My beautiful son was a planned baby. To a certain extent. Amongst all the ‘excitement’ of the delivery, I went through the motions of caring for my son like a slow, rusty robot.
That’s what I was. A robot. I had no emotion. I was so so fatigued. I changed diapers, fed him, cuddled him, put him to sleep because it was what I was supposed to do. I remember going to my first mother’s group, watching all the mothers cooing and smiling at their little angels and I thought, my goodness, I just started smiling at my little bub. He was almost 7 weeks old at that time.
Somehow amongst all the planning, I had not thought of the notion that having a baby would make me a mother. Oops. My husband and I talked about, planned about were excited about having a baby. Not for one moment did I think about the equation: baby = mother. Perhaps this is one of the contributing factors to my PND.
I know for a fact that feeling like a mother was a contributing factor in getting better. Strange but true, like in a movie moment, one day, I think it was a Tuesday, just before Easter, I woke up that morning and said to myself - I’m a mother. I don’t know what it was but having realised it (albeit the lightbulb moment being very slow!), I found this new confidence in myself that I didn’t have before in my new role.
Subconsciously or consciously perhaps I was fighting the new change in my life. One that is full of uncertainty, one that is absolutely spontaneous, chaos and not the organised kind and one with much improvisation. Because as a first time mum, who knows really, what to do! For so long I identified myself as a primary teacher, an organised person, punctual - ie. 15 mintues early (at least) person, someone who planned what was happening every step of the way. A definite perfectionist.
However, being a mother changes all that and I have come to accept myself as a mum and also the new identification that I can add to my persona. I have realised that I don’t have to ‘give up’ the ‘old’ me. I have a new bag of arsenal that I now carry with me. And that my friends is a fantastic feeling.
