of the shock of babies is borne by the mother. Very often the proud father can return to work, accept the congratulations, and get on with business as usual. It is the new mother who needs to negotiate her way around this new world … usually without a map.
That is how it felt to me. In fact, it felt worse. I felt like I was bobbing around on a sea without a lifeboat, and all reference points were gone. And that is why I have spent so much of the past six years, eight months and twenty-five days talking to other parents, finding out if it felt like this for them, too, finding out just what I was meant to do, and how I was meant to do it.
I live in Brighton, but not all the parents whose voices you will hear in this book do: in my role as an editor on the local NCT newsletter, and then for the NCT national journal New Generation, I have met and talked to new families from all over Britain. When I was asked to write this book, I contacted a lot more parents, many of whom have made written contributions to this final manuscript. I have them all to thank. I have them all to thank twice over, because when you are a new family, time is at its most precious.
I’d also like to thank Sue Orchard and Heather Welford who gave their time and expertise and made valuable contributions to the final typescript.
The aim of this book is to let the voices of these mothers and fathers act like beacons for all those currently adrift on the sea of parenthood: whether you are bobbing happily along on the waves and wondering where to go next, or whether you are caught up in darker currents and confusions. Now my daughter is four and safely off to school this September, I feel I have negotiated another major milestone in the path of parenthood, but still, hearing other people tell of what it’s like from their point of view continues to be one of the most valuable ways for me of defining where I want to go, even if it is just a matter of deciding – well, I don’t want to do that.
For all those brave and generous enough to talk to me so openly and generously, thank you. Your names have been changed but you know who you are.
For all those still coming to terms with being a family, this book is for you.
Anna McGrail,
September 1995.
CHAPTER oneYou and your newborn
THE MOMENT of birth may be exactly that: a moment, a joyous, unforgettable moment, or an unpleasant experience we’d rather forget. Becoming a parent, however, can take a bit of getting used to. Even if your pregnancy was planned, the baby’s room is decorated and the cupboards are well stocked, don’t be surprised if life as a parent isn’t what you thought it would be. There is a word for it: ‘babyshock’.
The first twenty-four hours
WE CANNOT know what parenthood will be like until it happens. Yet many couples find that the first few months are much harder than they expected. After the elation and excitement of the birth, they are tired, stressed and bewildered. Although you are delighted that your baby is here, even those first twenty-four hours can be more difficult than you envisaged.
Katharine found both her baby and the hospital experience overwhelming: ‘It was dreadful. Max wouldn’t settle and I had a catheter in which was uncomfortable, and the room was hot and stifling and the corridor outside was noisy. I was awake most of the night and so shattered the next day I couldn’t take in all the information that people kept popping in to tell me. The room was like Victoria Station. People were in and out and I didn’t know who half of them were: midwives, paediatrician, someone bringing a bunch of flowers from my mum and then other people looking for a vase to put them in …’
COUPLES OFTEN find that with the demands of a new baby it can take a while to calm down, and discover just what it is that you do feel. Lynn found the first few days of motherhood a real eye-opener: ‘Looking back, I was very naive. I hadn’t a clue what new babies were like: the only babies I’d had much to do with before were older, about nine or ten months old, so I was used to seeing them sitting up and playing, smiling…eating biscuits, for Heaven’s sake. Just to have Adam so completely helpless, so dependent on me, was terrifying.’
Olivia kept being surprised by her daughter: ‘I don’t think I had ever pictured her, physically. I don’t think you do. You picture them more as toddlers and what they’re going to look like when they’re people. For instance, I did think that all babies looked the same and I was amazed in hospital how they didn’t. For a start, mine was the most beautiful on the ward, of course! And Robert kept saying, “You know, even objectively, I’m sure she’s the most beautiful. There’s no doubt. And I’m not just saying this because I’m her father.” And I couldn’t convince him that everyone on the ward thought the same about their own baby. So that was nice, really, that she was so lovely’
PARENTS WHOSE baby was delivered by caesarean often find that they have particular problems adjusting to the fact of the baby’s arrival. After all, at the last minute, the decisions were taken out of their hands.
Eileen had a long labour and eventually needed an emergency caesarean: ‘After what seemed like hours they finally wheeled me in to the operating theatre and the anaesthetist said, “You ‘II feel a pressure round your neck now …” and that’s the last thing I can remember before coming round. And when I did come round, neither the baby nor Mick was there, so I thought, “Oh, I haven’t had the baby yet, then,” so when Mick did walk in, I said, “What are you doing here?” Mick said they’d taken the baby up to the Unit as he wasn’t breathing properly, and I said he should be with the baby, so he went, and then the nurse came in when I was awake a bit more and said, “What are you going to call him then?” and I got terrified because I thought it meant that we were going to have to baptise the baby straight away because he was so ill with his breathing and going to die. So I wailed, “Oh, call him Michael after his father.” She looked at me very oddly because I think they just wanted to know what to write on his cot tag up in the Unit.’
Sometimes a caesarean can lessen the feeling of continuity, as it did for Sushma: ‘They brought him in about five o’clock for a feed. He was all washed then and wrapped in a white blanket, very clean, and so calm – big, dark eyes looking round. I felt like I was being introduced to a stranger, though, who had just dropped in. I was very glad to meet him and all of that, but I didn’t get the feeling that this was the little being I had laboured for so many hours to produce. I felt no connection between this baby in a blanket and the pregnancy I’d had. This baby was here, and I wasn’t pregnant any more, but they didn’t seem to coincide, somehow.’
WHEN YOU’RE preparing for the birth, it may be a good idea to read up about caesareans. That way, if things do turn out not quite the way you planned during your labour, you will be better informed to make choices about the sort of caesarean birth you want.
ONE IN EVERY 90 births in this country is of twins, triplets or more. If this is your situation, you may find many of the problems of adjusting to life as a family doubled (or tripled). In particular, the physical demands can be exhausting, as Dawn and her husband found out: ‘Sometimes we do despair. The sheer volume of work – washing, drying, bottles, nappies – and the effort involved in lifting three of them into the bath, out of the bath, into the highchair, out of the highchair, into the cot, out of the cot … And the noise! Just