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.

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.

Musings: Topics we invite you to muse on

We think the following is a fairly comprehensive list of topics (listed in random order) for you to chose to muse (write, reflect) on, with room to interpret the topics as you think appropriate...



On life after birth (debriefing the birthing experience)

On time

On life after loss

On hat-changing

On emotions (your own, emotional responses, emotional shifts)

On faith

On expectation

On disappointment

On achievement

On sleep

On relationships

On priorities

On work

On competition (developmental milestones; with other mothers)

On ‘instinct’ (backing yourself; not knowing what you want to do; listening to your inner voice)

On what to wear (what does it mean to dress ‘as a mum’; the ambiguity of sexuality)

On relationships

On advice

On role-models

On developing a thick skin

On being made of glass (the first time a friend went straight for your child, before acknowledging your presence)

On getting it wrong

On ambiguity (I don’t want to play this game today)

On marriage

On post-natal depression

On identity