Pressure, pressure, pressure!

As a first time mum, I feel that there is an overwhelming amount of pressure to be an extraordinary parent. As if just being a ‘parent’ isn’t hard enough. Some of the pressure comes within, being a perfectionist and all but as any parent knows, there is a lot of varied opinions and judgements on how to raise a child. 

I came across this article on Daily Life about a month ago called “Adequate is the new ‘excellent’” by Michaela. It made me think why adequate stopped being enough and why do we have this notion of being ‘excellent’ at everything? Surely parenting is a learning curve, right? We sure don’t expect ourselves to master every new skill we learn on the first try, right? 

Plus as I’ve learnt, my baby isn’t like the ones they describe in the books or prenatal classes, so we learn what our baby needs, their different cries (who knew before baby there were different cries?!) or that I had to buy a breastpump on the way home from hospital as breastfeeding (for me) wasn’t so ‘natural’ afterall?!! It made me feel like a total failure.

I wished I had read this article before sharing my PND ‘secret’ to a colleague. She was very surprised that I had PND as I had seemed to be very together and proceeded to describe me as a competent person. I tell you, I was horrified at being ‘competent’. Competent = satisfactory, i.e. just ok. Then I thought about it, for a long time, days in fact and thought competent is right. I’ve pulled it together, I’ve even egged myself to pull it together, to fake it till I make it, especially for a couple of hours in ‘public’ because 2 hours isn’t that long!

I guess it’s  hard letting go of my expectations on how I should be as a mother, how I should parent my son and why whatever I’m doing feels as though it isn’t working. Amongst all that, I forget time and time again to celebrate things that work, little things, and things that seem to just magically happen which leaves me speechless. We are so quick to beat ourselves up that we lose the bigger picture. I am guilty of that. The days I spent agonising because we missed out on gymbaroo (again), I wish I hadn’t. You live and you learn, right?!

As I sat down to type this blog post, I checked Michela’s blog notanotherslipperydip.wordpress.com, which I’d been meaning to do ever since that article and I stumbled upon her post “How do I know I’m a good parent?” It just fittingly ties in with this blog post. 

I am a good parent because there is nowhere else I rather be everyday but with my son. 

I’m sure you feel that way. You ARE a good parent. 

Baby = Mother ?!?

My beautiful son was a planned baby. To a certain extent. Amongst all the ‘excitement’ of the delivery, I went through the motions of caring for my son like a slow, rusty robot.

That’s what I was. A robot. I had no emotion. I was so so fatigued. I changed diapers, fed him, cuddled him, put him to sleep because it was what I was supposed to do. I remember going to my first mother’s group, watching all the mothers cooing and smiling at their little angels and I thought, my goodness, I just started smiling at my little bub. He was almost 7 weeks old at that time. 

Somehow amongst all the planning, I had not thought of the notion that having a baby would make me a mother. Oops. My husband and I talked about, planned about  were excited about having a baby. Not for one moment did I think about the equation: baby = mother. Perhaps this is one of the contributing factors to my PND.

I know for a fact that feeling like a mother was a contributing factor in getting better. Strange but true, like in a movie moment, one day, I think it was a Tuesday, just before Easter, I woke up that morning and said to myself - I’m a mother. I don’t know what it was but having realised it (albeit the lightbulb moment being very slow!), I found this new confidence in myself that I didn’t have before in my new role. 

Subconsciously or consciously perhaps I was fighting the new change in my life. One that is full of uncertainty, one that is absolutely spontaneous, chaos and not the organised kind and one with much improvisation. Because as a first time mum, who knows really, what to do! For so long I identified myself as a primary teacher, an organised person, punctual - ie. 15 mintues early (at least) person, someone who planned what was happening every step of the way. A definite perfectionist.

However, being a mother changes all that and I have come to accept myself as a mum and also the new identification that I can add to my persona. I have realised that I don’t have to ‘give up’ the ‘old’ me. I have a new bag of arsenal that I now carry with me. And that my friends is a fantastic feeling.

Quest for perfectionism

Once upon a time, not too long ago, Martha Stewart was my hero. To me she epitomised perfection (excluding the jail stint of course!). I aspired to bake, cook, clean and organise like her. For those who know me well, my house does not look like it’s from a magazine layout and my work desk - well it’s an occupational hazard. 

However, despite what my home and my work desk look like, I am a perfectionist. 

When I buy a new book or a magazine, I have to make sure that the spine, corners and edges are not dented or blunt. 

So, naturally, I planned and planned and planned on how I’d give birth, how my son will be, how easy I’d fall into motherhood. Ba-boom. Uh, no. I had a spinal fluid leak, so I had 2 spinal blocks, my son wouldn’t latch properly, I couldn’t sleep, I didn’t want to hold my son, I just wanted to go home. Plus, the day after my son was born, disaster struck. I couldn’t fit into my underwear. It’s funny now but I hadn’t planned for that to happen so I had to wear my husband’s! (Clean ones...) 

Anyways, I saw the beautiful, instant bond my husband and son shared and I thought, I’m not the perfect mother I’d envisioned, nor was I the perfect wife I thought my husband wanted. Thus started my anxiety spiral. I was so worried that my husband would leave, I couldn’t sleep, eat or rest. My poor husband, looking after a newborn and an out of sorts wife. I swear, my son must’ve thought his father was his mother in the first weeks.

Later on, having decided to seek professional help I stopped planning every single detail. I started to take it day by day. I also started to chant in my head ‘go with the flow’, ‘go with the flow’ - it’s now our motto. Jeez, it was hard! Especially as being a primary teacher and being used to planning for every single second of the day, it was a very foreign concept. 

Perfect for me now is seeing my son’s bright eyes in the morning, even if it is 3am! Perfect for me now is my son’s chuckle and cheeky smile whilst covered in milk, vomit, breakfast, lunch, dinner, rusk, whatever. 

Perfect for me now is how excited he gets every time he sees me. 

Perfect for me now is stepping on his giraffe when he’s just gone down for a nap. Perfect for me now is accepting the present.

Now for me to work on buying a less than perfect book....

What’s your perfect?

Intro

Reflecting is a funny thing, whether it be reflecting on yourself, others, situations or anything really. For me, at this present moment, I find it liberating. The past six months have been the most tumultuous yet at the same time, the most amazing experience of my life. There have been clear blue sky days, grey days, foggy days, and many many ominous dark dark cloudy days just like when the storm rolls in.

Funny as it seems, having, acknowledging, accepting and seeking professional help for my Post Natal Depression (PND) has been most rewarding. I have become and continue to become a better mother, a better wife, a better friend and a better person. I have found myself to be stronger, more resilient, tougher and surprisingly fierce. Fierce is one word that I never would have identified with. However, after an incident (one of a few) with my mother in law, I walked away with this sense of fierceness, one that I shall shield my son with and stand up for my rights as his mother - like a lioness looking out for her cubs. That I think was one of the first times I felt the grey fog had lifted and I could see a glimpse of the bright blue sky.