If I could go back to just before I had Alice I would tell
myself this...
“You are about to go through the hardest, most painful and worst
experience of your life so far. I am not saying this to scare you or to be
mean, I am telling you this because it’s important.
Your labour with Alice will be the most horrible experience and it will
affect you for a very long time, maybe even forever. You will have so many
questions, some that will be answered and some that most likely never will.
You will feel lost, alone and undeserving of love. You will cry almost
every night for months and you will feel like a failure as a mum.
It will be the hardest time of your life and there will be moments
where you seriously question whether you can continue.
However, this is only a part of what is to come.
You will learn that Husband is more amazing then you ever imagined. He
will be by your side every night holding you and getting you through each and
every day. He will never judge you and you will really see how much he loves
you.
You will feel so much love for this new tiny being. You will realise
that all that corny crap other parents told you when you were pregnant is true
and now you completely get what they were trying to say.
You will feel overwhelming happiness (and fear) because of Alice. You
will marvel at her and she will always be called your impossible girl. You will
feel so incredibly blessed.
You will worry more than you ever thought possible and you will learn
just how resilient you are.You will stay up so many nights when Alice is poorly just watching her
sleep, making sure she’s comfortable and safe.
There will be times where you feel so stressed and you lose your temper
and shout at her, or swear or even call her names and she will smile at you or
laugh and all that anger will turn into happiness and you will laugh too.
You will do anything and everything to make her smile and you won’t
give a damn about how stupid you look doing it.
You will grow more as a person in the following 8 months then you have
in your 27 years on this earth. You will feel like a mum, take a deep
breath, you will get there.
You will become the mum you want to be. Don’t worry about breastfeeding
because Alice is going to be a healthy happy child. There will be a time when
all you can think about is how you should have breastfed and it will upset you
but only for a brief while. After that you won’t even give it a second thought
and you will be confident in the decision you made.
You will learn you do not deal well without sleep. You are friggin’
awful! Really bad! Even I don’t want to be around you when you’re sleep
deprived! BUT that’s ok; forgive yourself because you’re human.
You will fall in love with Alice; you will also fall in love with
Netflix.
The most important thing for me to tell you is that although Alice’s
birth will haunt you every day and some days will be so unbelievably hard,
there will be moments where you look at her and you think ‘you know what, I WOULD
do that again in a heartbeat because she is the best thing I have ever
done’.
This is so true, the emotional rollercoaster of parenthood! Since T was born I've had some of the best and worst (and most exhausting) times of my life.
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear you had such an awful labour experience. Hope you've been getting all the support you needed the help you come to terms with it. I didn't have the best time either but you're so right about being prepared to do it all again in a heartbeat though.
Thank you! I've been really lucky and lots of support and things are starting to feel much better. Writing helps a lot too
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