Juggling act

I remember when I told one of my colleagues I was pregnant, after the obvious congratulations and how are you feeling conversation she turned to me and said "get used to disappointing everyone."

She went on to tell me how when you are a working mum you spend your life letting someone down. When you are at work you are disappointing your children by not being with them and putting them first. When you are not able to work because of family commitments you disappoint your work place. It was, she described, a vicious circle where you are the main loser.

I've been back at work for 12 months so I feel that I now have some thoughts to add to the topic.

I can see where she was coming from. When you are a working mum it is a massive juggling act and invariably there are times when you drop the balls. There are not enough hours in the day and despite postings on social media sites implying the opposite, it is impossible to do, or have it all. 

But from my limited experience I wonder if some of this disappointment or pressure is heaped upon us,  not by our partners, children or bosses, but by us ourselves?

Take last week for example. It was particularly busy at work with a project I'm responsible for reaching a climax. DD obviously aware of the situation and being the new age man that he is told me to take it easy in the afternoons, I work from from very early morning til mid afternoons most days. He said he would sort dinner when he got home. But of course I didn't listen.

Instead I rushed home from work, collected the pickle from Nanna, raced around the supermarket, raced home, plonked her down in front of her favourite tv show. Made a cup of peppermint tea. Started chopping onions. Decided I was a terrible mother for offering my child Upsy Daisy's attention rather than my own. Turned off the tv and took her to the park. Put her in the swings and attempted to answer work emails whilst pushing. Realised this was as bad as the TV situation so put phone away and played properly in the park for another half hour. Raced home, via Morrisons as I had realised we didn't have any yoghurt for desert, got home, continued making dinner while singing to a pickle who was attempting to climb out the doors to the balcony. Put away the dvds that had been scattered around the loungeroom. Feed her dinner while cooking our own. Give up on dinner when she showed how much she didn't like the vegetable korma I had slaved over the night before by smearing it through her hair and throwing the bowl across the room with distain. Cleaned up korma. Cleaned up child. Put a load of washing out. Put it back out again after she had pulled all of it off the clothes horse. Read her a book. Put the now prepared dinner in the fridge ready for baking later. Packed away the DVDs that were now being used as ice skates. Smelt a disastrous nappy. Contemplated whether it would be considered cruel to leave her in said nappy until DD was home. Decided it would be so changed offending nappy. Had a drink of very cold and horrible peppermint tea. Raced around throwing toys in playpen in attempt to create a 'calm and welcoming environment' and breathed a sigh of relief at the sound of a key in the lock. DD was home. And it was time to be a martyr.

"My god I'm knackered" I exclaim before he has a chance to get in the front door.

"I haven't stopped since I got home."

"Oh Petal I told you to take things easy, you shouldn't have gone to any trouble." He replied innocently.

"The house is looking nice."

" Yeah well I've spent the afternoon cleaning, cooking as well as taking pickle to the park"  I say, sounding far more bitter than I mean to.

"You shouldn't have, I said I'd do it" He answers sounding slightly perplexed at the sour mood.

"Yeah well I got home first so I guess it's expected of me. But you know I've worked just as long a day as you, it's just that I started long before you." Now I'm really getting worked up. 

And that my friend is how a lot of evenings go. It's the feelings of guilt that you should be doing more, that you should be able to do a full days work, have the energy to be fun mum as well as keep a clean house and cook a nutritious meal that spur you on to try and achieve the often unacheivable. And we have to ask why? Who does it benefit? Certainly not the child that would have been much happier with a mum that took her to the park for a leisurely play and then sat with her as she watched In The Night Garden. And certainly not the husband that would have preferred coming home to a chaotic and messy but stress free house where steak and chips are served with a smile rather than some fancy quiche served with a grimace. And certainly not me, who was completely wiped out from a marathon of an afternoon.

You feel like you've got something to prove, but to who I'm not sure? Yourself?

Maybe we should stop trying to prove anything and just accept that all we can do is our best, and sometimes that's not good enough. We can't do it all, it's not possible to be the perfect wife, mother, employee, the whole time. All we can do is our best juggling performance and hope that with time and lots of practice we only drop those balls occasionally, and not in front of too big an audience.

I am who I am

I am who I am because I knew you.

I am who I am because I loved you.

I will be who I will be because I lost you.

Grief

It's consuming, overwhelming and inescapable.

It is the missing of someone you might not have seen in a long time. 

It's the longing for conversations that are yet to take place.

It's the regret of time wasted and thankfulness for time spent.

It's hours of blissful forgetting followed by that single, breath taking moment of remembering. 

It's memories that provoke a smile while at the same time producing tears.

It's all consuming but isn't exclusive. 

It can make someone feel like the only person in the world. It's an emotion shared by all in this world.

It binds strangers together. It can rip loved ones apart.

It's an internal pain buried deep within your soul and an external pain shining from your eyes.

It makes your heart hurt and your soul cry.

It's filled with unanswerable questions; what if, if only and why?

It's a constant companion that never leaves us but falls a few steps behind over time.

It allows us to remember and it forces us to never forget.

It lets us know how greatly we loved and how great love can hurt.

It brings us to our knees. It gives us the strength to keep breathing.

It is death. It is life.

In that moment...

There are plenty of things we take for granted. I think when life is going well it is normal to expect that it is going to stay that way, it is natural to get a little complacent. And then life comes and gives you a giant kick up the backside...

Our kick came today and I think it is going to be a long time before we take the simple things for granted again, in fact I would like to think we never will again.

I think one of the scariest aspects of life is the unpredictability of it all. You very rarely, if ever, get a warning that something untoward is going to take place. You will be going about your day and then bam something happens that can change everything.

That moment happened to us today. Before I start I have to put that thankfully this story has a happy ending.

Today's bank holiday meant the chance for one of us to have an extra sleep in and today was my lucky day. So while I slept soundly DD got up with the piglet and gave her breakfast, which he later remarked wasn't very large, but at the time he put it down to her being a little gummed up with a cold. She was tired apparently so had a morning nap, again nothing unusual with this, the morning was textbook.

When she woke an hour or so later DD decided enough was enough and that daddy daycare was closed for the morning so bought her in to me for a cuddle. Terribly congested she kept snuggling into my neck which was welcomed but slightly unusual, as since she has learnt to crawl she wants to be on the move all the time and cuddles just slow her down. 

"Wowsers she is a hot little bunny,"  I casually remarked.

"I think it's time the winter sleeping bag was retired for the season"

"Haha look she is trying to stop herself from falling back" joked DD as the piglet did a jerky movement while sitting.

But then she jerked again. And then again, and in that split second our smiles were gone.

Our baby was fitting.

In all honesty the following sequence most likely took seconds, but it did feel like an age. 

First she was fitting, her eyes rolling back and I was picking her up from the bed. Then I was throwing her at DD who ran downstairs with her whilst I scrambled to put clothes on. It is funny the things that go through your head in moments of crisis but I remember having an internal arguement with myself over whether I had time to put on a bra...

Running for the lifts I tried not to look, I think I knew that if I gave myself a chance to process what was going on I wouldn't be of much use to anyone. DD later explained how it felt like he was holding a dead person, how her body was limp and her eyes not blinking. I'm glad I didn't look.

The lifts in our complex have been playing up so after a few seconds of nothing we made a run for it. Normally when we go down the stairs piggy makes a little sound with each step, a noise that's a bit like a mix of a burp sound and a humph. Today the only sound I could hear was DD pleading with his monkey to make any kind of sound at all.

The hospital is 8 minutes away, today it took 5 minutes. I'll probably get a speeding fine, but I don't give a damn. Half way there she started whimpering. It was a 'thank god' moment when we were given a clue that things might not be as bad as we first feared. I think that was when DD and I started to breathe again.

The medical term for what happened today is a febrile convulsion. It should be called giving your parents a heart attack. They take place when the body suffers a huge spike in temperature. Apparently they are quite common. DD had one when he was the exact same age. But although bloody terrifying, they are not overly serious. There are several causes, illness is the most common. A small percentage of babies have one after they have had their immunisation shots. Piggy had her shots on Saturday, but as we found out today she has a bad virus, so either or both could be to blame in this instance.

A few distressing tests, some pain relief and some monitoring over a few hours and we were discharged. We were told to keep an eye on her temperature,to keep her cool at all times and were assured that this would most likely be the end of it all.

It was after we had put the pickle in her cot for the night that the tears started. Neither of us bothered to justify them, we both knew exactly where they were coming from. A mix of relief and a horrible sense of what might have been.

I'm writing this from the floor of her room, I'm taking the first shift. Tonight I won't grumble if she wakes in the night for no other reason than she wants a cuddle. If she wants a night feed she has got it, to hell with 'the routine'.

We had one hell of a day, certainly not the nicest way to spend a bank holiday but tonight we are the luckiest people in the world. We came home with a poorly but otherwise healthy little girl. Many other parents are going through much worse right now and my heart is hurting for them.

The cliches are true, moments like this put it all in perspective. Nothing is more important than the health and well being of our loved ones. We could have the best, most fulfilling jobs in the world. We could be super rich and be able to buy whatever, whenever we wanted. But if we, and those we love don't have good health we have nothing at all.

I hope I remember this the next time I feel hard done by...

D-day

There's not much you need to know about the day the piglet was born. To be honest childbirth isn't the most pleasant of dinner table topics. Nor is it something I really want to relive in minute detail as I try and turn it into some kind of meaningful prose. Therefore this isn't going to be the longest of chapters.

Thank god I hear you say. For a moment there I bet you thought I was going to tell you how my waters exploded straight into the face of my unassuming midwife. How she got a little more than she bargained for when she went poking about quite late on in the piece...

Likewise I won't write about how nothing, and I mean nothing, can prepare you for just how much those contractions hurt. Not even watching the omnibus of One Born Every Minute gives you the heads up.

Watching OBEM was handy however when it came to instructing DD on how to behave in the delivery suite.

One relevant episode saw a D2B (Dad to be) fall asleep during his partners labour. Now to be fair to the man it was a very long labour and his only companion for the duration was his incredibly boring mother-in-law. But still, he did manage to snooze through a fair amount of screaming so I'm wondering if he snuck some earplugs in? At one point he even asked her to keep the noise down. I don't think I need to tell you her response....

Anyway, nothing was said at the time but I did notice that DD was watching that episode quite intently.

"Can you please make sure you get some cans of redbull for your hospital bag." Requests DD a week before D-Day.

"Nah, it's ok. I've been told water and sports drinks are better during labour. But that's cool that you have been thinking about what I will need to get me through, very sweet." I say, feeling very smug that I should have such a caring, thoughtful husband. "Not for you, for me!" He reply's passionately.

"I need you to make sure I have plenty of redbull to hand ok, so can you please make sure you buy a 12 pack today and put them in the fridge so that they are chilled and ready to go."

"I'm sorry are you confused? Is it you that will be giving birth? No! In fact I have the honour of that particular task. So why the hell are you the one that will need the energy drinks?!"

"You know how I have a habit of falling asleep easily." He answers.

This was true he did sleep like a baby (this was obviously written by someone who had never had a baby as they do not sleep, making this analogy entirely misleading in my opinion.)

"You could have a long labour and I'm worried I might get sleepy like that guy on TV and you'll go nuts."

"Umm I think seeing your first born entering the world will provide you with enough adrenalin to keep you awake dont you?"

"Mmm I wouldn't want to bet on it. Remember that time I fell asleep in the middle of that huge argument.."

I do remember, I also remember wacking him around the head with a pillow to wake him up. He had a point. A 12 pack of redbull was purchased the very next day.

In the end DD only needed 4 cans and we managed to avoid any pillow walloping.

As I mentioned before my waters breaking was a highlight to all in the room, other than the midwife obviously. And apparently the gas and air made me sound like Darth Vader. A fact made more amusing when I turned to DD after one particularly intense contraction and declared that I had just "made that contraction my bitch."

So after 6 or so hours of conquering some pretty intense contractions a little person entered the world and I can't begin to describe how it felt. Anyone who has had a baby will tell you it's the most amazing, surreal experience you will ever have. They are right.

We decided not to find out the sex of the baby before the birth and actually we were so happy that everything seemed ok we forgot to find out after. So after about 10 minutes or so the midwife said we really should find out what we had got, lifted the baby off my chest momentarily, and declared it was a girl.

A girl. I had a daughter. And what a perfect, pint sized, scrumptious, utterly edible daughter she was.

It's true what they tell you. In that moment every ache and pain, sickness and swelling, contraction and agony is worth it. In fact it suddenly disappears. You know that you've been in the most intense pain of your life but you honestly can't remember it. You have your baby in your arms and that's all that matters.