Edit: I wrote this post 7 months ago, and never posted it because of my inability to be consistent in any way with writing on here as I allude to in my first paragraph! Plus looking after a baby is more of a full time job than a full time job in my opinion. I am not going to make any promises that this is the time I commit to this corner of the internet and make it work - but as I am trying to revitalise this space once again, I wanted to post this because, my number one consistent reader is me really, and I really want to re read this in a few years time. This place has always mainly been about me trying to squeeze as much juice from life as possible (not an innuendo), as well as hoping it helps others do so too. And what part of life is more juicy and what you want to remember more than your first few weeks with your first baby. So strange looking back on this and remembering how I felt. For anyone who has a newborn baby and stumbles across this post, one of the things I now look back on and find most interesting is how much I thought I loved Max, even though it was a strange love where I also felt like I didn't know him. A love mainly about his cuteness and that he was mine and I made him. I guess my love is probably still about all those things, but it feels so much more now - a take my breath away, heart bursting out my chest, fireworks kind of love. So if you are cosying up to your tiny bundle of joy and you think the love is there but not like you were told or imagined, I promise you, it gets so much more and it gets so much better. Also as I type this I am sitting next to Max who is chatting with me (nonsensical babble of course) and eating his bagel and almond butter, it gets so much easier too. Every chapter of motherhood has its tricky sections fosho, but nothing feels as all encompassing as those hazy newborn days.
Also can we all appreciate the lol in the 4th paragraph that is me at 2.5 months postpartum thinking I am going to posting lots of "dinner party menus" on this blog in the coming months. I have since hosted one brunch. ha. ha. ha.
I have never been the most consistent blogger - as soon as I get even a sniff of a following or interaction from readers, well, I'd like to say life gets in the way but that might be a little bit of a lie really. I don't know just despite my best intentions, despite the fact that blogging gives me a comfy little creative outlet and somewhere to help me make sense and appreciate our wonderful world I don't seem to have the stamina to keep it up, and don't have the balls to promote it. It just pitters out whilst I prioritise other things like err watching TV, and then something happens which makes me want to reignite it again.
Well the something has happened again and that something is: I've birthed a freaking human. And if I ever needed somewhere to let me create something, and feel like an adult human woman with an identity and opinions it is surely now when all my life and all my time is consumed by a tiny demanding crying ball of everything lovely. I'd like, no I need, to keep a little section of my brain for me so here I am back, back again, tell a friend (several months of no blogging yet still unable to get any sort of post out without quoting circa 2002 r'n'b unfortunately that has not changed).
So yeah, so I can do something which isn't about my baby I'd like to now take a whole page to err chat about my baby and his birth.
Look obviously I was never going to do anything as major as push a child out of my vagina (an 9lb one at that just sayin) and not be able to waffle on about it a bit - I spent a whole post listing 43 thoughts I had at a silent disco for pete's sake - but I *probably* won't just make this another mummy blog (at least I don't intend to). I have added an extra section for now - the "thoughts about" bit now has a motherhood section (in addition to the looking pretty, design, nice things and Beyonce one), and maybe as I get a bit more experienced at this mothering thing I'll add some sections to in and out for child friendly stuff to do. But I am also hoping that my 10 months of maternity leave will give me maybe a little extra time to play around in the kitchen at some point, and what I'll lack in content about exciting nights out in London and travel around the world (tricky with a small person attached to your boob) I'll make up for in dinner party menus and the like (once I start actually cooking again, am yet to graduate from freezer meals and takeaways since the babe).
But for now, let me introduce my main little man, Max (just Max) George Kwame (Kwame because his Dad is Ghanaian, and as Max is a boy and was born on a Saturday, Kwame is the traditional name to give him). Will say that again without all the self interruptions - Max George Kwame.
He was born almost 2 weeks late, so my positive water birth went out the window (tbh I think it would have anyway, well done to people who have done it without pain medication, but a few hours of contractions and I was begging for an epidural - buh bye birthing pool and aromatherapy!) and I was induced.
I was about to say my hypnobirthing (gifted to me by my lovely friend Jemma of Positive Birth and Beyond) went out the window, but I don't think it did because even though I didn't have the birth I envisaged and ended up having a drip induction, an epidural (err would highly recommend) and in the end forceps and an episiotomy I stayed pretty calm, and I really think it went ok. So I would very much recommend hypnobirthing (and especially lovely Jemma) too. I was even laughing as I pushed (the initial bit of pushing, not the end and arguably my epidural was also very helpful then, oh epidural, you wonderful friend, I am so sorry I spent so many months saying I really didn't want you!). The extra high blood loss also maybe took the edge off a little bit too, as it spaces you out a little. But still my point is especially to any ladies reading this with a bun in the oven, I had on paper not the best birth and it was totally fine! The midwives and doctors were great, I never felt the pain was unbearable, never felt unsafe. Would do it again in a heartbeat, but next time EPIDURAL would be written in capital letters at the top of my birthing plan.
Seriously, the epidural was great, I was really worried about not being able to feel anything but I actually was able to push on my hands and knees (although I ended up doing most of it on my back as that was how the baby was coming most easily! All that time memorising birth positions and I just did it the old fashioned way!) My epidural was on a drip and one that I could manage the dosage of myself - you could top it up as often as every 20 mins* but I was topping it up every hour or so which I found for me meant I could still feel and move my legs, but although feeling my contractions they weren't hurting me (in fact I went to sleep for a good 5 or 6 hours!) *Until the final pushing part where I was desperately pressing on it and barking at everyone as surely it had been 20 minutes by now...
The bad thing about my birth is it ended in Max not breathing so well when he came out (perhaps because he really didn't want to come out it seems, and the shock of the world, or perhaps because of an infection, I don't know if we will ever really know) and he spent the first few nights away from me, in NICU.
But as I write this, it is 3 months to the day from his due date, and tardy Max is actually 11 weeks and 2 days old. What a terrific and tricky 11 weeks and 2 days, that have flown by so fast and also lasted forever. New motherhood really does flick you from one end of the spectrum to the other - the highest oxyctocin fuelled highs, the lows where you feel like your whole life has turned upside down, and you are basically in a relatively comfy prison, with a cute cuddly prison guard but one that insists on waking you up every couple of hours and annihilating your nipples. This is all possibly because babies too seem to like to live at extremes, gorgeous smiles and inquisitive coos one minute, 1000 decibel screaming you are not quite sure what it relates to the next. I'd like to tell you a bit more about Max and his personality, but to be honest it is tricky to decifer - one moment I think he is chilled and occasionally shy like his Dad, the next nosey and err high maintenance like me! I guess I'll just have to wait a little longer to see what sort of little boy he turns out to be, but the one thing I can say for sure about him is that in my (obviously completely unbiased) opinion he is the most beautiful baby in the whole entire world.
PS. Knocked up
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