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.