Just over a month ago I gave birth to Felix Jagger Neville-Kowalewski. Today
as he sleeps peacefully in his little basket I can hardly imagine life without
him. For this is what parenthood is like; before they come you can't imagine
life with a baby, once they arrive it is impossible to conceive of life
without. A child is a marker in time, like a stick thrown in the stream it
shows the ebb and flow of the current.
Yesterday as we walked in the glorious October sunshine I came to a realization;
I am in the late summer of my life. Spring was my infant and early childhood.
Summer was my teenage years and twenties. Now I am entering the third season, yet I still bask in the golden glow of summer. My days are still long and
often warm. My colours are still bright and late flowers still bloom, but I
have produced fruit. A rose hip to my rose. I am no longer a single entity,
selfish and wrapped up in my own desires and needs because I have a precious
tiny fruit into which I pour my energy and adoration. Who basks in the warmth
of my love and who is utterly, terrifyingly dependant on me for every need. A
being I am still learning to understand, who with each passing day steals a
little more of my heart.
As the seasons continue their gradual metamorphosis and the time arrives to
set store for the coming cold months, I sit and nurture my little acorn in my
loving arms, hoping that he will grow into a proud bright sapling and on into a
good and noble man with arms as strong and wide as branches, a heart as true as
oak and a spirit deeply rooted in the goodness of the earth. It is for this
that I gladly make the sacrifices of motherhood, in the hope that all these and
many other dreams will be fulfilled.
So I welcome my September and will not mourn the passing of summer as I
stand poised to enter a more reflective, knowing season, a season of mellowness
and of harvest. As the beech trees glow golden in the autumnal sunshine I look
down upon my baby son and see in his face all the freshness of springtime and
all the sweet promise of April. This is what parenthood gives you; a true sense
of the continuity of life. A sense of connection to your own childhood and also
to your own mortality, and as a woman a new reverence for your body, the vessel
that miraculously produced this tiny perfect person. This sweet fruit. My
lovely little rose hip, how I love you so.
A package came today. When the postman
rang I rushed to the window. 'Top Flat?' I called out. 'Yes love' he replied
'Shall I leave it on the doorstep?' Still dressed in pyjamas I hurried downstairs and ripped open the
plastic.
Yellow Wellies! This was my
treat to myself - a welcome to motherhood essential - and I was as excited as a child. I pulled them on and pranced round
the flat. Perfect. Muddy parks and puddles here I come.
Yellow. The colour of sunshine, of fishermen's waterproofs, of the cheese moon of childhood. An obvious colour
choice I thought for an item that suddenly seemed to represent a rubber
umbilical cord connecting me from my own childhood to my new status as a mother. And
just like the red shoes that made you dance as I slipped on my new wellies I
felt myself becoming more of a mummy. I have rubber boot therefore I am.
And so this blog was born...an online
journal of my journey into the heart of modern motherhood.
My resolutions are thus: I will pull no punches, I
will take no prisoners, I will seek to lay bare the myths and booby
traps as I find them. I will report honestly on the agony of childbirth and
I will not sugar coat my experience. On the other hand I hope to communicate
the joy and wonder of being a new mother. The inexpressible beauty of your
newborn child. The unbelievable softness of their skin and downy hair. The
melting sweetness of their sleepy body. The miracle of breast feeding, of
holding your infant to you and feeding them from something that previously
has been merely ornamental. And yet the panic that their frenzied cry evokes.
The terrifying fury that rages in their tiny body when you are
still too new to each other to know if it is hunger or pain or sheer
frustration.
I never thought 2013 would turn out the
way it has. I have experienced crushing lows and professional humiliation, all the worse for being completely unexpected. Losing my new job in the same week as discovering I was pregnant was a true test of mettle, and for some time I felt buried alive. I felt my established identity; gallerist, gymnast, happy-go-lucky girl ebb away, replaced by a thousand question marks. A birthday slid past like stray dog, unwanted and unloved, and during the darkest time of the year I felt myself slipping into a depression. My overriding feeling towards being pregnant was at best ambivalence, at worst unalloyed panic. I announced it reluctantly and to very few. I felt nothing; a black hole had opened up in my life and sucked me inside. The foetus sapped what energy I had and left me drained and deflated. And then, at last, green shoots began to appear on bare branches. The smell of spring, that unmistakable, irrepressible scent of sap rising and grass growing wafted into my lungs, and I breathed deep of life. As the days lengthened and the sun showed its great golden face I became focused on my slowly rounding belly. Piece by piece I slotted my life back together, and as spring morphed into summer and the baby grew inside me I rediscovered my zest for for life. I was whole again.
Nine months and many moons later, I find myself giving 'full time mother' as my occupation when we go
to register the birth, and I am startled by the pride I feel. Full time mother.
Me! ‘An ordinary devoted mother’ to quote Donald Winnicott, and I am
unutterably proud to call myself one.
