Why are you crying mummy?

During the first evening of my baby’s life she nearly died. A passing midwife noticed that she wasn’t just coughing, as I had thought, but was turning blue. The midwife grabbed her and, yelling ‘crash’ and pressing a button on the wall, ran from the ward taking my baby with her. I was left tied to the bed by my catheter for seconds? minutes? hours? Long enough to know that the worst had happened. Long enough to think about having to send a message to everyone cancelling the birth announcement I had sent out a little earlier.

When I realised my catheter would unhook and my legs, numbed by a spinal, would carry my weight, I found my baby in a side room. “Is that my baby?” I asked the midwife. I had not known her long enough to recognise her yet, something that haunts me still. That was my first question. “Is she alive?” was my second. She was. They had a question for me too. “Why are you crying mummy?” asked the midwife, the hero midwife who saved my baby, the monster midwife who could not understand why I might be upset.

I still do not know how to answer that question. Is it because I thought my baby was dead or is it because she was alive?

Over a year later mostly I manage to put this to the back of my mind. I have a healthy baby who has become a wonderful mischievous loving toddler. The world is her oyster, which easily becomes lobster, which is tantalisingly close to the Yiddish word lobus which means little monster, in an affectionate cheeky way, and which although conventionally only used for boys is used in our household for our beautiful girl. The world is her lobster, and this lobus is our world.

A healthy happy baby is all anyone wants. That we have one is magical. Every day I appreciate it and most days I choose not to remember the moments when I thought it had been taken away just as it began. Yet sometimes, in the shower, driving alone with the radio on, walking through the park, I remember that night, and anyone who sees me and my tears may well also ask that question, “why are you crying mummy?” And still I cannot really answer.

Should you cry in front of your children?

After a difficult phonecall this week I was in left in tears and left with a quandary - should I let my daughter see I was crying. She's only a baby but she can definitely tell when I'm upset, getting upset herself at the sight of me crying. 

Parents are supposed to be strong and capable of anything. We are the sorter-outers not the quivering wrecks. And though I'm good in a crisis I'm a crier the rest of the time. 

The first time I cried in front of my daughter was during one of our nights in hospital when in the middle of the night, both of us beaten by attempts to get my breasts to work, I sat on the bed with her in my arms and we both bawled, possibly for hours. But that was us against the world together. This time it was her normally happy encouraging mummy having a moment. And while children need to learn that not everything goes well all the time, some problems in the adult world should be kept adult.

So all I could do was brush the tears away, force my voice to normal and get on with our day. And because nothing else actually matters to me as much as the wellbeing of my family, this made me feel better anyway. 

Wow - it's a powerful protection having a family. I felt it when I met my husband, and remember thinking that if things went badly at work or in friendships or anywhere else, it was okay now because someone loved me and I loved them and that's what mattered. And now the baby is here that feeling has multiplied. 

This protection makes everything else less powerful and I think sometimes people sense that and can feel threatened by it. They can only hurt you a little bit, unless they hurt your family also. It's why films are right when good people will do bad things if the baddies have their child or their partner. I had always thought this was just a cheap plot device, but I see now that it is true. For you are there to protect your family, but they protect you too. Which means there should have been no need to question whether my daughter should see me cry, because there really was no need to cry in the first place.  

(Now I just have to put this into practise. I am a crier. From sad things on the telly to stubbing my toe to thinking about mortality to seeing a pretty picture to having a frustrating conversation with someone being stupid. I must learn to take my own advice.)

How to say "I'm pregnant" to someone struggling to conceive

People who know us, and who know that conception took us a while, or who were privvy to my anguish at the time, seem to feel the need to apologise to us if they, or whoever we are talking about, conceived quickly, or by accident. 

There is no need for them to apologise of course. Expecting a baby is a wonderful thing, and even at my lowest or most tearful I never begrudged other people this happiness. After all, as I would always say to friends, it is not as if there is a limited number of babies allowed and them having one minimises our chances of having one. 

Not that it wasn't difficult of course. At times I would summon all my courage and sense of what is right to raise a glass to someone's news or give them a celebratory hug, and then go home and howl. But I have never wanted anyone else to go through the months and months of disappointment and upset that we did. 

So how should you tell someone who has experienced difficulty conceiving that you are pregnant? Everyone is different of course but my advice is this. Do it matter of factly without beating around the bush. Don't apologise for it but don't gloat either. Above all don't say "I guess we must just be super-fertile" as this is not what someone worried about their fertility wants to hear. But don't hide your happiness either - people trying to conceive are trying because they want babies and think having children is a great thing and as such want you to be happy about your own fortune in this matter. And if you can, tell them by phone or email or alone and then give them a little space so they can wrestle their own sadness away in private and compose their face and their feelings so that they can then be appropriate to you. And when they say congratulations, please believe them. They may be sad about their situation but their joy for you is genuine. 

Related post: What I really want

For whom the tears flow

We had a difficult beginning, our baby and us. No more so than many people and quite a lot less so than lots of people but it was difficult nevertheless. Feeding issues and possible illnesses and moments of intense worry plus all the tiredness and emotions everyone who has just had a baby feels.

When I tell friends the detail, and the detail is what everyone wants to hear, I often find myself in tears. I'm a crier so it's not that unusual, but also it's incredibly easy to imagine myself back in those moments and to feel everything I felt then again.

And sometimes people say to me that yes, it sounds horrid, what a difficult beginning you had, but look at your gorgeous girl and how well she is now and how beautiful and lively and amazing she is, and how she thrives, so don't cry.

But what they don't realise is that much as life as a mum is bound up with a willingness to give up anything necessary for the wellbeing of your child, it is not an entirely selfless life. For at these times the tears aren't for her - she is indeed beautiful and lively and amazing and oh how she thrives - the tears are for myself.

Related post: Best of times, worst of times