Lies We Tell Mothers: A True Story

by Suzy K Quinn

  When the midwife came for the first ‘let’s make sure you’re not failing your baby horribly’ home check, we talked more about baby blues.

  ‘I’m not really a baby person,’ I confessed. ‘So I don’t expect to feel particularly happy about all this. But that’s rational, isn’t it? My life has just been snatched away. I’m going to feel a bit low about that. There’s no need to label me. Only god can judge.’

  ‘Do you feel anxious?’ the midwife asked.

  ‘Of course I feel anxious. I’m woken up at all hours of the night, never knowing when I’ll grab my next bit of sleep, while simultaneously ensuring the survival of a delicate infant.’

  ‘What about sad?’

  ‘Yes. I cried this morning because we’d run out of hot chocolate.’

  ‘Baby blues,’ the midwife diagnosed. ‘Don’t worry. It will pass.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Usually within the first few days, but everyone is different.’

  I hate those sorts of answers.

  What a cop-out.

  I waited for the freaky emotional stuff to pass, but a month came and went and I was still crying over nonsense.

  As we rolled towards our first ‘baby’ Christmas, I was fully strapped in to the hormonal roller coaster. Up and down we go! One minute, laughing and dancing around the kitchen. The next, crying, tired, fed up and anxious. Oh, so anxious.

  Pre-baby, I thought ‘baby blues’ just meant a few emotional days needing more hugs. Possibly accompanied by a tiny cry, softened by the love and happiness of being a parent. But my ‘baby blues’ lasted for months.

  Apparently, months of ‘baby blues’ is normal. It’s one of the many things midwives and other mothers are too ‘kind’ to tell you before you have children. Like vaginal tearing, contractions that feel like acid being vomited into your insides, and life-long ‘little bit of wee coming out’ incontinence.

  People think it’s nicer not to say.

  Possibly there is a survival-of-the-species element here too, because if people told you the full story (you won’t have a lie-in for at least ten years; your car will always be an unhygienic nightmare; you won’t be able to leave the house without packing a load of stuff and/or shouting at people) no one would have children.

  Was my complaining and manic anxiety due to hormones or to my old life having been ripped away and replaced with pain and confusion?

  Probably both.

  Either way, I had this feeling of dread in my body quite a lot of the time during the newborn stage. A lethal cocktail of hormone changes, exhaustion and sore boobs left me feeling worried, manic and weepy morning, noon and night.

  I’d never been depressed before. I wouldn’t recommend it – it’s horrible.

  Yes, there was the occasional respite. When I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here was on and Lexi was asleep. Or Demi was forcing me to do the conga around the kitchen. But mainly, I was either anxious or overwhelmed.

  I know now that those feelings don’t last. They pass. They PASS! But when you’re in it, it doesn’t feel that way. Especially when you’re told baby blues only last a few days.

  FYI, if you’ve just had a baby and are possibly suffering a few baby blues and thinking, ‘Whoa, this shit is bringing me down, man!’ I promise I grow and transform in this book, and that life is now super-sparkly-rainbow awesome. There is a happy ending.

  I love having a family now. But in the early days . . . well, there’s a lot to deal with.

  Pre-baby, I ‘managed’ bad days by having an all-night drinking session, followed by a day feeling so ill that I could only focus on my hangover.

  I definitely couldn’t do that now.

  So I had two choices. I could learn to handle my feelings, to sit with the sadness and anxiety, to nurture myself, to understand and accept and wait patiently for this time to pass. Or I could distract myself by eating stuff, buying stuff, watching TV and squashing my feelings into an unhealthy little ball that would certainly explode later.

  I chose the latter.

  Because I couldn’t use alcohol to mentally obliterate myself, I opted for the next-best legal mood-altering substance – chocolate.

  Apparently, chocolate has some kind of natural antidepressant in it. I didn’t know that at the time. All I knew was that most commercial hot chocolates were in no way strong enough. Some hot chocolate was almost the same colour as milk, for goodness’ sake. Who let that insipid low-cocoa blend out of the door?

  Wherever I went, I demanded industrial-strength cacao. If the drink wasn’t the same colour as a 70 per cent cocoa Green & Black’s bar, I sent it back in outrage.

  At Costa, I would explain at length to the barista how I needed at least six scoops of cocoa. Yes, six. And don’t look at me that way. As I told that midwife, only god can judge.

  Starbucks was right out, since they use syrup to make their hot chocolate, which is ridiculously low in cocoa content. It was a bad day if anyone suggested Starbucks for a coffee break.

  During this cocoa frenzy, I discovered a stupidly strong hot-chocolate brand in our local supermarket. It was called something like ‘King Cacao’ and boasted warning labels about overconsumption.

  A month into my baby-blues cocoa addiction, the local supermarket stopped stocking this product, citing low demand.

  This sent me into both wild panic and blind fury.

  WHY would they stop stocking King Cacao? I was buying three tubs a week – clearly it was in demand!

  I asked to see the manager, who (frightened by my wild-eyed ranting) promised to reorder but told me this might take a few days.

  A few days! This was outrageous!

  It began to dawn on me that I may have a problem. Could chocolate be addictive? People talk about chocolate addiction, but always in a jokey way.

  ‘Ho, ho, I’m a chocoholic!’ people say if pressed about bad habits. ‘I couldn’t live without my chocolate fix!’

  But my habit didn’t seem all that funny.

  I decided I’d better do the sensible thing. No, not seek medical advice. Take an internet addiction quiz.

  The first question was: ‘Can you get through a week without your substance?’

  A week! Of course I can’t get through a week. Clearly, after my panicked reaction to that supermarket stock issue, a day without my substance was too long.

  The next question was: ‘Have you ever used drugs at higher doses than recommended or needed?’

  Quadruple-heaped-teaspoon hot chocolates with a sprinkling of cocoa on top?

  Yes.

  On to the next question: ‘Have you ever neglected your family because of drug use?’

  There was a time when I delayed changing Lexi by twenty minutes because I had to go to the supermarket to stock up on hot chocolate and semi-skimmed milk. So, technically, yes.

  ‘Has drug use ever created problems between you and your partner?’

  Definitely yes. I was forever asking Demi to go out and get hot-chocolate powder, not to mention using all the milk and leaving him without milk for his tea.

  Demi asked why I couldn’t leave just a bit of milk, a few teaspoons for his tea. But he didn’t understand – that would be a precious few teaspoons’ less hot chocolate. And I needed that hot chocolate.

  I answered a few more questions like ‘Can you stop your drug use?’ (I have no intention of finding out right now, and don’t ask me that again), and about using multiple drugs at once (yes – hot chocolate and paracetamol) and withdrawal symptoms (no idea, but if I ever stop I’ll let you know).

  I was starting to worry at this point. Maybe I should see a doctor. Get some counselling. Fortunately, the next questions made me feel better: ‘Have you ever lost a job because of drug use?’

  I don’t have a job right now, ha ha ha! I am taking time off from work to be a boring mother, crying at home over her hot chocolate. Take THAT, drug survey! No one can sack me.

  ‘Have you ever been arrested for drug use?’

  No. I bar
ely even shouted at that supermarket manager. It was not verbal abuse and no police were called.

  ‘Do you ever have flashbacks due to drug use?’

  Nope.

  Things were looking up now.

  ‘Have you ever gotten into fights when under the influence of drugs?’

  Are we counting verbal fights with Demi? When I steal the Double Decker he’s hidden in the wine rack or eat the ‘They’re for Christmas Day’ After Eights?

  Are we counting being angry at Costa baristas when they don’t follow my clearly articulated instructions and instead serve me milky, weak hot chocolate with paltry cocoa content?

  No, they must mean physical fights.

  No, then.

  By now, I was beginning to suspect the quiz wasn’t designed with chocolate addicts in mind, which further reassured me that chocolate couldn’t possibly be addictive.

  Cheered by this good news, I ordered pure cacao powder from the internet and proceeded to make my own extra-strong home blend while I waited for the local supermarket to restock my beloved King Cacao.

  Consume, consume, consume – that’s how I coped with all those anxious, sad, difficult feelings in the beginning.

  I drank shedloads of hot chocolate (as outlined), ordered baby gadgets galore and ploughed through whole tins of Christmas cookies.

  They say the first stage of grief is denial. And I was grieving. Clearly. Because I kept crying all the time.

  Home from hospital with a big pile of carbs. I’m smiling (who wouldn’t be with so much yellow food!) but crying inside.

  PART II: CHANGE OR DIE. THERE IS NO THIRD OPTION

  #12 LIE – YOUR POST-BABY BELLY GOES BACK TO NORMAL AFTER SIX WEEKS

  On Christmas Day, after the Christmas Eve From Hell mentioned at the beginning of the book, my mum and dad came to visit. I raged at them because I was sleep-deprived and fed up. Then I raged at everyone for drinking champagne at 11 a.m. I was breastfeeding and couldn’t have alcohol, after all. This was very insensitive.

  (Demi: ‘I didn’t drink anything on Christmas Day, even though there were six bottles of Guinness Original in the cupboard. I am outraged that you can’t remember this act of heroism.’)

  It was a shit Christmas Day, made even more shit by the fact that my Christmas onesie wouldn’t zip up around the middle because I was still so elaborately stretched out and saggy.

  As I wrestled with the many losses of motherhood, one of the big things to grieve was the loss of my former body.

  It wasn’t what it used to be and showed no signs of returning to normal.

  I waited patiently for the six-week marker – when my womb would, allegedly, shrink to the size of a fist and I would no longer look pregnant.

  Six weeks came and went, and I still looked noticeably with-child.

  Also, I needed special pants to hold in my weird, stretched stomach skin. I was back and forth to the doctors with mastitis, headaches, a weird lump on my knee, etc. every five minutes and I regularly napped with my mouth slightly open.

  Not only had I lost my freedom, I’d also lost the youthful body I’d once known.

  I assumed my figure would return once my C-section wound healed, but as the weeks progressed nothing much was changing. My body was not ‘snapping back’ into shape, like all those Hollywood bikini celebrities you see in glossy magazines. In fact, it hadn’t ‘snapped’ at all. No – the word was ‘sagged’.

  My entire midsection, boobs included, was now deflated like a week-old party balloon. My boobs were pretty ginormous due to breastfeeding, but they were still clearly a good inch lower now. And my stomach – it looked like a wrinkly paper bag. A full one.

  Also, the following elderly-person symptoms – things I had assumed were temporary and associated with the C-section – now seemed to be permanent:

  Irritable bowel (farting unexpectedly, to give it the non-medical term)

  Mild incontinence (weeing unexpectedly)

  Haemorrhoids (anus inside-outus, to use the Latin)

  Indigestion (chocolate and fried stuff make burny throat!)

  Varicose veins

  Rampant mole growth

  Saggy skin (and boobs)

  SLOOOWW metabolism (get fat quicky-quick!)

  Loss of physical strength, leaving me pathetically struggling to push a bed a few inches from the wall to pick up that KitKat I’d dropped down there

  Not so long ago, I’d been a healthy(ish, if you don’t count alcohol units) adult in my late twenties. Suddenly, I had rocketed into old age. I was a slow, staggering, farty, fat cow, crying and drinking hot chocolate all day long.

  An internal battle raged.

  I didn’t want to be this person. This slow, incompetent, sick person. But my body didn’t seem to be returning to normal any time soon. Wearing anything other than oversized Primark sweatshirts, leggings and jimmy jams was out of the question.

  Ugh.

  I desperately wanted me back. My former, youthful, physical body. The one that worked without all these bowel problems and that fitted regular clothing.

  Christmas Day really should have been OK. Demi cooked the dinner, which from memory was chicken (Demi – ‘Beef!’), and Mum was amazing, clearing everything up and helping get Lexi to sleep. We played some party games, which included a limbo challenge and a made-up game called ‘rolly ball’.

  It should have been fun, but I felt fat, old and fed up. I kept needing ‘little naps’ and went to bed at 9 p.m.

  This was what I had to look forward to? Early nights and no booze while everyone else enjoyed themselves?

  It turns out that, yes, that was exactly what I had to look forward to. But back then I didn’t believe I’d learn to love it.

  #13 LIE – NEWBORNS SLEEP ALL THE TIME

  ‘How are you sleeping?’

  People always ask new parents this, usually with sad, sympathetic eyes that say, ‘I feel your pain.’

  After Christmas and a very unremarkable ‘Let’s go to bed at 10 p.m.’ New Year, Demi and I still weren’t sleeping well. Lexi was nearing the magical milestone of three months – an age we’d been told was synonymous with ‘sleeping through the night’.

  However, this wasn’t even close to happening. I was lucky if I grabbed three hours of uninterrupted sleep, and once I’d been woken up I found it very hard to drop back off again.

  Lack of sleep sometimes brought on hallucinations, which weren’t fun. Except for the evening I saw little toy racing cars driving around the toilet seat. That actually was quite fun.

  As the New Year began, I decided to have one last crack at ‘baby sleep training’.

  New Year, new start and all of that.

  If other people had done sleep training, surely I could too. Surely.

  Just as soon as I stopped crying.

  One cold, January morning, I took yet another look at the baby sleep-training schedule, still handily taped behind the baby’s wardrobe door.

  ‘It’s 7 a.m. now,’ I told Demi. ‘Lexi’s just fed. No matter what happens, we can’t feed her again until 11 a.m.’

  Half an hour later, Lexi cried again. A lot. Clearly she was desperately hungry. Possibly skirting malnutrition.

  I skimmed through the baby sleep-training books, but there were no instructions on what to do if a baby seemed hungry at non-scheduled feeding times.

  I decided to feed Lexi, just in case, and hope she’d go a bit longer next time.

  Half an hour later, Lexi cried again. A lot. Soon it became screaming. She must still be hungry. Maybe she didn’t get enough out last time.

  I fed her again. Then Lexi fell asleep for six hours.

  ‘Should we wake her up?’ I asked Demi four hours in. ‘The schedule says she’s due another feed right now.’

  We whispered Lexi’s name in an effort to rouse her, but she wasn’t having any of it.

  ‘What should we do?’ I asked Demi. ‘How do you wake babies? Sing them Metallica songs? Dunk them in cold water?’

  But t
hese things seemed cruel.

  All the sleep-training books were extremely vague about how to wake babies. The only suggestion I read was a fairly useless: ‘Wake baby if asleep.’

  So what now?

  ‘We need someone who understands babies,’ said Demi. ‘I’ll call the local midwife and see what she advises.’

  Ten minutes later, Demi returned with bad news.

  ‘The midwife says we shouldn’t do a schedule,’ he said. ‘We should let the baby lead the way and feed when she wants to feed. It’s called “on-demand” feeding and the midwife says it’s the best, most natural way. She says babies naturally start sleeping through the night at three months. We should just wait.’

  ‘But what about my sore boobs?’ I said. ‘And my anxiety? And my lack of sleep? And those teeny-tiny racing cars I saw rushing around the toilet seat last night?’

  ‘She said you’ll just have to get used to it.’

  After a little cry, I tried to accept my fate: carry on feeding Lexi whenever she wants to be fed; ignore the schedule idea; go slowly mad through lack of sleep.

  Could boobs fall off through painful overuse? Could that happen? I assumed not, but who really knew?

  ‘The midwife recommended a good book about on-demand feeding,’ Demi continued. ‘It’s called something like Breastfeeding is Magic and You Should Do It All Day Long.’

  ‘I hate that title.’

  ‘Shall I get us a copy?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  Demi borrowed a copy of Breastfeeding is Magic and You Should Do It All Day Long from the library, and I scoured its pages for survival tips and practical advice. There were none – only anecdotal stories from mothers who’d breastfed for years and loved it.

  The book celebrated the magical properties of breast milk and the fact you can calm your baby instantly by shoving a boob in its mouth.