Giddy-up it's a New Year!

So apparently the 'New Year' just slipped in... we've had ourselves a little hiatus (always sounds so medicinal) here, and are looking forward to chipping away at all things new and not so.

Perhaps you've had some milestones of late? During the past 12 months, we have both celebrated the 1st birthday of our little people. This feels like a reasonably momentous occasion in which to cast one's (however fried) mind back and consider the journey thus far. In the past few months, you may have found yourself looking at this blog and telling yourself, 'Yup, I'm gonna do that as soon as I have brushed my teeth/had some more sleep/had an epiphany/pulled myself away from Glee' or 'So and so would be perfect for writing something for that'. Or 'I started to write something a while back, and now it's just irrelevant/embarrassing/highfalutin'...

Whatever the thoughts, intentions, resolutions, we're looking forward to receiving your musing. Feel free to email and ask us to gently prod you over the next few months so that you do in fact 'finish that thing that I meant to finish a while back'. We can do it in a kind, non-nagging way. Hey, we can also do nag if that's your flavour.

Musing submission: On control

Like most women – well, I assume most women – I had already worked out what sort of mother I would be well before I was a mother. I was lucky to have a few friends and family members who had babies before me; so, from the heights of my own self-righteousness, I watched and made note of what they did and did not do. I would formulate in my mind what I would or would not have done if I were in their situation – sound familiar? I had a lot of ideas about parenting before I actually became a parent. Oh, how my friends would scoff and say, ‘just you wait!’.

Whilst pregnant, I often had my nose in a baby book. I remember laying in the bath, my rounded belly bouncing in the overly bubbled water, my swollen feet (where had my ankles gone?) sticking out and hanging over the edge of the bath. I eagerly poured over each page so that I would be ‘prepared’ for what was to come. I read everything. In my own mind, I had planned out what would happen when it was time to have the baby and when it was time bring the baby home.

I was going to be a strong, disciplined and resilient mother. Quite simply, I was going to be in control at all times. I was going to be prepared.

But, I was not in control, nor was I prepared.

The cords of control that were so tightly wrapped around my life – or so I thought – were beginning to slip out of my hands. I first realised this in the first trimester of my pregnancy. Before I was pregnant, I had images of myself maintaining my size eight figure and having just a small, rounded and firm belly. I was not going to gain any weight, nor have any other pregnancy-related issues. Boy, was I in for a surprise. My body took over and became a baby-cooking machine, and I had very little say in what it did.

The cords of control continued to slip out of my hands throughout my pregnancy, but I continued to try and hold on tight. The next little reminder that I had very little say over my life was when I was told that my baby was breech and there was little chance that he would turn because the amniotic fluid was low. I remember my specialist telling me to start preparing for a caesarean. When I heard this, I was shattered. This was not what was supposed to happen. I was supposed to have a natural birth. I had already psyched myself up for the pain and torment of childbirth. I had been to my antenatal classes, I knew what to expect. I was going to be superwoman and do the whole labour without drugs. This was going to be my chance to prove to the world that I was strong and invincible. Unfortunately, that was not going to be. So, once again, I had to change my thinking and come to terms with the fact that I was not able to determine my life.

After the birth of my baby boy, Jack, I still had a lot to learn. Knowing that I had read all there was to read on newborns, I thought that I would know exactly what to expect. I had envisaged how I would be and how the baby would be. Boy, didn't my world crumble around me when I brought my little baby home for the first time. I was not prepared for how I would react to this new experience at all. I did not foresee how the emotions, lack of sleep and all the changes to my life would effect me. I did not expect to feel so low, nor did I expect to guiltily want my previous life back, hungrily seeking ‘normality’. I assumed everything would come naturally. Oh, how I was wrong, wrong, wrong.

Throughout the first 3 months of being a new mother I continued to struggle with not being in control. I wanted my baby to be in a routine. I wanted him to sleep when I wanted him to sleep and I fought so hard to make it so, even though it was blatantly obvious that Jack would do what he wanted to do and I did not have any say about it.

What surprised me most was the lack of confidence and decisiveness that I experienced in the first few weeks. I was always – and I guess, will continue to be – second-guessing myself, never knowing whether I was ‘doing the right thing’. I realise now that when I do not have control over the many facets in my life, I lose so much confidence. This has been a huge challenge for me and it will continue to be a challenge, as I am not in control, nor will I ever be.

It’s now been nearly four months since our baby boy was born. In the first few weeks, I found it quite hard to believe when my friends and family said, ‘it gets better’. I have understood that letting go of control does not mean that things will fall apart. I can create the environment and opportunities, but the rest is up to my baby. It's important to listen to what your baby is saying to you and allow yourself to be flexible.

Motherhood has been an incredible adjustment, much more than I ever expected, but I now feel that I am finally enjoying being a mum and spending time with my baby is a real joy. It's true, it has gotten better.

Bronwyn Ralphs

Musing: what the heck does that mean?

To write in a reflective, considered manner.
To spill the beans.
To get your words on paper.
To get the stuff ticking over in your mind into words.
To speak your mind.
To share your story.
To journal.
To record.
To voice.

Food for Thought: Mums in the spotlight

Discussion on pretty crucial issues relating to the new-mum journey have been discussed on Radio National's Life Matters (yup, ABC radio; don't be deterred, it's not just for boffins and knitted cardigan-wearers) over the past few weeks. Post-natal depression and the complexities facing Paid Maternity Leave in our country have been looked at in detail.

You might find Food for Thought for your musing after listening to either podcast? We aren't intending to jump on any particular flavour of the month by putting these links up (they mightn't click with everyone); regardless, they are a welcome alternative to whatever mag is profiling how 'hot' this week's celebrity mum looks after giving birth during the last sentence...

Here's a little taster for the two podcasts:

Post Natal Depression

A new awareness campaign on post and antenatal depression is being launched today.

There's still a lot of stigma about being seen not to cope, and confusion about the difference between the normal challenges of new parenthood and serious mental illness.

(Radio National Life Matters, 12th November 2009)

Paid Maternity Leave

We're on the eve of some important and hard-fought-for changes in Australia. From January next year, women can request more unpaid parental leave and job flexibility, and from 2011, a government-funded paid parental leave scheme will finally be introduced...

Associate Professor Marian Baird, from the University of Sydney Women and Work Research Group, charts these changes in the annual Clare Burton lecture, called 'A slow and unfinished Revolution: maternity leave, women and work'.

(Radio National Life Matters, 27th October 2009)

(and this is where we add 'the views expressed on these podcasts do not necessarily reflect the view of the authors of This Is Not A Baby Manual...)

Food for Thought.

Orange Envelopes (or Orange Paper Packages)

You might have received a little This Is Not A Baby Manual Orange Envelope from us (or from a friend), or as we like to call them, an Orange Paper Package, leading you to this blog. A little more tangible and enticing than an email, and a little more scrumptious than other possible forms of communication.

Just in case you wanted to know what other Orange Envelope packages people were opening, here's a little snapshot. Just like a not-bought one...

Musing submission: On expectation

I have always been into books. Not the ‘I just love a good murder mystery/whimsical romance/coming of age/my life’s story’ kind of book, but books about ideas. I don’t get caught up in characters in the way that an avid fiction reader might, I get enthralled and whisked away by reading about the psychology of people. Of relationships, behaviour and thinking. Of thinking about thinking. I have a stack of folders with papers, articles and clippings collected over the years that I form references and reflections that I can dip into when I want to revisit an idea or finding. As I am so inclined, I had done a lot of reading, collecting, researching and thinking about ‘having a baby’ and ‘raising a child’ whilst I was pregnant. Okay, it was actually well before then. With a background in education, I was always reading current literature into aspects of the psychological; the psycho-social; the socio-cultural and any other double barrelled variations on the like. Equipped then, with this philosophical, ideological literary arsenal, I had honed fairly specific thoughts and ideas on how I wanted to ‘do’ being a mother and fairly specific expectations on how I would ‘be’ as a mother.

In his engaging series of musings on the psychology of travel, modern philosopher Alain de Botton reflects on the glittering allure of the holiday brochure to would-be holiday-makers. Of gently swaying palm trees on impossibly white sand and candy-coloured cocktails served in bars in pools and the like. The carefree awaits. Yes, you think. You can envisage yourself right there, effortlessly perched on a warm deck chair by the pool, your wet hair, casually, yet elegantly pinned back behind your Bulgari sunglasses. This escape from your current daily grind a mere plane flight away. The decision is made, the holiday booked. A new bikini and a bottle of St Tropez are all that stand between you, and the you about to land in that brochure itself.

de Botton reflects that it doesn’t occur to the holiday-maker that you would have to take you with you. That you have indeed taken you with you, becomes apparent fairly soon into your holiday. The you whose hair never manages to look effortlessly chic when wet. The you who finds too much sun quite irritating. The you who gets anxious at the thought of paying for overpriced food when abroad. The you who left your bikini at home. The ‘you’ with your usual aversions, tendencies, shortcomings and challenges.

Having found myself at destination ‘mum’ this past year, my biggest challenge has been me. That is, reconciling what I thought I ‘would be like’ as a mum with the reality of who I am as a mum. As de Botton would put it, I forgot that I would have to bring me with me. I had intended to be calm, relaxed and even keeled. A real mother earth. Softly spoken and smelling of roses. Serene. Recently I shared these thoughts with a friend. I was glad that I had. In the early days of being a new mum, she described through tears to her husband her disappointment with her expectations of how she would ‘be’ as a mother, with how she actually was as a mother. He laughed. She shared with me that he had gently reminded her that she had never in fact been serene. And that after broken sleep and experiencing both the highs of joy and the depths of self-doubt at this new stage of life, she was probably less likely then ever to be serene. He wasn’t being rude or unsupportive, and she hadn’t take it that way either. The comment came from knowing his wife’s character. Her make-up. Her tendencies and ways of being. Her strengths and her vulnerabilities.

I have never been calm, relaxed and even keeled. I aspire to be and work towards arriving at that place through intentional and practical ways. But I am more analytical, pedantic and intense than calm, relaxed and even keel. What I am learning is that how I ‘do’ being a mother stems from who I am as a person, from my distinctiveness and my character. From how I understand and view people and relationships. The archetypal images of motherhood, and the philosophical, psychological and ideological frameworks I developed before and during the time I carried my child have helped to form preferences, but they do not form the ‘me’ that I actually am. As a mother, there is still the ‘me’ that needed refining (okay, read ‘sanding back with a robust grade of sandpaper’) before I met my little person and therefore continues to need refining. But there is also the me that I want to take with me.

Amanda Kelshaw.

Musing submission: On beginning

It was fathers’ day. We were at my parents’ for a family lunch and my aunt was there with her baby niece who was in her care. My aunt is with babies the way most women are with handbags: so naturally drawn to them she tends to tuck them under her arm without another thought. I was with babies the way most men are with handbags: disinterested and slightly uncomfortable holding one. The niece was a genial little thing and was passed around to pretty much everyone except myself and my grandfather (who I appeared to have inherited my attitude toward babies from). When my husband held her the usual jokes about how good he looked with a baby went around. But I didn’t laugh, instead finding myself distracted and slightly disturbed by the way a sour feeling in my stomach was putting me off dessert. I never refuse dessert.

The next day I found myself sitting on the bathroom floor in tears, holding a pregnancy test: a little white stick with more pink lines on it than I was prepared for. The moment I discovered I was pregnant I was not filled with joy, I was filled with fear.

I was having what my father commonly refers to as an ‘Oh Sh*t’ moment. He coined the term during his career as a university academic, when he would commonly come across students cowering in the realisation that a semester of beer drinking at the student bar didn’t equate with a pass. Similarly, as I was sitting on the bathroom floor I was realising that saying ‘but a baby might come’ whilst removing my husband’s clothing didn’t equate to contraception. I was not prepared for a baby.

But how do you prepare?

Do you ‘borrow a baby’ as one baby manual I read suggested?

Do you attend the babes-in-arms sessions at the local cinema and observe mums whilst they simultaneously wrangle their maternity bra, deal with a baby who is not shy about making their displeasure with the situation known and attempt to follow a complex narrative as it unfolds on screen?

Do you ask a friend with a baby for an honest assessment?

I didn’t. I didn’t want to know.

Surely there are people out there who are far more prepared for dealing with the chaos and unpredictability a baby brings than I was. People with younger siblings, or lots of cousins, or degrees in early childhood. I had held a baby twice before my son was born. But would my experience of first-time motherhood be any different if I was the eldest of eight? Would it make a difference if I had a clearer picture of what life with a baby is like before I jumped in? (Okay, maybe jumped isn’t the right word.) Would it have helped when I stood paralysed with uncertainty and anxiety over the change table while my baby screamed? Maybe. Maybe the screaming wouldn’t have bothered me so much.

I spent most of the first six months of my son’s life with a baby manual in hand, reading and re-reading in the hope that I would find some clear instruction on what to do with the baby. People kept saying I should follow my instincts. My instinct was to run.

The time that I wasn’t spending reading the baby manual I spent mourning the life that I had lost. I don’t mean things like late nights out with friends or doing with my weekends whatever I wanted. I mean taking a shower regularly or brushing my teeth at least once a day. Then I felt horribly guilty and ungrateful; I had a healthy baby, I hadn’t had a single miscarriage before his conception. So I kept quiet.

Of all the advice, information and instruction that I sought, the most useful came from a social worker at the acute mental-health crisis team after it was well and truly confirmed that I had postnatal depression. ‘This is the hardest thing you will ever do,’ she said to me. ‘It’s going to get better.’

She was right.

Claire Zorn.