Email Me sharon@mindfulmeandering.co.za
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There are a lot of things about being a new mother that one can never really be prepared for. No matter how your friends who’ve gone on ahead try to prepare you, you can, for example, never be prepared or fully understand just how all consuming being a mother is until you’re in it. I was completely unprepared for the fierceness of the love I would feel for my daughter, I mean logically I knew it would be that way, but I couldn’t relate to the feeling or understand it until she was here.
One of the things I hadn’t been prepared for was just how much more sensitive being a mother would make me. I’ve always been sensitive, I’ve always had a fairly sophisticated sense of compassion, I am able to put myself in others shoes and empathize with their pain or suffering. What shocked me was how that would multiply by a hundred times when I became a mother. I was completely unprepared for this because I had always been compassionate to start with. But now that I have a child of my own, when I hear stories of baby Ashleigh’s passing or baby Laila’s appalling treatment and subsequent brain damage, I can’t help imaging how I would feel if that was my child, I can’t help but be heartbroken for these children and also their parents, in ways that cannot be explained or understood.
And it seems not just affect new Mom’s but new Dad’s too. W is as affected by all of this, whenever we hear one of these stories he gets tearful and says things like, imagine if that were our little darling?
Its odd how having a child can mature and change one so emotionally in ways one never dreamed possible.
I attended the Living & Loving Pampers Premium Care Workshop on Saturday morning with a bunch of my fellow IF sisters now Mom’s. It was fabulous and such great value for money. Tickets were R150 and we were spoiled rotten. The event was held at the Johannesburg Country Club, in the ballroom, it was attended by a very large number of women. The tables were decorated beautifully, when we arrived we were treated to Tea’s, Coffee’s, juices, muffins, croissants, yoghurt and fruit and spoiled rotten with these fab gift bags. The gift bags were stuffed full of all kinds of goodies, Living & Loving mags, Nam dummies and catalogues, weaning and feeding bowls of all different variety, weaning and feeding spoons and forks, bath thermometers, baby products, nappies, you name it, it was to be found inside the lovely gift bag.
The even started off with a presentation by Pampers on how their Premium Care nappies are the only nappies on the market that can also absorb wet/runny poo. These are the nappies I’ve been using for Ava and while they are the most expensive, I love how they feel, like soft cotton as opposed to the plasticy feel of conventional disposables.
After their presentation, we had a presentation by Sister Lilian of the Sister Lilian Centre. The talk was amazing, it was all about discipline and healthy sleeping habits in babies and toddlers. I absolutely love her parenting approach. It sits much more comfortable with me than the whole controlled crying and sleep training approach which I tried a couple of weeks back. There were some key statements that she made that really struck a chord with me but the one thing she said that really reaffirmed where I stand on my parenting style is that I definitely fall part of the “mother knows best” parenting style. I tried the controlled crying and routine training parenting style and while it works wonders for some, it did not work for us. I don’t have the temperament for it, I could not stand to hear my baby cry constantly and each time I went into her room to fetch her for a feed I hated myself when I saw her snotty nose and red eyes and tear stained cheeks, it felt unkind.
After the presentation, there was a Q&A session and a HUGE brunch buffet, I know we certainly made sure we got our monies worth!
On another note…. I discovered this weekend that I’ve lost a week in my babies life. I was convinced that she was 11 weeks old yesterday, but after a discussion with a friend who’s baby is of a similar age, I’ve discovered that my little darling is in fact now 12 weeks old! I can’t believe she’s going to be 3 months old this Saturday. She’s grown so much and the changes over the past two weeks have been phenomenal. She’s settled into a wonderful sleeping routine, is eating well, is very talkative and happy and giggly and she has started figuring out her depth perception…. just yesterday while I was shaking a rattle for her, she reached up and for the first time ever managed to take it out of my hand. So proud of my little sausage!
So after much urging from Yvonne, I finally pulled finger and joined a Parenting Support Forum. The problem … I feel like a fraud! Like I don’t belong. Like I’m some kind of hoaxer living someone elses life. My little darling is 11 weeks old on Sunday and it still hasn’t sunk in that she’s my daughter, I’m her mother. Do you think it ever will?
So I joined the parenting forum and so far, all I’ve managed to do is post a “I’m New” posting. I can’t seem to bring myself to join in any of the conversations or to give advice or answer questions. I feel like the outsider looking in, convinced that they’re going to figure out I’m a fraud at any minute. A fake Mamma and not the real deal at all.
I’m guessing that most infertiles go through this to some degree or another?? Right? I think my situation is exacerbated by the fact that I literally had a 6 day pregnancy, maybe if I had more time it would feel more real?
I’m starting to believe the expression that a mothers lot in life is to feel guilty. A case in point – this week. I’ve been on maternity leave for two and a half months already. I’m scheduled to return to work at the beginning of May. However, as part of my very hotly negotiated maternity leave benefits is that I would start from the 1st March assisting with some admin from home. Initially I was happy with the arrangement, that is before we settled into our lives as a family of three. Now, I’d much rather stay at home and take care of my little darling for the remainder of the two months of my leave.
The problem with this is that, although South Africa has a very progressive constitution, we’re still living in the dark ages in terms of maternity benefits and maternity leave. W worked for a large Swedish corporation up until last year, he travelled to Sweden and I was so jealous to discover what Swedes are offered…. 18 months maternity leave @ 80% of their salaries. It kind of makes the South African allowance of 4 months with no pay seem harsh and really unfair.
Add to that, its almost impossible to register for UIF benefits because our child is adopted and we’re pretty much sitting in a tight financial position. My UIF benefit, while I qualify for the highest payout, will only pay in around June, and will be back dated for the time of my maternity leave because the labour department don’t pay Mom’s through adoption until the final adoption order is passed, we estimate we will get ours in May, but can’t be certain.
As a result, I’ve agreed to assist from home in order to improve my earnings. But its been a hard decision to come to terms with. I’ve felt sick with guilt over having to do this. I feel like I’m depriving my child of precious time with me in the early days of her life. I’m disappointed in my employers for putting me in a position where I’ve had to make this choice, granted, by law, I’m not entitled to anything but really, after 5 years of service I would have hoped for more. Especially because this is our miracle child, our only child, its not like I will take maternity leave ever again and I just wanted to be able to enjoy this time and look back on it without regrets. But I suppose I can’t really expect them to care about that now can I?
Sadly, because of the unusual circumstances of our arrival at parenthood, I can’t just sit back and live on our savings for the next few months, we still have an adoption to pay for. So, it was with a very heavy heart, red eyes and tear stained cheeks that I headed into the office on Wednesday to collect a company laptop and be brought up to speed with what has been happening with my clients. I swear I heard my heart crack when I kissed my little darling goodbye and left. The entire time I was there, which was only 2 hours, I couldn’t stop thinking about how I wanted to get home to her.
I really hope that this is going to get easier!!! Somebody tell me it will??? The thing is, I’m not cut out to be a stay at home mom, I’m not cut out not to work. I’ve tried it once before, for 18 months I was a housewife and I nearly lost my mind in the process. So now I’m trying to figure out what will be the happy medium. What will allow me to go to work but also not feel guilty about leaving my baby. I know because of the type of person I am that I will be a better mother to her if am working outside the home but how do I get past my feelings of guilt and this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach?
My best friend, Sam, received news of a negative GIFT this week. The same day she went to the airport to fetch her Dad’s ashes after his passing earlier this year. She is, understandably, devastated, as are many of us who love her and are rooting for her. We had a long discussion yesterday afternoon about it all and about God in all of it. Sam is deeply spiritual and has a strong bond with God. But she is angry with him over the failure of her GIFT and of the difficult circumstances she’s been in over the past couple of months. She feels abandoned and ignored by Him. I recall feeling that same anger, feeling as if I was ignored by Him when our FET resulted in our 7th miscarriage last year, so I can completely relate to how she’s feeling at the moment.
A fellow blogger, Niki, just found out that her husband has incurable, untreatable cancer with “not long” as his diagnosis.
All of these situations make one wonder where God is in all of this? The eternal question of why bad things happen to good people? I don’t know how to answer that. I never have, its all so confusing and so conflicting. Then yesterday I received a beautiful email from support forum friend who reads my blog and I think she answered the question perfectly, for me anyway, its help make sense of the whole good things to bad people and bad things to good people:
I have many friends that have had atrocious things happen to them and no, it
is never God’s plan for us to suffer but the reality is that we live in a
fallen world and bad stuff happens to good people. God’s challenge to us is
how we react to the bad situation and through our faith and the support of
God and other Christians we are then able to turn an awful situation into a
positive experience. Friends whose child was stillborn that have now started
a support group for other parents in a similar situation, Maritza and Tertia
that started Fertilicare / wrote So Close that has been such a source of
information and support to others suffering with infertility. The list is
just endless.There’s a verse in Romans * vs 28 “And we know that in all
things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called
according to his purpose. I’ll write what my Bible says about this verse:
God works in “all things” – not just isolated incidents – for our good. This
does not mean that all that happens to us is good. Evil is prevalent in our
fallen world, but God is able to turn every circumstance around for our
long-range good. Note that God is not working to make us happy, but to
fulfil his purpose.
I love that paragraph. I think Katherine has explained so perfectly what we all grapple with daily when we see such bad things happenig that just don’t seem to make any sense. Of course, it does not take away our anger or our pain to know this, but for me at least, this paragraph has helped me to understand something I have long since struggled with.
There is so much suffering in the world today, its hard not to ask where is God in all of it, to not be saddened and brought to tears by the suffering we see around us.
Please will you take the time to go and offer support and not the voyeuristic type, but real support to these two amazing women who are facing such terrible trials and heartache.
Yesterday, AG and I attended the Parent Education for Division 1 (0 – 6 months) Swimming through Aquatots. It was truly fascinating and we have some homework to do before she starts with Division 2 lessons in August. For now, its all about getting her confident while floating. She’s such a good little sausage that the instructor decided to use her as the model for the class demonstration. She lay their in the blow up pool, floating on her back and having a fat chat and a smile session with the instructor. She also kept turning her head to look for me (bless) and I landed up having to sit in front of the class with the instructor so she could see me at the same time.
The lesson was really interesting. We learned how to float them and swish them gently backwards and forwards in the bath or in a small blow up pool. We learned how to support their heads and chins so they don’t swallow water. Start teaching them how to make “nemo” hands while singing row row row your boat to them and how to encourage her to start the kicking action by kicking her legs and positively re-enforcing with the words splash splash splash. Apparently, later on,this will cause a reaction that when they’re put in the pool, they will start kicking as soon you start saying splash splash splash.
This weekend I’d like to go and buy AG a little blow up pool so that on the warm days we can do these exercises with her during the day. We will also do them in the bath, but this requires two adult, as one adult needs to sit in the bath while the other one passes her safely in and out of the bath. Because W works such long hours, it will mean that we will only be able to do the bathing on weekends.
She really loved being the demo baby yesterday and cooperated perfectly so I’m really hoping she will enjoy the lessons. We have a pool at home, and although it is covered with a safety net, I would feel better knowing that she knows how to swim as soon as possible. My cousin took her little girl for swimming lessons from the age of 5 months and the results are remarkable. She’s now 6 years old, super confident around the pool and swims like a fish. My nephew, on the other hand, was not given swimming lessons and he’s extremely nervous around the pool, this is not a situatin I want for my little darling.
So here we go……….splash splash splash!
I love my daughter more than words can ever describe. I do, I really do. Its something thats impossible for me to explain. The love I feel for her is all consuming, the love I have for her is ferocious in its power. I’m like a snarling tiger protecting her cub and I will tell you this.
I believe with all my heart that I was meant to be AG’s mother. I believe with all my heart that I was chosen to be her mother before I even knew I wanted to be a mother. I believe with every fiber of my being that she was meant to be my child, that we were meant to be together, that this was God’s plan for my life. This is MY answer. I won’t excuse it. I won’t deny it. I won’t apologize for it.
It doesn’t say ANYTHING about anyone else. It isn’t anyone elses answer. Its mine. If you don’t like it guess what? Tough luck! I won’t deny what I belive to be MY THRUTH!
The last three days my little darling has been sleeping….. alot! I’m starting to wonder if I should be worried?
Today’s example -
Wake at 7am, changed diaper, bottle, back to sleep at 07h45.
Slept till 9am, top and tailed her, dressed for the day.
Back to sleep at 09h15 – slept till 11am when I had to wake her for her bottle.
She fell asleep on the bottle and I put her back in her cot at 11h30.
At 13h00 she cried a couple of times, but each time when going into her room I’d find her eyes closed, popped the dummy back in & she’d go straight back to sleep.
Eventually I woke her at 15h00 for a bottle. She fell asleep again on the bottle and has been dozing on and off ever since.
Saturday and Sunday were also like this. With the usual grumpiness setting in at around 16h30 in preparation for bath time and bed time.
She’s just past 10 weeks old and I’m wondering if all this sleeping is due to the growth spurt that usually happens just before or around 3 months?
Going to keep and eye on her and see how things go……….
We had our final weigh in at the baby clinic yesterday. From now on, AG will only need to visit the baby clinic for her vaccinations. She’s done really well! She’s 10 weeks tomorrow and is just shy of doubling her birth weight. Born at 2.9kg’s, she’s now weighing in at 5.28kg’s but she still looks quite petite, I think this is because despite her weight gain, she’s really tall, falling into the 98th percentile for height but dead on 50% for weight. Her BM was tall and petite, so I reckon she’s probably going to be the same.
She’s become such a joy to both W and I. I must be honest, those early weeks were really hard, I don’t think I could have the first 4 weeks over ever again. They were terrible. I was stressed out, feeling totally out of my depth, sleep deprived, we battled Jaundice and horrific stomach cramps. Yesterday while waiting my turn at the clinic, I sat next to a mom who was there with her 4 week old baby. When I asked her how it was going she burst into tears. I can SO sympathize with her. Despite not having given birth to AG, I’m pretty sure I battled some degree of PND and I almost started crying for this poor woman yesterday. No matter how much you longed for your baby, no matter how long you waited, nothing can ever prepare you for just how all consuming and overwhelmingly difficult those first few weeks are.
I discussed with the clinic sister yesterday AG’s night time sleep routine as she now on occasion sleeps right through from 7pm till 6am. The sister informed me that its very possible that AG is just waking up at night out of habit, something which I have suspected for a while. I’ve learned to distinguish between her cries, I know when she’s had a fright, when she’s in pain, when she’s hungry or when she’s just plain calling me. And the past couple of weeks, that night time cry has been her calling me and the second she hears me in her room, she stops. The sister suggested that instead of automatically making her a bottle, that I get up, quietly go into her room in the dark, turn her over, pop in her dummy, settle her and walk out again and see how that goes. I did it last night and she slept till 4:30am! So it definitely looks like we are in the process of cutting out that last night time feed.
We’ve been extremely fortunate with her night time routine. She’s definitely not a night owl and regardless of when we feed during the day, she gets very distressed and grumpy if she isn’t fed and in bed by 7pm. From 3 weeks old, she started dropping her one night time feed and she’s a good night time sleeper, only waking up for that one night time feed or not at all. I really hope this lasts.I know so many women who are still battling, still having to get up multiple times in the night to settle their babies, even after 9 or 10 months. I dread that we will revert to that, I’m not good without sleep!
Her day time sleeping is still not great, she’s averaging about 4 hours of sleep a day now. Usually she’ll go down for an hour after her first morning feed and then again for about 2 hours after her mid morning feed. The rest of the day she’ll cat nap when she needs to. To be honest, I’ve stopped reading all the mommy books and stopped trying to enforce extending sleeping on her. She clearly does not need it or want it and is still thriving.
She’s achieved all of the milestones a new baby should and she’s done a lot of them early. She smiled at 4 weeks, started giggling at 9 weeks. She can open and close her hands and hold things in them, bring her hands to her mouth to suck her thumb. When being held up right she drops her legs and makes walking motions. She can hold her head steady and when laid on her stomach pushes herself up on her forearms to have a look around. So she’s doing well, according to our pead, she’s “advanced for her age”, whatever that means, so we’re just leaving her to guide us.
Tomorrow she turns 10 weeks old and she’s become such a pleasure. She smiles at EVERYONE she see’s, giggles if I pull faces or make funny noises, has these super long conversations with her toys and with me. When I talk to her, she talks straight back to me and its totally cute. In her own way, we can see how she tries to mimmick us.
I’ve had to pack away all her new born clothes as none of them fit and even the 0-3months are now starting to fit snuggley. While I am so in awe and excited to watch her grow and develop everyday, a part of me is also really sad that the time is passing so quickly and very soon our little baby is not going to be a little baby anymore!
I’ve been informed that my posting yesterday was hurtful to some who are still in the trenches of infertility. I’d like to state categorically that it was never my intention to hurt anyone’s feelings with that posting. I may have a child, but I have not forgotten my almost 8 years of infertility, of treatments and failures and heartache and disappointments. I too, like so many of you out there, have been through the wringer, I did not get to the place of motherhood easily, I worked, I sweated blood and tears, I gotten beaten and gave up a million times. I lost my faith and regained it over and over again. I got angry at God, at the world.
I did not, contrary to some interpretation, make the statement that my “crossing over” (really hate that term, its like crossing the great divide, separating us into the us and them when at the end of the day we’re all war weary, battered and bruised) was fate or part of God’s plan. What I said was that the reason why my RE’s and homeopaths and Dr’s could never find anything wrong with me is because I was never meant to have a child that was genetically mine. I believe in destiny and it was always my destiny to be Ava’s mother. I’m so sorry for those of you who find this statement painful, but please understand, it is what it is and I won’t deny my beliefs and my feelings. What I will say is this.
I realize that not everyone will have the same ending to this journey, we are each placed on different paths, no two journeys are the same and no two outcomes will be the same. Some of us will become mothers, whether is be with a biological child, an adopted child, a surrogated child, an adopted embryo etc etc etc, some of us will not become mothers. Our journeys and outcomes will be different, neither one better or worse than the other, just different. To say that by not having a child you will not find meaning is tragic. I have ALWAYS believed that, even before becoming a mother, I always knew, believed that regardless of how my journey would end, I would live a happy meaningful life, whether it be as someones mother, or child free and not by choice. If you go back in my blog archives to my blog postings end 2008, you will see LOTS of blog postings about this topic. So say that you can’t find meaning if you can’t have a child is not just tragically sad but in a way, insulting to the many women out there who are living child free (not by choice) and who have very rich fulfilling lives. I take Pamela as a shining example of this very woman, she’s living a meaningful, full life and touching so many in the process. And, there are many women out there who are child free and still blessed, having a baby is not the only way to be blessed. Blessings come in a million different shapes and forms.
Please understand, this is my journey and this is my ending. I did not know my ending was so close and I did not ever think it would end the way that it did. But I have found my answers and my peace but they are my answers and my peace and should not be used to find answers for somebody elses journey, they should not be compared to what you are going through.
My wish and prayer for all my IF sisters who are still out there battling through the minefield that is infertility is this: that you too may, sooner than you think, find YOUR answers and YOUR peace that you have been searching for. The ending could be closer than you think…………
Just yesterday I headed off to the post office to go and collect our mail, I was surprised by another three packages, two for Ava and one for me. The two for Ava were such lovely surprises, gifts from women I have never met, women I never spoken to IRL, women who I only know through the computer.
Thank you so much Lesley for this lovely gift, the card is SO stunning I put it straight into her memory box!
And Trish for spoiling Ava with this butterfly and princess themed gift:
The last gift was for me, it was from Michelle, it had been sent in October last year, just after my miscarriage, it got lost in the mail and somehow reappeared now. How ironic the timing!
I smiled at the irony when I read the card, the last line says………. “try to focus on one day at a time and one day the sun will shine through”!
How ironic that within two months of this package being sent I’d be a mother, that the sun would indeed break through the storm clouds, that I would, indeed be able to see clearly now that the rain has gone. Every one of us will find our answers, our purpose, we cannot try to fit somebody elses answers and purpose to our lives, all we can do is keep putting one foot in front of the other, try not to make comparisons and keep believing that the end is here, just around the corner, just out of sight!
I think my ending is a testiment to that, I think that the outpouring of love and support that I have received over the past two and a half months speaks volumes of how my story, my answers have inspired others to keep going, to keep putting one foot in front of the other to get to their ending and their answers.
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