Mother's Day is coming. Thoughts on motherhood.

If asked what it means to me to be a mum, I would reply that it is a difficult question to really answer.  If I were asked in passing by a stranger I would probably, skip the complexities and just say, “Amazing,” because the nitty gritty is just too…gritty.  That’s not to say that being a mum is not “Amazing”.  Sometimes I look at my two young boys and almost bubble over with ebullience.  I could have tried in vain to get my toddler to go back to sleep between the hours of three and five in the morning, but upon hearing the gurgling and giggling of my five month old in his cot at six o’clock, my tiredness and grumpiness quite literally (well, metaphorically) melts.  

In a nutshell, being a mum is hard work, but there’s always a pay-off.  

Having children with the love of my life was a goal, no, an expectation when I married eight years ago, but when it proved hard to conceive, I felt my already imagined future slip away.  Month after month would pass and we did not see the faint pink line appear on a test.  More and more of my friends were announcing pregnancy with blushing cheeks and glowing happiness and it was hard not to feel the bitter disappointment of my own failure to bloom.  

Like many before us, we went to the doctor to get advice and we began on the treadmill of fertility tests, culminating in my husband facing clinical, embarrassing assessments at the hospital one day while I was at work.  It was an experience he wasn’t so eager to share with me, but he went through with it because he, as I did, wanted to fix what was not right. 

We eagerly, but with trepidation, awaited the results.   We waited.  Waited.  The waiting made me feel nauseous, made me feel sore, bloated… When we saw the Dr initially, she told us to go out and buy a Two-seater Sports car.  With a vehicle too tiny to take someone too tiny, surely fate would lend us a hand.  The fertility tests proved to be our Sports car.  We were pregnant and we were so excited, happy, scared, so grateful for the opportunity to start a family together.  I do not forget how it felt to imagine that I would not have a child of my own, the utter frustration of it, but juxtaposed in my memory, the delight was all-encompassing. 

Despite twelve weeks of vomiting, I still faced the porcelain bowl with a sense of accomplishment.  If I felt so bad, surely this was good.  I really did blossom and by five months, I was proud of my round tummy and never tired of the kicks which grew in power and agility.  I remember the first time we saw him on a scan, when we first heard his heartbeat, when shamefully, after X-Factor in October 2009, my waters ruptured one week after my due date and we rushed into the hospital.  Rory was born the following morning, the birth being a blur in my memory because the “pay-off” was so profoundly life-changing. 

 Like so many new parents, we felt like such novices: conspicuous in our ineptitude.  We had to ask a nurse how to take his clothes off to change a nappy.  He just seemed so tiny, so terrifyingly dependent.  Six weeks of sleeplessness ensued, followed by the pay-off: he learned to smile.  He engaged with us, recognised us, began to play, to roll over, to eat solid food, to sit up, to stand, to walk, to talk, to literally monologue every thought and emotion from the moment he got up in the morning to the moment he went to sleep at night.  

He learned to assert himself, to demand things his way, to scream in public, to show incredible affection, to surprise us every day with his growing vocabulary and ability to piece together jigsaws for five year olds.  (He’s only now two and a half) On the one hand, he is a handful, but on the other hand, he is “Amazing.”  He can say, “Please,” “Thankyou” and “I love you so much, Mummy.”  The pay-off for the hard work.  

How do I feel about being a mum?  Well, we were lucky enough to be blessed with another little boy just after Rory’s second birthday and we’re enjoying watching him go through the same incredibly fast journey through baby-hood.  Parenthood is hard, tiring, it takes every last scrap of your energy, but it’s also addictive.  Perhaps, in the not-too-distant-future, I’ll be writing about baby number three.