Being a Mom without a Mom

This piece should probably be called being a person without your person, because I don’t think missing Mom has been harder since Finley arrived. If anything he has helped. By becoming a new person in my world he has made the gaping hole she left just that little bit smaller. This piece may ring true to some of you who have lost a person though; maybe you have felt similar or maybe you have felt differently but for some reason I decided that now is the time to share my first experience of loss.

My Mom died of a heart attack in December 2001. I went to my Saturday job that morning, my Dad arrived to it in the afternoon and had to tell me that his wife, my mother, was dead. He had to do that five times in total, to each of my four siblings, one of whom was pregnant. I remember walking out of the shop into the street decorated for Christmas and I couldn’t breath. The wind had been knocked right out of me and would take a long time to return.

Before I continue my Dad is more of a hero than you even think he is right now and so I know he won’t feel left out in this piece because he knows what I think of him. He has been Mom and Dad for 15 years, he even used to buy sanitary products for me and sister in the weekly shop (thanks Dad), He did everything possible to ease the loss and ease it he did. He has now taken up the role of being Grandad and Nanny and is doing so with aplomb.

So Mom. I keep starting a sentence with when she died and then deleting it because…well what about when she died? When she died so did the future that I had been planning. When she died I lost the chance of just being 18, of just being 19, of just having my twenties. Death had knocked on my door and left it ajar. I was acutely aware that life can end, with one missed beat of a heart it can stop. It’s very hard to live in the moment when you know that that moment may be the very last you have.

As strange as it may sound I have had to work hard to accept that I would probably see the night, and the morning, and I would probably see the weekend. I had to relearn how to make plans expecting to keep them. Your brain, or at least my brain, tried to protect me from the shock I suffered with her death but in doing so it prepared me for everyone’s death, that’s a pretty exhausting way to go about your day. It’s also exhausting to be the partner of someone who lives like this. If my now husband didn’t return a call quick enough I would get anxious and I would be angry at him for making me wait. To this day when I get a call from a family member that I am not expecting for a brief second I am scared to answer. It’s unfair and it sucks for all involved, it’s hard to ask someone to buy a litre of milk when they are talking to you as if you might be the grim reaper.

When Mom died I suffered from fits which damaged the nerve in my right arm and meant I could no longer write like an adult should, I would write maybe two or three words at a time and then my arm would freeze and I could do no more. Every time I tried to write I cursed her and so in the months following her death I missed her, I hated her, I grieved for her, I begged for one more moment with her and I blamed her for not letting me have it. When she died I spent some portion of every day sitting and thinking about her face and her voice because I was so scared of forgetting them. When she died I felt her face with my eyes closed so that I could store it to memory. When she died I wondered what the hell was I meant to do now?

For those of you who never met her she had beautiful cheekbones. Her whole makeup regime involved only black eyeliner and mascara. She washed her face with soap and used Vaseline as her moisturiser and she was glorious. She always took her glasses off for pictures even though she really couldn’t see without them. She organised a holiday every summer that would take us all around Ireland, once to Wales and once to France where my brother was made sleep in a separate tent including on a night that a storm arrived and he almost got washed away. God how we laughed, my poor brother. She made memories for us without knowing that we would spend most of our life reliving them without her.

Men loved my Mom. She was funny and beautiful, she was a great flirt (sorry Dad!) but I don’t think she knew she was. A few weeks after she died the oil man arrived, when we told him she died he had to come in for tea with sugar, he was devastated. Imagine when you die that your impact is so great even the oil man is in mourning. My Mom was a treasure and I didn’t even know it. As it turns out I want to be the kind of Mother that she was, I think that would probably give her a knowing laugh.

When Finley arrived I discovered how much she loved me. God that regret of never knowing or appreciating it. Of course she told me she loved me but hey I was 18, what did I care? A few weeks after Finley was born I was really sick and I was tired, and I cried so hard for her. Where the hell was she? How could she not stay to meet my baby, to meet the father of my baby. And the hardest thing of all is that I know, wherever she is, she’s asking herself the same questions.

So being a Mom without a Mom, being a person without your person? If you’ve never lost someone close then the experience of it is far more encompassing than you think. It affects more parts of your life for longer than you can probably appreciate. You may not need to hear that but it might help with the level of empathy you give someone, and for how long you give it. When you wake up ready for your day I wake up ready for mine missing Mom. Every day feels like it starts with a -1 and while we may both end up with a +10 for an awesome day I’ve worked that little bit harder to get there. Every death, and every knock that follows hits hard because the foundation is already a little shaky. That’s what it feels like to me. Somedays I realise it, some days I don’t, but every day I remember she died. For every time you get a message, or a call from your Mom I don’t. For every coffee you have with her, for every dinner she makes you, for every smile she has given you I have not had this. And mostly now for every kiss she gives your baby, mine has received none.

How has it affected my parenting? I’m not sure because I guess I have nothing to compare it to. I know that it has affected every part of me and therefore it affects me as a mother. I know I’m anxious about getting pictures with him because I want to make sure he has them if I die. I write down how much I love him so that he knows how wanted he was if I die. Life becomes a little more about death than it should be. I accept that as Finley grows he will be interested in his Nanny but she’ll always be an abstract concept. I know that’s not his fault and I will need to not blame him for it. She will always be a part of my life but she will have never been a real part of his. Kids know what they can see, I have to learn to accept this.

I also know that I bathe in the glory of motherhood. I know that I haven’t fought with my husband as much, or he with me, because we are just so grateful to have this happiness. The joy Finley has brought us feels like a relief or maybe more accurately it feels like a release. Death is a leech, it hangs on trying to ruin your finest moments but the life of a baby is far more powerful. Finally something more powerful than death. In many ways life feels lighter and easier since he arrived, I can welcome back use of the word Mom now. It’s a small word when often used but it echoes loudly when left unsaid.

This piece feels very self absorbed and pitying, lets be honest that’s because it is. I’m writing this one for me, and for everyone who has lost a person and tries so hard to just get on with it. Perhaps Mothers Day inspired me. Also I’m interested in human experience, especially ones I have not gone through and so some of you may be interested to read this having never felt able to ask the questions.

And I want to appreciate that I’m here writing it because I was surrounded by wonderful people when it happened. The evening of Moms funeral my friends brought me back to one of their family homes and put on Shrek. I think they were probably worried that Shrek was a terrible movie choice but it has given me my  single happy memory from that time. They were only 18 too and yet how they reacted to me from then to now was perfect. The first thing my sister did was to ask if I was ok, she too had just lost Mom but in that moment she cared more about me. My sister in law sat beside me when the coffin was brought into the house, and my brother held me as my fits took hold. I like to think that each of us has protected each other and I hope this is Moms legacy, she created a family to love each other and that we do.

Hmm how do you finish a piece like this? I want to finish it by telling you to love your Mom or your person more, to tell them that you do, to listen to them when they say it back, to create memories with them, to let arguments go and not waste time but I’m saying all of that because I still live as if I will die tomorrow….maybe though instead of that being a curse it is actually a blessing?

You, Me, He and We

Sometimes I can’t decide if the world shows just happiness or just sadness. Social media is full of everyone's bright moments which makes it hard when you’re struggling, but yet we also only read about death and despair. So I write about my struggles hoping they will help someone else, but now I want to write about my sunshine because that can be helpful too. I forget, or maybe I remember but feel guilty, that it’s ok to be happy. Its great in fact, it should be celebrated, banked and cashed in to bring us through those times that are less joyful.

You

Before I got married I read about the pitfalls of being married. Websites are very helpful for laying out the Top 10 things to avoid if you want a happy marriage. They eagerly point out the roles we should play, the reasons we stray and how to make sure you know when your partner does. And then I got married and I forgot what was on which list and I was me, and he was he and we were happy. 

Then I got pregnant and I read about how much stress a baby places on a relationship. People eagerly share the impact that a baby has and, sadly, at times I did worry about us. Would we love the baby more than each other? Can a bubble grow or does it just burst? Would I resent my baby or my husband if I was given less love and our new person was given more?

And then Finley Winston Doyle arrived and I discovered that bubbles grow and grow. That love grows and grows. That your heart doesn’t increase in size to accommodate just the baby, but also the person standing terrified with you. I knew my husband would be a great Dad so that wasn’t a surprise, I had just never thought of how him being a Dad would change him as a husband. Of course there are pressures, my god we have driven each other mad. Sleepless nights, painful days. A baby who couldn’t tell us why he was sad, a partner who couldn’t fix it. Everyone is right, it changes things. The websites aren’t lying…the lists are real but they are incomplete. 

They need a but. A big movie style BUT.

You will cry, you will hate each other (a friendly version of hate), you will fight over abstract emotions that neither of you really feel BUT you will laugh so much. You will lean on each other and feel the strength of your teammate. You will trust the love you have. You will collapse into the history you share like a safety blanket, wrapping you in belief and helping to reenergise your determination. You will see your child love his parent and you will see why. You will look at this person you created together and sometimes that fact alone will leave you breathless. A whole life that exists because you chose it to. You will be proud and you will be content and you will realise that those feelings are very under rated.

He

Our boy. I don’t even know what to write about him, I am not a great enough writer to give him justice. Sometimes it feels like I can see my emotions and so here is my best explanation of being Finleys Mom. In the days following my Mothers death I lay on the sofa in my dressing gown and I recall a feeling of blackness around me. I can remember the feeling still, it just felt dark. Finley is colour, he feels like a deep breath, my love for him extends like a universe. This morning I turned to look at him; he was clapping and smiling to himself, then he saw me and just started to laugh; in that moment life felt complete. My greatest fear now is that he may not know my love for him. That fear in itself is a privilege, because instead of feeling like I have no future I worry about how long my future will be. I accept how lucky I am to experience that.

And We

My family. I am a mother, I am a wife. Some days I feel very far removed from the person I want to be, sometimes I feel like this person is exactly who I have worked to become. Motherhood does that to you. It’s hard to merge your new identity with the feeling that you don’t have one at all.  Right now I’m happy for my priority to be my family, I know it will come back to being myself but until then I’m going to enjoy the simplicity that life with a baby brings.

What’s the point of this piece? Well it’s not to brag. It’s not to sit smugly. It’s just to say that I’m happy and I feel lucky to be. It’s to try counteract some of the lists, some of the dread and the fears. It’s to recognise that while both take work, marriage and parenting are great decisions. That a baby can have a positive effect on a relationship, it just sells more ad space when we talk about the negatives.

This isn’t everyone’s experience of course. I needed to represent my story though because this life, especially on social media, needs a bit of balance.

p.s You may have noticed the chirpier tone of this blog. Yes my friends Finley now sleeps. Love is alive, the sky is blue, the birds sing sweetly once more. 

Silent Ref(l)ucks

Remember I said I would be writing more, and then I didn’t. And then I did…..but inevitably I didn’t. Well here I am again hoping I’ll write more. I have missed the cathartic nature of writing, I have needed it more than ever the last few months but the reason I’ve needed to write is the reason I haven’t been able to.

Finley is almost 7 months old, seven whole months. Jesus. The last time I wrote things were tough and I told you about crying in my yoga class. Well turns out that was the beginning of the end of my sanity! As I suspected our poor bub had silent reflux which is probably a symptom of his cows milk protein intolerance. Basically it means he (and we) spent at least 16 weeks dealing with acid travelling up and down his oesophagus (it’s silent because he swallows it back down rather than vomiting). Medication helped and stopped the nights of non stop crying however many more tears were to follow, evenly divided between me and my boy.

So straight up silent reflux is a temporary issue which babies grow out of. It’s not life challenging or life limiting, it didn’t require hospital stays for us and therefore it is minor, almost insignificant, compared to what other people face. I absolutely accept that and it was my mantra every day. What it did do though was send me to a place of exhaustion and stomp on my fingers every time I tried to climb out. All new parents are exhausted, you know that – we say it all the time. We say it so much it’s boring, what did we expect? We tell expecting parents with glee – oh just wait for the exhaustion, you think you’re tired now? We scoff. Well reflux tired is different. Reflux tired is being kept up all night by your tormenter and then tending to their needs every day.

Wait, stop. Finley is not a tormenter, I know that. Finley spends all day smiling and laughing. He holds my face in his tiny hands and kisses me constantly. Everything I do makes him laugh, he’s the most rewarding audience I’ve ever had. He is literally a standing ovation (well maybe not literally since he can’t stand, but you know what I mean). He takes his medicine laughing, he changed to bottles laughing, we should have named him Joy and just have let him deal with the consequences. However the first hour of the morning I've had to accept another new day and the last hour of night we have had to ready ourselves for the lack of sleep to come. I have had to remind myself that he is not a tormenter, he is my gift, an accumulation of every good we had done in our lives given back to us in a beautiful package. This is the greatest test of reflux, to separate the baby from the circumstance.

What has made it so hard though? Sometimes I don’t know. Tiredness is a tricky beast, it takes over everything even your memory. I know that every day I was exceptionally happy, I know that Finley never got the brunt of my tiredness but I know that Brian did. I know that the three of us danced in the kitchen together every night, I know that every day Brian got a picture of Finley being adorable, and I know that almost every morning he had to see me have one little cry to help me get it out of my system. We have been hellbent on not letting it take over our experience of Finley and it hasn’t. Day to day has been glorious still, but somewhere amongst it all I developed a slight anxiety of night times. The anxiety probably made them worse than they actually were because I started to fear the night and what it would bring, even the times when it ended up not being so bad. It also made me slightly unreasonable when it came to letting go of control and allowing Brian to help more.

Thankfully I think (please god let it be true) we have finally got Finley settled on the right formula, his medication has the reflux under control and so we moved him into his own room to see if it would help with his wakenings. I very quietly whisper this but it has. Due to a foot injury and being unable to rock him asleep I’ve also inadvertently started sleep training and the last two nights he has woken only once. Immediately things are better for me, which is where we are blessed that it was only reflux we have had to deal with. And that brings me back here, to write it all down and document another new part of parenting that I hadn’t expected. Parenting has been a struggle at times, thankfully though Finley, our baby, has not.

And you Reflux, you can go f(l)uck yourself.....see what I did there?

PS: my next blog is going to be such a happy one. It's going to be a giant brag about my life, so much bragging you'll need a vomit bag just to get through it.  

Movie Star Tears.

Today I am in a heighted state of pregnancy emotions. These emotions have led me to develop movie star tears which have appeared on and off since this morning. I am highly amused by these pregnancy tears; they gently roll down my face without any warning or sound. They glisten in my eyes, leaving no red rim, and thankfully do not harm my makeup. In typical Niamh fashion I have finally cracked the movie star crying code and yet I’m far too pregnant to break Hollywood (yes it is only my pregnancy that is preventing me from being discovered).

Anyways I think pregnancy tears are hilarious so have decided to bring you through my day so far. You may read these thinking there must be some exaggeration for dramatic effect but sadly that is not the case. Before you read them I would like to mention that I am in fact very delighted with life currently.

I cried movie star tears when:

• I thought my sleeping husband was annoyed at me. I had to wait for him to wake up in order to ask, turns out he wasn’t. Yes, I know, you’re right; it’s very hard for someone who is asleep to exhibit signs of annoyance however that did not stop me crying.
• I arrived at the bus stop and thought my bus had left early. It hadn’t, I got on it at the usual time.
• A lady was nice to me. My swipe card wasn’t working and she told me my day would get better when I had a coffee. That level of kindness was too much this morning.
• I got into the car after a packed Luas journey when no-one gave me their seat, even though I was holding my bump like the celebs do in magazines.

I wanted to cry when: (this means tears pricked my eyes but I didn’t let them fall)

• I wanted a muffin and bought one.
• I saw a picture of a premature baby born at the same stage as my baby is at now.
• I was worried that I wouldn’t love my baby.
• I thought about how much I love my baby.
• I had to ring my manager and was worried I would cry during the conversation.
• A lady power walked passed me during my lunchtime walk and I realised that she wasn’t really walking that fast.
• I saw children playing with swans in Stephens Green.
• I told my colleague about a day I forgot my keys to the office and it was raining outside.

While the movie star tears are most likely down to hormones, I am also slightly sleep deprived. Not only have I discovered the phenomenon of pregnancy tears but pregnancy dreams have also arrived full force. 

A few nights ago I dreamt that I was involved in a love triangle with Common and Xzibit (while still pregnant and married). We decided to work this problem out with the help of a mediator who turned out to be Robin Williams. Unfortunately the mediation came to an abrupt end when Robert De Niro shot us all. I rang my husband to say goodbye as I stood looking at the hospital he worked in. Sadly for me the hospital didn’t deal with those types of emergencies so I felt I shouldn’t go in and embarrass him. Not only was it a crappy dream but I woke feeling guilty about bringing Robin Williams back to life only to shoot him dead.

I’d like to think that tomorrow will be better, but I really shouldn’t think about it too much, just incase I cry.

It’s all lies, featuring 24 weeks in one short blog post

God I’m useless at blogging BUT I think I am going to get better so I wanted to do a quick update, a recap if you will, and bring everyone up to date on me, my pregnancy and the lies that are told.

I will be 24 weeks tomorrow which I thought was 6 months but now I think that 6 months is 25 weeks. It’s all very confusing and yet it probably isn’t but math was never my strong subject. We had our big scan (the scan is the same size as a regular scan however I feel I must use the terminology that has been shared with me) at 22 weeks.

Scans still scare me since we found out about our miscarriage during our first scan, however this time the big difference was that baby had been kicking and somersaulting for a couple of weeks and so I knew it was alive. Of course I didn’t know if everything was ok and I had a very quiet voice of fear accompany me on the day. The sonographer was lovely, she took us through each part of our gorgeous baby and I gasped every 4 seconds including when we saw the kidneys which truly are just grey blobs on a screen. BUT THEY ARE OUR BABIES GREY BLOBS. She let us hear the heart beat and persevered to get a profile pic when it seemed inevitable that baby would not move it’s gorgeous hand from its perfect face.

The scan finished with her telling us that everything looked normal. Isn’t that just the most wonderful word when looking at a scan of your baby? Normal! Ahh bliss. I let out a deep sigh of relief and then read about counting movements and immediately found something new to worry about!

I’m feeling good these days. I’m not as tired, not as bloated, not as nauseous and not as worried. However as the pregnancy progresses I have encountered a number of lies that have been sold me to by this maternity world, ones that I would like debunk now.

The lies, myths & inconsistencies

The 12 weeks myth –such were the promises of wellbeing at the 12 week mark that I woke up on the morning of it ready to start marathon training. I was sold tales of ‘bursts of energy’,’ no more sickness’, ‘easing of symptoms’. Hurrah I thought, life will be back to normal. I will stay up late and watch movies. I will high five people on the street and drag a comb through my hair looking into the mirror. Then my old foe, 2 o’clock, arrived on day 1 of week 13 and the feeling returned. I was miserable, I was tired and I was bloated. How could this be I cried? They promised I lamented. THEY LIED. It took until week 16 to start to feel better, week 18 to really feel better. Screw you week 12; you were but a mirage in a dry desert of despair.

You won’t even miss alcohol – oh how you make me laugh. I remember speaking to friends about how to survive without a weekend glass of wine, ‘you don’t even miss it’ I was told. THEY LIED. Sometimes, when I’m all alone, I sit and think of the condensation on a bottle of chilled New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. I hear the sounds of the cap opening, or the pop of the cork, and the glug of the liquid as it pours into the glass. I feel the glass between my fingers and the first rush of flavour as it hits. And then I realise the best I can hope for is a non-alcoholic Erdinger which is mostly head or a glass of orange juice whose only winning quality is that it isn’t water. I miss wine every damn day.

You’re gorgeous – look I’m not saying you’re not gorgeous but it takes many months for that bump to develop and until then you will be obsessed with trying to round off whatever fat has been deposited on your stomach. My bump is getting there now at 24 weeks, until this point it looked kinda fat, as did my bum, my love handles and my arms. I only recently passed the milestone of having my bump bigger than my bum.   

Choose a healthy diet-  personally I could not choose any diet. For the first 16 weeks my appetite was such that it went from ravenous and needing to eat all the carbs, to ravenous and not being able to deal with life let alone eating. When you are tired, bloated, emotional and need to eat every 2 hours it’s hard to keep going for the carrot sticks. One of my snacks was always fruit or veg but the one 2 hours later and 2 hours before was most definitely carbs. Your body is no longer your own and you must learn to feed the animal (albeit a really cute cuddly one) inside.

Body confidence is not technically yours either – so I am curvy, always have been and will be etc. I have days I feel crap but usually I’m pretty confident. Pregnancy has been interesting…I really promised myself I would not look at skinny pregnant women and wish I was them…celebs included…and I kept that promise right until I looked at a skinny pregnant woman and wished I was them. Again most days I feel good and am really embracing my belly, however I do feel different. I have given my body to a greater purpose and it isn’t as easy as I haughtily thought it would be.

Babies don’t come cheap –  I feel like I’m back in the world of wedding planning except this time I’m only getting bigger and the party I have to look forward to involves sleep deprivation, vomit and must be tolerated alcohol free (see alcohol point above) Everything is expensive AND even if, like me, you are anti-establishment and plan to go second hand e’erythang you will be terrified of not buying new just incase something happens, and your recycled buggy flops in on itself in the middle of the sanitary towel aisle in Tesco. The point is when you add baby or maternity to a product the price is ridiculous yet you will feel the shame of not being able to afford the best even though you have fought against that feeling your whole life.

Needless to say pregnancy is also wonderful and joyous etc etc but watch out for those sneaky lies and the sense of shame that they can create.

I may add to this list as they occur to me. I shall be the debunker of myths, the remover of hope, the renewer of misery. Or something like that.