Before I was pregnant, I was a very organised, probably some what annul person. I imagined that life with a baby would be the same in regards to my high standards, simply complemented by a beautiful well behaved child.
Reality Bites.
I was out
of hospital the morning after the afternoon my daughter took her first breath after an episiotomy. I bathed her, I dressed her, I got lunch ready, I did the dishes, we celebrated Christmas a day late, but celebrate we did, my Mum, My husband, my daughter and I and at that point in time, I thought it was really going to be okay, it was going to be what I had imagined, it was going to be, easy as long as I stayed on top of things and stayed organised. Then I got tired.
My Mum was infatuated with my daughter to the point where I was doing all the housework and the breast feeding and she did nothing but play with the baby and send proud e-mails to all and sundry with photo's attached. She is not a tidy person. I love her to death. I wouldn't swap her for anything or anyone in the world, she is a great, terrific Mum, but she makes a lot of mess. The mess was beginning to to mount up.
I couldn't stay on top of it. My daughter was a VERY slow feeder, always falling asleep. Hours driffted by with me accomplishing nothing. I began to not make enough milk, so when I wasn't sitting down feeding her, I was sitting down and expressing. The mess piled up.
I did the dishes and made the meals, and the mess piled up. I did the laundry and went to appointments, and the mess piled up. I was barely sleeping, but eating what was recommended and drinking what was recommended, and having visions of my daughter dieing, and the mess piled up.
I had sleepless nights stressing over how to ask my Mum to help me more. She was being so financially generous, she was so incredibly happy and fulfilled in her Gran role, but the mess piled up, and I needed help. I asked her after going over and over in my head how to broach the subject without hurting or offending her and whilst washing up her breakfast dishes once again, I instead blurted it out. "Mum, I love having you here, but I need you to help me, you haven't washed a dish or prepared a meal in 5 days, I feel like I'm running a bed and breakfast." There it was, out. It was not subtle, but it was out. She looked hurt, but it was out. I felt bad, but it was out there and she began to help. She helped a lot from then on, and I was relieved. Guilty, but relieved all the same.
Mum left after 2 months, and things were okay. The mounting piles had been tackled and conquered by the time she left, we had not had a fight, we parted on great terms, all was seemingly well, my milk kept drying up. I was expressing or feeding three quarters of my waking hours and with Mum not around to help, the mess once again began to mount up. I didn't want visitors because my house wasn't perfect, or even clean so I made excuses to deflect friends with best intentions.
I went to breast feeding group meetings, I read the literature, I used a lactation consultant but nothing improved my milk supply. Everyone that saw my daughter commented on how skinny she was. I didn't think so, I didn't see it, I was doing everything I could and everyone said breast was best after all, even the Doctor. Only my Mum said "switch to bottles". But she was the minority, the sole suggester, she must be old fashioned and not up with the times.
I found I'd decide I couldn't continue with feeding and expressing, feeding and expressing and TRYING to get on top of my housework. I made the decision to switch to the bottle and then changed my mind again 2 hours later, I'll just try again, it's wrong to just give up. Every 2 hours I made a vow, a final decision, only to replace it with the opposite final decision 2 hours later. It was doing my head in I couldn't make a decision, and I was facing the impending departure of a trip interstate for 2 weeks so I could take part in my best friends wedding. It was all to hard. Why was everything so hard. This is not what I imagined it would be. I am failing. I am useless-Mum, not Super-Mum, I can't even adequately feed my baby let alone supply a clean house for my husband.
The day came for baby and I to board the plan for our first leg of our trip, which was to fly to Perth so she could meet my Husband's family. I thought we were going to be twarted at the check-in because although my daughter was 3 months old, I had no documaentation for her, no birth certificate, no medicare card, nothing. Luckily they let us on anyway. I thought, I can't feed you and you don't exist, great Mother you've been lumped with.
In Perth her Grandma and Nono, Her Aunt's and Uncles and her 4 cousins. They all commented on how small and skinny she was, but so happy and cute. I bought formula, I had packed bottles. My Mother in-law made wise cracks about me "bashing her" when I burped her. She was colicky, asking her politely to relieve herself of wind, was not going to work, I didn't "BASH" her anyway, I patted firmly as I had always done during my Nannying days, and as the Health Nurse had done and approved of, still I was hurt, offended and angry. I couldn't wait for those 3 days to be over so I could be back with the people who loved ME.
The day we touched down in Melbourne and Mum and my niece and nephew met us at the airport was one of immense relief for me. For a week I was cooked for, I wasn't expected to wash any dishes, though I did some to be polite and show my sister and brother in-law that I apreciated their hospitality. All that was expected of me was to be happy, and entertaining and to share my daughter around to my family who were all more than eager to bottle feed her. I could relax and breath for the first time in 3 months. I was going to be okay, I just needed a rest. Three weeks later (I extended the trip) we flew back to Perth, back to the Mother-in-law, back to a great sister-in-law (my only Perth Ali).
My Mother in-law was worse. She made snide remarks about my weight, she being of tiny tiny stock and me being of very robust and stocky big stock. She made an awfully hurtfull comment repeated and repeated about my fathers passing away and how he would have known that we had decided to leave him take his final breaths alone as we had watched him and watched him fade away and turn yellow and moan and for all of us when he finally accepted the morphine drip and his mind eventually went from hallucinatory to blilssfull darkness, we as a family chose not to stay, we couldn't stay, and he was unconcious never to waken again.
I was telling my sister in-law who is a nurse of this, as she had experienced a simular thing with an elderly patient and didn't understand the son not wanting to be there at the end. I wanted to explain to her what the 4 of us had together decided and what the chief nurse had said to us, so that she might understand and be as supportive to others as our nurse was to us. Our nurse had said that no one in the hospital was going to judge us. That we had been here non-stop whilst dad rapidly declined and that he was not going to wake up now, and he had not long, less than a day to go. We had to now do what we could for ourselves and Dad wouldn't know we were there or not.
That's when the Mother in-law piped in saying that
"He would have known, they always know when they've been abandoned". I at first couldn't believe what I was hearing, then she just kept repeating it, as if the look of shock on my face was something she enjoyed seeing. I burst into tears, I hadn't cried for 7 months, I didn't even cry at Dad's funeral. I was being strong for everyone else, she kept repeating herself. I told her to stop it, she kept going, my sister in-law hugged me and told her Mother to "Shut up", she continued on regardless, over and over again, those same words, full of passion but said in her over feminine twittering voice, as though butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. I told her to "Shut up" I glared at her, I told her that
"whilst I'm yelling at you might as well get some other things off my chest. I'm sick of hearing about your cancer and how it might come back. Don't you realise how lucky you are? You've got to start acting like the survivor you are and not the victim you maintain you are." Then I stormed outside.
Well with 4 hours before my husbands train got in, it made for an extremely tense time. I left my baby with Mother in-law (she was asleep & I needed to get out) and my sister-in-law took me out for coffee and shopping, it calmed me down, she was and still is a lovely person. My husband rang my mobile. His train had got in early, we made a run for it. Getting back to the Mother in -laws house I was advised to pretend nothing had happened by my sister in-law, so I politely and bravely made small talk. The reply was "I'm still very cross with you, how dare you say I boast about my cancer." I'd never said that....Oh I'd thought it, but I didn't say it. "I said, okay, you wanna keep this going, because I have plenty more to say" She said she didn't want to talk about it and went to get my Husband, her son from the train station. I fumed.
Finally all back at the Mother in-laws house I explained to my husband what had happened and why I wanted to leave as soon as was possible, he told me I was over reacting. I was not happy. We bought a new for us second hand car to fit our new family and the paraphernalia that our old car was to small for and drove the 7 hours back home. The house was a mess, we had mice and cockroaches, I don't think my husband had done any laundry for over 3 weeks. I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned.
Life was a lot easier not breast feeding, but I didn't like to go out. I did the fortnightly shopping and that was pretty much it. Then I began not wanting to ring anybody, then I began not wanting to answer the phone, I found I didn't even want to go out the front door to check the mail box or tend my garden which in the desert we live in, NEEDS tending. I had heart palpitations and worried that I was going to have a heart attack and die, but didn't mention this to anyone, I wouldn't want to sound like a hypochondriac or worry anybody would I? It took quite some months before I realised I might have PND. A dear life long friend convinced me to go to the Doctors and kept hassling me until I did and then I was on medication and realised that I had stopped feeling anything for all that time, having feelings back was amazing to me.
I went to the Child Health centre and was referred to a psychologist and a Group Therapy group. I now have a better understanding of what a Super-Mum really is, and I am one most of the time, I just need reminding most of the time.
I now know that a Super-Mum doesn't have to live in a showroom clean and tidy home all the time. Is it hygienic? Then it's okay to look like someone lives there. I don't have to do anything but feed my child, my husband and myself regularly, even if it consists of left overs. All I have to do is dress them in clean clothes, even it they're out of the washing basket instead of the cupboard. It's okay if I am tired and want to have a nap in the middle of the day as long as it's the same time as bubby. If I'm happy then my husband is happy and baby is definately happy. It's okay to ask for help, I don't have to stay up all night wondering how to do it, I just ask. If the answer is NO, then I ask someone else. I don't have to get everything done all in one day. One day I'll do some laundry the dusting and my floors. The next day I might go out and then cook dinner enough for 2 nights. The next day I might put all the clothes away and tidy draws and wardrobes. Sometimes my house is a mess and just for myself I will tidy away all the toys from the floor, and clear the kitchen bench and that's enough.
I haven't done any filing since I discovered I had PND, it's all in a bag on top of the filing cabinet and as long as it's all in one spot, has been looked at and dealt with, that's okay too, I know where it is. Everything will get done eventually, it is not going anywhere by itself.
My baby is happy, my husband is happy and I am getting happier everyday. I have realised that I may never be the clean freak, the anal retentive freak, the organised freak I used to be, and though it would be nice, if my house was that clean and organised again, I no longer obsess about it. I no longer feel guilt about it, (okay, sometimes I do, but not that much). Now I spend all my energies on doing what
HAS to be done and being a happy, playful and educational Mummy and am trying really hard to be a better wife.
If your child's face is clean, if their clothes were clean when you put them on them, if they fit, if you have a home, if you have food, if you have basic hygiene going on, if your child is happy and they FEEL loved, if your partner is happy and he feels loved, if you are happy and you
FEEL LOVED, then you
ARE a Super-Mum.
The unrealistic ideals that we put on our selves
ARE unrealistic. You can spend all day cleaning, ironing and baking cookies, but something is going to be missed out on because you can't do it ALL everyday. It will either be your child that doesn't get you in quality or quantity, or your relationship with your partner, or your partner in general, or yourself, and these are all very important things not to leave out. Leave out the cookies and play a game with your kids. Leave out the daily vaccing and mopping and cuddle you husband. Do the laundry tomorrow for today you rest for an hour whilst you have the opportunity. No one is going to judge you for it. No one is even going to THINK, you've slipped. No one RATES your performance but you. No one is interested on how well you can stack your pantry, or that it takes you exactly 4 minutes to do an excellent job ironing and hanging up a business shirt. The only person, counting is you. The only person interested in your domestic goddess prowess is you. Nothing is going to fall apart and crumble because you haven't wiped it that day.
Fingerprints are not made of acid and will wipe off as easily next week as they will today. Be more proud of your family than of your home. You can sell your home, you can leave your home, you can move on and start again on a new home. You can't sell your family. You could leave your family, but do you want to? You can start again with a new family, but will that make you feel more fulfilled?? The term right or wrong is Super-Mum, NOT Super-Housekeeper or Super-Laudress or Super-Cook.....it's Super-Mum.
(November 2006) (
Thanks mate
