A Mummy's New World

By Deborah Harrow

Finally a positive blue line or the word `pregnant' confirming your dreams of a new life, sending shivers through your spine with excitement and huge curiosity and fear for the changes ahead. There is the feeling of wonderment and awe of the creation of a new life entwined with the expense of a baby, morning sickness and changing relationships that are combined with a feeling of complete and utter cluelessness. Questions, questions, questions... What do babies need? How do babies grow? Should I return to work or not? What childcare would be best? The book certainly does not claim to be a factual guide, instead offering an honest and reflective account of the roller coaster of emotions experienced by a `normal' non-celebrity mum. A mum who neither has an army of helpers nor a bottom-less pot of money; just an everyday Mummy with bits of drool on her shoulder and sick on her trousers who has had the most amazing fifteen months and wants to share some of these highs and lows from conception to six months.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Nov 4, 2011
• ISBN: 9781467000321

Deborah Harrow

My expertise is simple; I am just a normal, everyday mum with a happy and healthy son. I live and work in Kent as a school teacher but have found the journey of parenthood to be the most exciting and exhilerating one that I have yet made. The joy of visualising our baby growing inside, to our first meeting him at his birth and the wonderment of each and every smile have all made this journey so magical.

Book preview

Prologue

First of all there is my wonderful husband who has put up with the trials and tribulations of a hormonal wife, the emotional trial of my becoming a Mummy and the dilemma of how to stimulate a new Mummy’s brain! You could potentially say that this is a task too far for many men, but so far he has risen to the challenges and lived to tell the tale.

My own Mum and Dad have been exemplary parents. I know that everyone typically says it about their own parents, but as a family we have been truly blessed with excellent role models as to how to bring up our own loving, stable families. My brothers and I get on very well. Both are married and these relationships and marriages have also helped to form the person, wife and Mummy that I have become. We are an incredibly close family and I am eternally grateful for that. Not every family is as close and sometimes that suits people. At other times I think there are some people who would desperately like their family to be slightly closer than they are. Through my upbringing I have learnt some valuable lessons which I sincerely hope to carry forward with me and to share with my own family. Firstly, to never ever go to sleep on a cross word; there is simply no point in this. Secondly to always kiss someone goodnight and tell them just how much you love them. You are never too old for a cuddle from your mummy, brother, sister or husband and to be told that you are special to them.

There are a number of other people very important in the writing of this book and their names and roles will be explained as you read on.

Chapter 1

Why I have written this book…

There are simply insufficient words to describe what has to be the most amazing journey of any woman’s life. I can only begin to describe my journey as a new Mummy as one that has been magical, thrilling, humbling, scary, exciting… The list is simply endless.

It is particularly hard to define the most magical moments so far, for there have been so many, starting from the day we discovered I was pregnant, just because my husband was convinced that the sudden sniffle I had developed with no other obvious cold symptoms simply had to mean that I was pregnant. I’m still to discover whether he is a psychic or just a geek at remembering obscure facts about the female reproductive system. But he was right, as a few days before my period was due, I trundled upstairs to take the test—totally certain I was not pregnant and the result would be negative; it was definitely too early to tell. Back downstairs on the sofa we sat patiently awaiting the results. It’s amazing how a stick such as that, which has been places we never normally discuss, is suddenly fine to come into the lounge and be placed on the floor. Two minutes were up and according to a cheap pregnancy test, I was indeed pregnant. At that magical moment, neither of us quite knew what to do. Too cautious to really celebrate and too excited to sit still. In my mind I was convinced that as it was a cheap test, we would wake up in the morning and discover that I was in fact not pregnant.

After a sleepless night pondering about the new life which I might have growing inside me it was time to take the more expensive test in the morning. This too confirmed that I was indeed expecting. Unfortunately no time for any further excitement and off to work we both headed. I spent the journey wondering if I felt any different at all, imagining this little baby growing inside from just two little cells.

Sadly I was back to reality swiftly with a big fat bump as I had a teacher training day at school and was running a number of sessions for other teachers during the day. It was nearly impossible to keep focussed; all I could think about was that we had created a new life—a really little tiny person inside me. The magic had begun. With my sessions having been delivered, I should have been sat focussed on the sessions that I was attending; instead I spent the day wondering whether it would be a boy or girl and what the little person’s personality would be. I must confess that I did not perform at my best during that day!

As I am sure every expectant mum does, I went to the bookshops to purchase any and everything that I could to help guide me through this wonderful process. I happily purchased a ‘What to expect when expecting’ book, but found there was a distinct lack of real life stories, written by ‘normal’ mums, as opposed to celebrity mums. With celebrity mums I always figure there must be some secret ‘behind the scene’ team to help them through the nights and help them get back to ‘normality’ post-birth. I just wanted to devour a book that would help to offer my husband and me an insight into what our lives might be like as parents and to provide us with just a hint as to how our lives might change.

From there, this book was created while juggling a baby, a thousand nappies and several hundred wash loads.

Chapter 2

First few weeks of pregnancy—morning sickness

Having dreamt of having a child for so many years and with six young nephews and nieces, I had many preconceived ideas about what pregnancy and motherhood would actually involve. According to the films, pregnancy is just amazing. You feel a magical bond with your unborn baby immediately; after all you have desperately wanted this child. However I rapidly began to feel nauseous which somehow weakened the ‘magical bond’ that I was ‘supposed’ to feel. With every opening of the fridge I felt incredibly poorly, making functioning at home more than just a little challenging. As for the dishwasher—I could not even deal with the clean plates and bowls, let alone when the dishwasher was full of dirty dishes! The smell was, to put it plainly, repulsive.

I had read the books about morning sickness; some people suffer badly and are very sick, but others are blessed and never experience any sickness. But no one really explained to me that there is neither rhyme nor reason that can explain which smells and tastes can trigger nausea. Having gone from being an obsessively clean and tidy woman who always wanted to get things done swiftly, I became someone reliant on my husband to open the fridge and get out the specific contents that I wanted or needed. This certainly did not fit in with my ‘magical’ vision of pregnancy.

Suddenly I found myself to be incapable of making a cup of tea; friends and family were welcome to pop over for a cuppa as long as they were prepared to make it themselves, unless of course they were happy with black tea or coffee that did not involve opening the fridge. I guess an alternative would have been to use ‘coffee mate’, but I imagine the smell of that would also have been pretty nauseating.

There were a fair few mornings when I had to make a mad dash to the bathroom to be (excuse the crudeness) sick. I am not one who is good at being sick—I do not believe many people are, but I am certainly bad at it. Ironically I am fine about being violently sick if I have an allergic reaction to a nut. My allergy to nuts is incredibly severe and I can react very badly to what can only be described as an invisible trace. During my pregnancy I was petrified of having such a reaction. Whilst pregnant you are not generally advised to take antihistamines, which are the only thing that can help to reduce the severity of my allergic reactions. To be fair, if I were to have had a reaction whilst pregnant, the chance of successfully keeping an antihistamine down was very slight indeed, so I guess I need not have been overly worried.

There was one very unfortunate morning before Christmas when I was ten weeks pregnant, and just could not make it to the cloakroom in time. Instead I had to select the kitchen sink—horrendous for my poor husband, Paul, to clear up. You can imagine how I felt when our neighbour opposite, once mentioned that he thought he had seen me throw up in the kitchen sink. How embarrassing. I laughed it off knowing that there was a very strong chance he just might have seen me chucking up in our sink as he was preparing his own breakfast. Nice! Luckily my behaviour clearly did not offend him too much and he thankfully still speaks to us.

Sadly I have not got any more mature or capable at dealing with sickness, and now resort to spraying Edward with a little perfume if he is even the slightest bit sick. Thankfully he is not a very ‘sicky’ baby and so fortunately Edward does not spend much of his life smelling like a girl; I do not think Paul would be too impressed if our son permanently smelt of perfume, and I am not prepared to spray myself with aftershave, so hopefully his good health will continue.

With regard to morning sickness, worse was yet to come… Marmite, my previously could not live without store cupboard ingredient, was suddenly the worst thing imaginable! I could not stand the look, taste, smell or anything about it. It just made me want to vomit. When Paul and I first met he hated the stuff and I loved it. If I had Marmite for breakfast in the mornings, Paul could never kiss me goodbye as he loathed the smell and taste of it on my lips and toothpaste never seemed to cut the biscuit at removing it. I never truly understood just how repulsive it was for him until my pregnancy when I can honestly say, for the first time (and hopefully the last) I actually hated kissing my husband. I was expecting his baby, but never wanted to kiss him goodbye after his Marmite breakfast. Luckily he did not take too much offence!

Having spent all day at work feeling pretty rough, I would come home and vegetate tentatively on the sofa, still feeling nauseous until I hit my new discovery—caviar! Paul was relieved to hear that it was not the extortionately priced real ‘Beluga caviar’, but instead the cheaper, run of the mill ‘lumpfish caviar’. The new staple store cupboard item had arrived. Sadly we could not buy this new store-cupboard ingredient from our local supermarket and so it required lots of visiting special supermarkets and bulk buying. I must have looked slightly psychotic, or rich, at the checkout stacking up on five pots of the stuff, a pint of milk and some bread.

Quite why I could not live without this bizarre item I have no idea. First thing in the morning or last thing at night, caviar would always sort me out. Still, they say you may have strange cravings and caviar was certainly mine. For those Marmite lovers out there, you will be glad to hear that a few weeks after giving birth, my Marmite passion thankfully returned.

Regarding other tastes which I loved and those I hated, there were not too many. I liked crisps, salt and vinegar in particular. Fruit was certainly not my first choice. Before conceiving I absolutely loved melon, but as soon as I was expecting, my taste for fruit left me. I suffered quite a lot of guilt regarding my new found desire for what can only be described as ‘junk’ food, but all things in moderation and a lot of vegetables meant I generally had a healthy balanced diet. During the course of my pregnancy I was glad to put on a relatively ‘healthy’ amount of weight. This fairly small weight gain has been incredibly useful when it came to losing my baby weight. Though I, like many of my friends, did find watching the scales ever increasing number, incredibly depressing. Likewise I found the relatively slow weight loss post-baby frustrating. I was not a celebrity ‘pinging’ back into shape, but I am glad to say that six months post Edwards birth and I am happily back into my old clothes.

Chapter 3

Car sickness

Car sickness was another nasty pregnancy symptom that nobody had thought to warn me about. I only had a twenty minute journey to work, but those were the longest twenty minutes in the whole day. Many mornings I was driving along the motorway, wondering exactly the best way to be discretely sick. Whilst I did not want to be sick in the car and cause damage to the interior and risk leaving the car with a rancid smell, I equally did not want to cause an accident by sick landing on another driver’s front windscreen! Thankfully I never had to put this to the test.

Then came the festive season, and at twelve weeks pregnant, suffering severe car sickness, we had to travel up north to the in-laws. I could hardly deny my husband the ability to see his own parents at Christmas, but in my mind and state of travel sickness, Stockport might as well have been the end of the earth. According to ‘Google maps’, the journey should only take 4 hours and 9 minutes. We have no evidence to confirm this though as every journey to Stockport seems to take us far longer.

The Christmas journey was substantially the worst. The journey took us a grand total of seven and a half hours—unbelievable. Especially as that was seven and a half hours feeling horrendously sick. Seven and a half hours feeling mad with my husband for making me do the journey. And seven and a half hours of feeling so mad with myself for agreeing to the journey.

I think this was the first point at which I began to learn that to be a happy mum I needed to be strong with myself and stand up for my beliefs and choices. This learning process is still on-going, but I am gradually getting better at being more assertive.

During this wonderful period of morning sickness, you are also in the process of hiding your feelings to everyone, pretending that suddenly you want to drive everywhere and never have a drink; knowing deep down that all your friends and work colleagues can clearly see written on your forehead the magic word: ‘pregnant’. In addition you feel incredibly tired, well I certainly did. Again I had read the books and accepted that it