New Mama,
Go easy on yourself.
Because it can be hard.
What you are doing is hard.
But you don’t have to be hard on yourself.
Be gentle.
Please be gentle.
Being a Mum is doing all the things no one really sees. The bits behind the scenes, the ground work, the tiring work.
I’m still in postpartum clothes, stained and stretched.
⠀
I’m still wearing my hair whichever way is easiest, messy and practical.
⠀
I’m still healing post birth, undoings forever hidden under the doings.
Read MoreSome of my most darkest moments come from a place of the most love.
From loving them so hard, with all of me, all the time.
Because they have all of me, all of the time.
And it gives me more than I could have ever wished for.
Read MoreThey don’t get a perfect mum.
They get a mum who can’t find the second sock.
The mum who wears her hair up and lop-sided always.
The mum who leaves the washed clothes in the washing machine for too long, and the cake in the oven for not long enough.
Read MoreMama,
It’s ok if you feel like you have no idea what you are doing.
None of us do most of the time, truly.
It’s been 9 months Mama,
And finally we are now here.
Together, skin to skin,
The comfort of your heart beat still so near.
Read MoreI love them,
But I’m tired.
I’m always so tired.
I’m tired from little sleep, so many emotions, the constantness of it all.
When will it end?
But please don’t,
Because everything else that comes with it might end too.
Because this is such a wholesome chapter.
I’m so empty but full.
Miscarriage is still taboo.
It shouldn’t be. But it is.
I’ve experienced one, which means I am one in four.
Which means I make up a quarter, and a quarter is a reasonable portion of a whole.
Which means it’s common.
Which means it’s a whole lot more than one.
Yet the three remaining get more discussion, more time, and more acknowledgement than the one.
Read MoreTo the mothers I judged before I became a mum,
I’m sorry.
I thought I knew.
But how little did I know.
Darling child,
I may not always be right here,
In the way I am now.
Skin to skin, breath to breath, heart to heart.
In the days, nights and everything in between.
Read More“You’re not the best sleeper”.
This is what I tell them.
⠀
“We are up every few hours, sometimes more”.
This is what I also tell them.
Read MoreI miss her some days.
The old Her.
The her of long conversations, heels, and hot coffee.
The her who came before the Her now.
The her before them.
Read MoreToddler Mama,
⠀
It can all seem so hard some days.
⠀
So easily you can feel so out of your depth.
So defeated.
So helpless.
Read More“I’ll just do this one more thing”.
These are the words I internalise every time I get a moment of not being needed, no matter for how long or short.
Normally during nap time, moments of peaceful play or when they are plonked in front of Peppa.
Just this one more dish in the dish washer.
Just this one more load of washing hung on the line.
Just this one more room to vacuum.
Read MoreAfter a really hard day, these are some of the things I wrote down:
⠀
“Today was so hard.
I felt like nothing went right.
I didn’t get anything finished.
No one listened.
I got frustrated easily.
Read MoreThis is what my husband saw moments after I gave birth to our second child.
His wife exhausted, overwhelmed with every emotion possible.
Read MoreWeekends mean a lot to me.
They really do.
Because sometimes it feels like I can’t get the most out of my family, or them out of me during the chaos of the normal weekday grind.
And I want to.
Read MorePre- children her stomach was the least favourite part of her body. She thought her belly button was always too big and the scars from her teen piercing unflattering.
Read MoreRight now they are a huge part of my identity.
I’m lost in them, in every part of them.
They course through my pulse.
They are my pulse.
They are my reason.
And so often I talk of wanting space, to do things without all the extras that are currently required, to have the weight of only myself to carry.
Read More