Not My Mother

The last few weeks have been All Baby, All the Time. Now I’m 31 weeks and my feet are getting further away it’s getting hard to ignore that there will be an actual baby at the end of this. And not just as a hazy something that might happen in 2 years, like I’ve always thought, but in, like, two months. The way I procrastinate, that will be here next weekend.

So there’s been a fair amount of lying awake in the middle of the night fretting about things while someone does star jumps in my belly and tries to get her feet up over my ribs.

Things are moving. The nursery has been painted and we’ve been researching and getting the list together of things we need. We did our hypnobirthing course over the last couple of weekends, and it was brilliant. Beforehand all I really knew was that I’d learn techniques to stay calm and relax during labour so the fear was removed, and Dave would learn things he could do to help me, and things he could say so he didn’t piss me off. But it was so much better. We learned what actually happens physically during labour, which helps to understand the sensations you are feeling, and also how fear and tension interrupt that process, and therefore why relaxation is so beneficial. And then we spent the rest of the time learning relaxation techniques and visualisations to help. And Dave is instrumental in the whole thing. Far from just learning how to pat my back in a way that won’t make me want to rip his head off, he learned how to put me in a state of deep relaxation very quickly, and how to keep me there with gentle massage and affirmations. Then we watched some videos of some hypnobirths, which just underscored how different the birth process is to what you get from media and people’s horror stories, and talked about the kind of things that are useful to put in our birth plans.

I think it’s really easy to be sceptical about this sort of thing. I still feel a bit embarrassed and hippyish talking about “hypnobirth” because it sounds all sorts of flakey. There’s another system called Calmbirth which comes from the same theory and is very similar, but with slightly different techniques. Our instructor is currently studying to become qualified and even she said she was looking forward to it because the name doesn’t have the same connotations of swinging watches and clucking like a chicken.

But it really does feel effective. And really “hypnotism” is really only putting your brain into a deeply relaxed state, like meditation. Anyway, I’m really glad we did it. It’s a really great technique for helping me relax, and like Dave told our instructor, “everything’s better when Nicky’s relaxed.” And if nothing else, the classes and our regular practise sessions are helping us get closer and for me to trust Dave. I don’t feel like birth is a great unknown thing I’ll be enduring on my own, I feel confident that I can do this, and probably very well. In fact, I’m almost excited about doing it, and about the baby that we’ll have afterwards.

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Here’s something I’ve not told many people: I’ve been dreading being a mother. It’s not something I ever really yearned for. Well, maybe in my early 20s, but back then it was because that was sort of what everyone expected you to do, not necessarily what I wanted to do for myself. When I first married back in my mid 20s I’d have little fantasies about having a family, but I soon realised that the me I was picturing in those happy little fantasies wasn’t me at all. I was controlling, and unhappy, and prone to deep pits of depression. Plus all those times mum would spit, “you’re just like you’re father,” to end an argument, they stuck. How often do you need to hear that before you believe it? He was a horrible man. I still have nightmares. And my mum, well, she’s not exactly the best parent either. I’m bound to be like one or the other, so why the hell would I want to perpetuate that?

Then I got divorced and moved overseas, and then a few years later I met Dave. And I told him I didn’t want kids and he was fine about it. Then one day he said, “I think I’d make a good dad,” and I knew he was right. And then I realised that in my journey I’d changed. I was happy, I was at peace. I was in a situation where I could see myself being a good mother, and so I agreed in theory that having a family would be good. You know, in a couple of years.

And then I got pregnant, and it was really exciting, but it still seemed unreal that there’d be a baby. But like I said, suddenly it’s dawned on me that everything is changing and I suddenly thought, what the hell am I doing? I’m 38 years old. I love our life. What if I’m a shitty parent? What if I’m stressed and disorganised and everything is a struggle? What if all the sleep deprivation puts me back into depression, what if I do end up like my mother? What if every day is a financial struggle and we end up miserable? This is for years and years and years, it’s not like I can back out of it, everything is changing forever. What if we break what is good about us?

So yeah. It’s not been good. Not all the time, just occasionally, and it’s not something I’ve wanted to talk to Dave about because I don’t want him to feel like he’s pushed me into this. But enough that it’s been sitting at the back of my mind and taking any excitement away.

But now, I don’t know. After doing the hypnobirthing class, I feel calm inside. Serene. I feel like I can give birth, and that I will have a connection with this little one who is currently connecting vigorously with my kidney. If I think about having a toddler or a 7 year old or god help me a teenager I have palpitations again so now I just pull it right back to newborn, which I can pretty much cope with, and trust the rest of it to luck and positive visualisations.

Maybe it’s just because I’m doing affirmations and listening to my relaxation tracks, but hey. If that’s all they do for me, then I think they are a success.