago. I do not know this yet, but over the course of the next 3 days I will only sleep another 5 and a half hours. During my time on postnatal, I lose count of the amount of midwives who ‘just pop in’ because ‘baby probably wants feeding’. Every half an hour, I’d say. I don’t know whether this is actually how often newborns want feeding, but it feels a bit much. It’s also not going especially well on the breastfeeding front, but they are determined to persevere, despite “I have no problem with formula, FED IS BEST” being written all over my birth plan. I’m far too tired to argue.
This doesn’t feel like how it’s meant to be.
At some point during the first morning, with a substantial amount of help from a friendly student nurse, I give my babies their first joint cuddle since the operating theatre.
I realise in that moment that I love them more than I ever thought it possible to love anyone, and I would do anything for them.
That’s more like it.
5 days post-birth
Two days after one baby stops breastfeeding, the other stops as well. I am inconsolable as I tear the foil lid off a bottle of ready made formula, screw on the single-use teat and cradle them in my arms to feed them. I cannot see my baby through my tears. I have never known heartbreak like it.
I know (and I mean, really know) that fed is best and (as my birth plan will confirm) I have always been very pro-formula. However, in this moment, all I can hear is a voice in my head telling me that I am failing as a mother because I cannot feed my own babies.
This doesn’t feel like how it’s meant to be.
A day or two later, both babies have put on huge amounts of weight (relative to their size) and I cry tears of pride and happiness.
That’s more like it.
10 days post-birth
We are on our way back to hospital. The smaller of the babies is hypothermic and has a suspected infection that could lead to sepsis if we don’t pump them full of antibiotics.
When we arrive, we are fast-tracked through A&E and within half an hour, my tiny baby is under a heat lamp and full of tubes, having had a lot of blood taken for tests. A drop of it is still on the cubicle floor and I keep looking at it, wondering whether I should wipe it up. A midwife treads on it in her hurry to get the samples to microbiology and leaves imprints all the way down the corridor. I realise that this moment will never leave me.
We stay a week, with my husband and I taking it in turns to be with the baby in hospital and the baby at home. We barely see each other because we don’t have any options for childcare (our families are the other end of the country and, you know, there’s a pandemic on) but we manage.
This doesn’t feel like how it’s meant to be.
1 month post-birth
Somewhere around this point, I have a panic attack during which I scream “Having children was the worst ******* mistake of my life”. And, in that moment, I really mean it.
This doesn’t feel like how it’s meant to be.
After a week in hospital followed by ten days of self-isolation due to a ‘close contact’ (hardly surprising), we make it out of the house together as a family of five (with the dog) for the first time. It is a beautiful day and we feel like it might just all be OK.
That’s more like it.
6 weeks post-birth
Christmas. Apparently.
Other Mums from my NCT group seem to be dressing their babies up in cute outfits and having instagrammable Christmasses left, right and centre. We manage to get the tree up and take that as a win.
We entertain conversations with our families who say “how precious - the babies’ first Christmas!”, and “they’re probably a bit too young to notice what’s happening”, or “I imagine the babies are enjoying the twinkly lights!” We count down the minutes to bedtime as we do every day.
We open the laptop. We smile. We shut the laptop. We sigh.
This doesn’t feel like how it’s meant to be.
2 months post-birth
We get our first smile. Everybody rushes to tell us that it’s moments like these when you realise that everything is worth it.
It is truly lovely to see a smile (that I’m pretty sure isn’t just gas), but I tell a friend that if I genuinely thought the two months we’d just been through were “all worth it” for one (1) smile, I’d be an actual psychopath. She agrees. I don’t feel like I can say this to most people.
Am I not doing this properly?
4 months post-birth
There’s a bit of light some days now. I find some time to start blogging, which helps me find more light.
Other Mums seem to be out and about doing baby classes and meeting up for coffee and exchanging lighthearted stories of spit up and poo and cracked nipples and Bits for Spritz.
My husband and I imperceptibly progress from ‘barely surviving’ to ‘surviving’.
Am I not doing this properly?
6 months post-birth
The pandemic-ravaged world has started to open up a bit again. I am, largely, petrified of the outside world, but I know I need to put my big girl pants on and venture out, if only for the sake of my babies, who have seen very few Other People thus far. I tentatively book a ‘sing and sign’ class with a mum friend I met through NCT. It’s horrendous - the woman leading it can’t sing (although I realise as a professional singer I’m a tough audience on that one) and she can’t really sign either. But it gets me out of the house. I finally get to see myself next to these instagrammable Other Mums and it doesn’t feel as bad as I thought it would.
I think I’m doing okay.
Before the penultimate class, I’m bottle feeding my babies in the corridor (I tried preparing a feed on-the-go during a previous class and it was Not A Success). The leader comes over and takes it upon herself to a) criticise my feeding technique and b) tell me that “actually” they should only be having a pint a day now that they’ve started weaning.
Am I not doing this properly?
9 months post-birth
I celebrate my husband’s birthday with the biggest postnatal panic attack to date, culminating in me being a quivering wreck on the floor with a bruised forehead from where I fell, and the husband finishing off the nappy change I was half way through.
I don’t think I’m doing this properly.
This definitely isn’t how it’s meant to be.
What am I doing wrong?
Am I broken?
*
Our lovely cleaner (who not only makes our house spotless once a week, but is also currently squarely beating us at a game of asynchronous Jenga) mentioned in passing one day that it must be so wonderful to have all this Stuff to make it easier. They didn’t really have cots when she was bringing up her kids, she explained, let alone formula prep machines, rocker chairs with vibrating functions or coverall weaning bibs.
I thought about this for a while, and then a couple of weeks later I went back to her with a question.
“Were you just left to your own devices to bring up your kids? With nobody else really feeling like they had a right to tell you what you were doing right or wrong?”
“Yeah, I suppose so.”
“That’s why I think it’s not any easier these days. We have gadgets, yes, but we also have the internet, which is full of random people (including some industry professionals) telling us that Every Single Decision we make is a Really Big Deal. That, essentially, everything is a choice between killing our children (or certainly wanting them dead) and raising the perfect child who will grow up to cure cancer.”
“God, really? That sounds horrendous.”
“Yeah, it is.”
*
This is my overriding experience of parenting so far. A constant - and very present - fear of Getting It Wrong.
I realise, of course, that not everybody feels like this. My particular brand of anxiety (for want of a less medicalised, less mainstreamed word) centres around my fear of doing things in a sub-optimal way. I am a perfectionist with a tendency for obsessive behaviour, and I struggle with decision-making when my head is in a less-than-ideal place. So, that was never going to go well.
But I don’t think it’s just that.
A conversation about this with a mum friend brought another angle to light. She suggested that when women are fortunate enough to do the big things ‘by the book’ (as she did), they are boosted by a feeling that society supports their choices. By birthing vaginally and breastfeeding successfully, they are Doing Things Right. Decisions down the line, therefore, become easier; opinions and gut instincts are strengthened and less easily shaken. The nagging self doubt that you’re doing this all wrong isn’t ingrained from Day One.
In some cases, though, it isn’t even as subtle as a nagging feeling. For example, every single time I visit the SMA formula website, I am forced to read (scroll) through a lengthy disclaimer that is there to make sure I fully (and continually) understand that I am Not Doing This Properly. The first sentence is literally “The best way to feed a baby is to breastfeed”, and it goes on to say that SMA is only providing the information on their website for educational purposes and that they fully support the WHO’s position (which is that women should exclusively breastfeed until 6 months).
WHAT?
None of this is OK. Why - to put it plainly - is there even a ‘by the book’ way of doing this? Why do there have to be defaults that we strive to conform to? Why are some decisions Right and others Wrong? Can’t we all just celebrate growing, birthing and feeding humans without feeling a societal pressure to defend Every Single Choice?
Which brings me to perhaps the worst thing about all of this judgemental nonsense (shoehorning this piece slightly more back on topic). None of it takes any account whatsoever of what people may or may not have been through to even become parents. If you’ve had miscarriages, undergone fertility treatment, or spent years in the adoption system, then being accused of Being A Bad Parent/Woman/Human is a gut punch at best and immensely triggering at worst.
Truly, this needs to change.
There is plenty each of us can do to help. Phrases such as ‘normal/natural birth’ when referring to a vaginal birth are horrendous and we all need to stop using them immediately. ‘Breast is best’ can also get in the sea as far as I’m concerned: just because some women can, doesn’t mean all women should. Also, the socially constructed nature of parenting is a Whole Different Conversation, but we could all do a lot worse than educating ourselves on how families around the world bring up their children (Spoilers: it’s pretty different, and they seem to do fine). Finally, we all want to help fellow parents when we see them struggling with a thing that we find/found straightforward. But instead of diving in head first to tell them how it should be done, perhaps we could opt for: “I think I might have some helpful thoughts to offer; let me know if you’d like to chat at any point”.
Because by doing that, we respect the individual choices, values and contexts that each and every one of us brings to this mad circus called Parenting. We could live in a society where, instead of being expected to partake in destructive one-up(wo)manship, we are encouraged to fiercely and fearlessly defend other women’s decisions, especially when they are different from ours. How amazing would that be?!
One day, I know we will start feeling like we are breaking even. One day, as my husband points out, it will all be worth it because they will drive us to the pub.
Until then, I pledge to judge less and love more. Join me?
Lxx