Motherhood and ME: A Beautiful Trauma
Ahhh, memories. This pic (below) always fills my heart with pride and joy; I mean, look at that face … SO gorgeous!
However, this memory is also a painful reminder of how I missed O rolling onto his front when he first started doing it – and of all the other things I missed out on when O was a baby. Just a few examples:
– Ante-natal classes
– Shopping for baby necessities (eg, cot, pram, clothes)
– Mummy and baby classes
– Play dates
– Showing O the world outside our house
– Doing stuff together as a family
Excitement and sadness
We were SO happy when we found out I was pregnant; O was very much wanted. The only problem was … my ME/POTS was Severe and I was housebound.
I was excited, but at the same time – I mourned the kind of mum I’d wanted to be. I always thought I’d be one of those fitness freak mums you see in the park, going for a run whilst pushing a buggy, before doing a load of squats with my baby strapped to my chest.
As it is, I couldn’t even run a bath, let alone run around a park. I couldn’t live independently and Pete wasn’t just my partner anymore – he was also my carer.
I was unable to do much for myself back then, and I was tortured by thoughts of Pete playing the role of a single parent due to my failing health.
Guilt and failure
When O was born, my first proper feelings of guilt and failure started with breastfeeding. I really wanted to breastfeed because I felt like, if I couldn’t do that, then I was surplus to requirements; I was bedridden and this was the only thing I could do for my baby that Pete couldn’t. I felt like O wouldn’t need me at all if he was formula fed.
To say that I was very unwell during my two-week stint as a breastfeeding mum is a HUGE understatement. It’s the only time with Severe ME where I genuinely worried I might die if I carried on. Plus, it was all for nothing; my body wasn’t producing enough milk for O anyway, and he was losing weight on my feeble offerings. I knew swapping to formula was the right thing to do for both of our sakes, and I will always do whatever it takes to keep my baby safe and healthy. But still, I cried.
… A lot.
Thankfully, O thrived after the swap – and my health picked up enough to finally move from my bed to the sofa in the afternoons.
Not only that, but I was SO relieved to realise … O didn’t give a flying fuck where his milk came from; my baby still needed his Mummy.
Missing out
During O’s first 18 months of life, my feelings of inadequacy and guilt were reinforced when I missed out on various experiences and milestones – like rolling over for the first time (and the second and third).
Pete did his best to include me as much as possible; he would video call and send photos of him and O out at the park having fun, or grocery shopping. The real crusher was when he took O on a road trip to see family, and took him to the beach for the very first time. There’s a video of O’s first dip in the sea, and it still breaks my heart to watch it. Not because I wasn’t happy for him or anything … but because I so desperately wanted to be there.
Scream if you wanna go faster
I had an electric wheelchair for the rare occasions I could leave the house. And, if I felt able to join Pete and O for a quick trip to the park, O would sit on my lap and I’d give him control of the joystick.
… Because, ya know – it’s okay to put babies in charge of moving vehicles, right?
Fair to say, steering my wheelchair certainly put the ‘joy’ in joystick, as far as O was concerned. It made me so happy to see O’s belly-laughing face … even if we were spinning in circles and I’d need to recover in bed for the rest of the day (possibly weeks) after we got home.
I also had a stairlift during this time, and O would happily sit on my lap for a ‘ride’ as I moved from bed to sofa and vice versa.
Nowadays, I like to tell O that my stairlift was the first fairground ride he ever went on. Because, nothing screams ‘Fun Mum’ like a ride on Mummy’s stairlift. Roll up, roll up – it’s the world’s slowest (and straightest) rollercoaster. Woohoo!! Scream if you wanna go faster!!
… I mean, you definitely won’t go faster. But fuck it, let’s scream anyway.
The blessing of time
Despite all that I missed out on with O … I was blessed with the most precious thing a mother could possibly wish for: an abundance of time.
Well, that … and a very supportive partner who did all the night feeds so I was well enough to take the day shifts.
I literally had ALL day to cuddle my baby and gaze adoringly into his beautiful eyes while Pete was at work. All day to watch him sleep, play with him (energy permitting), feed him and watch him grow. Physically, I couldn’t do much; housework and meal prep was certainly out of the question. But what I could do in spades was – BE THERE for O.
Perspective: it’s a choice
I like to think that, since I didn’t get any choice about getting so sick – I DO at least, get to choose my perspective on how life with O was back then. Which is why I choose one of gratitude.
I have such happy memories of lazy pyjama days just gazing at O in my arms, despite being very close to pissing myself because I couldn’t bear to put him down and miss a single second of his awesomeness while I went for a wee. To this day, I now have bladder muscles of steel. (Well, unless O wants me to join him on the trampoline – at which point I piss myself faster than an overexcited puppy.)
I got to lay in bed and rest, while he slept next to me. I got to watch his little face crinkle and smile and make weird noises as he dreamed (and farted. Though, on reflection, that could have been me).
Life was so bloody hard back then because of my health, yet it was just so bloody joyous as well. O gave me so many reasons to smile through the darkness. To this day, O is such a ‘glass half full’ kind of boy. If we get stuck at traffic lights but we’re at the front of the queue, he always says, ‘yes but Mummy that means we’ll be the first to go when it turns green!’
Maybe that’s where I get all my gratitude from. I learned from the best. He also has so much love and compassion in his heart, and the BEST sense of humour. I’m a very proud Mama.
And now
And now, eight years on … my ME is thankfully Mild. I mean, it’s still no picnic at the Mild end of the spectrum. Well, not unless the hamper is full of shit sandwiches, and you happen to like shit sandwiches. But it’s definitely a lot better than it used to be.
I take nothing for granted and know how truly lucky I am to FINALLY have the opportunity to be the kind of mum I want to be. Or at least, when my health allows. We laugh a lot. And we get to go places and do things in the outside world now, just the two of us – and as a family unit.
When I was pregnant and my ME was Severe, someone once said to me: you never know, five years from now, you might be doing better. And you’ll be able to look back at this time and say, ‘I can’t believe we got through that.’
I held onto those words for all those years because I wanted SO badly for them to be true.
… and now, they are. ❤️
