Mytherhood

There are a lot of myths surrounding motherhood. Women have babies and some of them are wont to say things like, "It changed my life." Well, it changed mine, too. "It fulfilled me," or "Having a baby made me realise what my purpose was". Or "having a child finally defined me as a woman." Or some such statements that must fall somewhere along the line between 'bewildering' and 'hurtful' for anyone who has not had a child.


I can't really relate to any of those. I was perfectly fulfilled pre-baby, thankyouverymuch. I had lots of purpose and I didn't need a baby to become a woman. I was nearly 38 when my first was born and I'd certainly enjoyed my life up till then. I'm just not the type of woman who describes herself as A Mother, as in:
Gingerbread Lady - who are you?
Why, thank you for asking. I'm the Gingerbread Lady. I'm a Mother, a crafter, a teacher, a learner and a ... oh, goodness, I've already run out of inspirational titles.

My son was born with A Personality (jazz hands). He came into this world as his own person. He joined our family and it felt like we had suddenly got a new flatmate, a third person in our house, a little tyrant that dictated how everything should be and made his feelings known when he was displeased. He was not a passive little being upon which we could project our hopes and aspirations. John was John from the minute he was born and I am his mother. I love being his mother but have no great desire to be A Mother in general: vast swathes of motherhood are quite horrific and I really cannot recommend them. Do I exaggerate? Maybe, but when you're in it, a little exaggeration is allowed.

See, it takes a village to raise a child and, for the most part, our village has been my husband and I. We don't have family close enough to call up to come over to take the baby for an hour, and all of our friends work. It has just been us, often it has just been me. And it has been hard - relentless, in many cases. One night, crying, I handed my husband the baby that had been howling without a break for the previous three hours and said, "It's like some cruel form of punishment." I meant it: with too little sleep and too little relief, I felt like the infant was just draining me of my last dregs of energy.

But here's the very weird thing about motherhood - as opposed to Mytherhood, where everything is always sunny and women gush about how they never knew the reason for their lady bits until they popped a baba - certain amounts of it are utterly joyful and they make the rest of it bearable. Sometimes this joy is wrapped up in physical pain, like when you are woken from deep sleep by getting your eye socket battered with a plastic fish - you wake up to the sight of a smiley, gappy-toothed face shouting "Mumma! Mumma!" And there is nothing I have been prouder of in my adult life than seeing my son take his first steps. I doubt I would've been that proud if I had taken them myself. He falls asleep holding my finger but when he falls asleep, I actually hold his heart.

Despite the fact that it's been tough, tough, tough, I would do it again in an instant.

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Which is how I feel now, three months after finding out that I was unexpectedly pregnant again. My first reaction - and feel free to hate me if you're struggling with fertility issues, I'd probably hate me, too - was to cry. And cry. And cry. A full day of crying and wondering how on earth I was going to cope with two children under two. How were we going to manage financially? With our jobs? How was I going be able to care for two babies when I had often felt exhausted and drained from minding just one?

Then we did what you have to do  - what we did when John had bronchitis and we spent every night for two weeks walking him up and down the living room so he could get some sleep - we just darned well got on with it. We adjusted to it, we rearranged ourselves around it and we accepted it. And soon enough, we were cautiously happy about it.

So was I Destined To Be A Mother, as the Mytherhood would leave me to believe? I don't think so, but I was clearly destined to be the mother of my children, because they came to us when we didn't even realise we were missing them. Maybe that's my mytherhood.
Who knows?