Confessions of a First-Time Mum

by Poppy Dolan

  ‘First-Time Mum’s Facebook post has been shared over 33,000 times in just seventy-two hours,’ the piece states. And that is true. Mental, but true. My Facebook and Twitter followers have ballooned to such a level that it leaves me a bit breathless with the pressure. How can I post something when all these people will be waiting to love or hate or laugh or deride what I’m saying?! What could I ever write that would keep everyone happy? A few times I’ve started a draft of some idle mum-life observation and then deleted it instantly. The desperate toppings I’ve scrounged from the larder for my frozen jacket potato lunch (anchovy and sweetcorn, anyone?); the things Cherry prefers to her expensive wooden toys (empty cereal packets, labels on pillows, an orphaned Tupperware lid); none of this seems worthy or right or fitting. But neither do I want to start another debate on family models or parenting.

  It’s no surprise that this article has prompted just the kind of reaction from its readers it intended; they are spitting their tea out over their armrest covers all over the Home Counties, I should expect. Getting in a froth that if First-Time Mum had her way, all mums would be on benefits, or gay, or converting to Islam in a KFC while their kids drink Coke and shovel chips in their overweight mouths. But I really wasn’t telling every mum to ditch their OH and do it alone, regardless. I was just saying that my OH had started to feel like someone else, someone I didn’t know and, maybe, just maybe, that was not the best thing. Perhaps it should have been a conversation I poured out to Will and Nelle or even saved for Sarah coming the weekend after next.

  But it’s out there now. And it’s growing like unstoppable green slime in a horror movie; sliding down the street and absorbing every man, woman and child in its path. So I’m choosing to close the curtains and pretend it’s not there until it’s slithered right past and straight into the stream at the bottom of the hill, where it can get washed away with all the traffic cones and duck poo. Good riddance.

  Cherry nodded off post-afternoon-feed on my lap about twenty minutes ago and now her eyes gently flick open. I give her my best ‘Everything is Fine and Mummy is Not a Social Media Pariah’ smile. And she gives a sort of gassy half-smile back. My sweet little pudding. My gorgeous chubby delight. The rest of the world can fade away, they can all say what they like, but this girl knows the real me – the one that will always come running when she calls, the one that would fight a wild dog in the park to keep her safe (a scenario I have imagined in great detail, just to be ready). I am her mum: that is my number one job. How could you not feel fiercely loyal and stupidly besotted with such a peachy face?

  I don’t even really mind when the sick hits my leggings.

  But a day later, at 6.45am, I do mind the sick. Because it’s not just the normal bit of regurgitated milk feed from her reflux – it’s everything coming up. Yesterday’s lunch, yesterday’s breakfast, some bits of banana. All her milk. And I couldn’t give a Makka Pakka that I’m plastered with it and I now stink to the high heavens; the thing I care about is the floppy little baby in my arms.

  OK, Cherry is sick pretty much every day but it’s a few tablespoons of curdled milk. This is exorcist sick. This is stomach flu sick. And I’ve definitely not seen her so listless or red hot before. I feel sweat prickle at my own forehead. Is she OK? Will she be OK?! This has gone on for a full evening and a night now. She’s hardly kept any kind of liquids down and turns her face away when I try and feed her. It was a long, scary night where Cherry passed into an uncharacteristic deep sleep and I paced the bedroom in my now very smelly dressing gown.

  This is when having a mum in another time zone and a husband halfway round the world really sucks and sends you into an extra panicky spin. What should I do? Shall I try feeding her again to stop her getting dehydrated? Or will that start off more vomiting and just make things worse? I could do cooled boiled water again. Yes. Yes. I’ll do that.

  As I rush back and forth between the kitchen and the living room, keeping an eye on the steriliser and kettle and then also Cherry sitting upright but listless in her bouncing chair and surrounded by the oil cloth, having a purpose does nothing to shut up the screaming voice in my head.

  What are you doing? Shouldn’t you know how to fix this? You are her mother! You ARE her mother, right? Why don’t you just innately know the solution? Do you call the GP or is that hysterical? She could be better in an hour’s time and then your reputation would be torn of its last shred of sensibility at the clinic. You could call 111 but what if they decide it’s really bad and take her away in an ambulance and then you can’t park at the hospital and something’s happening to her inside and…

  The rumble of the kettle drowns out my crazy.

  I pour water into a freshly sterilised bottle and will it with my whole being to Please Cool Down. Now. But the seconds drag out.

  Settling myself down next to Cherry, I try my whole clownish act to perk her up: ‘Five Little Ducks’, monkey faces, blowing a raspberry into the crook of my elbow. She just blinks really slowly at me, as if she’s starting to forget who I am. There’s hardly any colour in her cheeks and when I touch her head it still feels boiling to my fingers.

  Fuck it. Even if they send an ambulance and take her into care it’ll be worth it, knowing she’s being made better.

  I snatch up my phone and dial 111.

  The call handler is so helpful. He calmly, slowly (and yes, maybe robotically but it gets the job done) takes me through a series of questions about Cherry’s last few days, her overall health, any allergies. He also prompts me to take her temperature properly and I feel like a right numpty for forgetting I have a baby thermometer in the bathroom cabinet – bought in my smug pregnancy days of ticking everything off a to-do list. She is at forty degrees – a few degrees into feverish, but he gently says he is going to arrange a GP appointment for me for the minute the surgery opens at 7.30am as with under-ones it doesn’t hurt to check these things out.

  You should have called the GP yesterday! You should have known that, if you were a natural mother!

  I realise after hanging up that I didn’t even ask the handler his name, so I could thank him properly. OK, no one can fully shut up my inner critic when the chips are down but he helped me out of a full-on flounder, and now Cherry will get some bloody lovely NHS attention. That 111 guy is a hero. I will always love him and his soft Liverpudlian accent.

  So I have about half an hour left to get us ready for the GP appointment, and I set about digging out Cherry’s red baby book and three changes of clothing, all the while running up and down the stairs to reassure her, ‘Mummy’s here and you’re going to be fine and the doctor will be lovely and we’ll be fine!’ in an adrenaline-fuelled sing-song voice. I shove a change of top and toothbrush into the change bag, just in case we are rushed off to A&E and I have to stay away for a night by Cherry’s bed. I mean, we won’t, we’ll BE FINE. But also, if we’re not fine and everything is terrible I’ll be prepared. I’m not going to take a shower and sort out my greasy hair with tinges of sick – Cherry might be ill again and I can’t risk her choking on it. And I’m sure the GP will not judge me for my Guinness nightshirt and grey joggers in the midst of an actual emergency. Not that it is an emergency – it’s FINE.

  My phone is clutched in my sweaty palm. I should message Ted. Or should I? If it’s a storm in a teacup, I will have seriously worried him all the way out in Hong Kong. And even though I may not be his greatest fan right now, I wouldn’t wish this kind of anxiety on anyone, ever. For his failings, I know he loves Cherry just as fiercely as me and thinking she’s ill will make him want to drop everything and swim home. That mad, parental urge to protect is something we’re both on the same page about. I can feel my nervous heart beat in my mouth, in my gums. But if it is more serious… and I haven’t told him… he would never forgive me. I would never forgive me. I decide to wait until after we’ve seen the GP and I have more information. That’s sensible. That’s rational.

  But I do text Nelle: ‘Cherry poorly. Won’t make the keepsak
e event tomorrow. Soz, love xxx’

  And now it’s time to go. I think I’m too shaky to drive, what with worrying and not sleeping at all last night. A brisk walk in the early morning breeze will do us good. In the hallway, I get Cherry gently clicked into her pram harness, the change bag and four different muslins packed away in the space underneath her seat.

  ‘Time to get you better, pickle,’ I coo with false confidence. ‘Time for it all to feel better, you wait and see. Mummy’s here.’

  When I open my front door, something flashes in front of me like a blast of quick, sharp lightning. And the musty smell of cigarette smoke hits me.

  ‘Stevie! Stevie! Is it true you’re First-Time Mum?’

  Two men stand on my doorstep, well within my personal space and one is snapping pictures on a huge camera. My first instinct is to leap back inside and slam the door: but I need to get to that doctor. I need to get Cherry better. So, in blind panic, I push the pram between them, narrowly missing the photographer’s ankles.

  ‘Stevie,’ the other man continues to bark unnecessarily loudly, considering he’s chasing me down the path two feet behind me, ‘how do you think your readers would feel if they found out you were a kept woman, a wealthy housewife, but you’re telling them to go it alone? Yeah?’

  More flashes and Cherry starts to grizzle. I pull the pram hood right down so the bright light can’t bother her and – it just dawns on me – they won’t get a picture of her face. Whoever ‘they’ are, these aggressive morons.

  My mouth goes dry as my brain foggily computes that they know who I am, who First-Time Mum really is. And where we live! Holy shit.

  I must get to the GP now. This – whatever this is – can wait. It has to wait. It’s about Cherry. It’s always been about Cherry for me.

  The photographer guy leaps in front of me, obviously trying to slow me down to get a better pic. But I will not have it.

  I fling my hand, palm up, in front of the lens and snarl at them both, ‘Get the fuck out of my way. My kid is sick. I have nothing to say to you. FUCK OFF!’ I end with a yell. Both the men step away, out of my path. But they’re smirking.

  A few front doors open as I speed-walk away. I don’t care. I don’t care about any of it: Facebook Likes or neighbourhood disapproval or angry online commentators or book deals. Nothing matters right now but my girl.

  Chapter 16

  From: Sarah

  To: Stevie

  Hun, are you OK? I just saw something online – that’s you, isn’t it? Look, I’m here if you need me. Whenever. Just say and I’ll be there. Obvs still want to see you for our lunch? xxx

  From: Mum

  To: Stevie

  WHAT ON EARTH IS GOING ON?! Jeanie from our old street just sent me a link to this FailingMum thing?! Stevie?!

  My hands are cold and numb as I lay the phone face-down on Will’s kitchen table. Let one of the oilcloth mallards hold it for a while. I have no idea what to reply to anyone. I have no idea how they can write newspaper articles so quickly, either.

  After I was promptly and kindly seen by the GP in twenty minutes, who told me Cherry had no other symptoms to cause real worry – no rash, no altered breathing – and it was a virus that I should keep treating with liquids and baby liquid paracetamol, I was left outside the double doors, my head spinning and no idea where to go. Those guys might still be there, at my door. With more shouted questions and long lenses. Did I open the curtains this morning? They might be papping my overflowing bin and leaning towers of cereal bowls by now. But I couldn’t just shuffle about the streets with my sick baby – she needed to be somewhere clean and comforting, where I could change her nappy and her clothes the minute I needed to, even plunge her in a lovely bath if the sick got really bad again.

  With no clue beyond the next fifteen minutes, I thought I might as well walk slowly to the pharmacy and pick up more supplies – wipes, Dettol, Calpol. The GP advised alternating Calpol and baby ibuprofen every few hours, to really get her temperature under control. That was one thing I could at least take charge of and achieve, if nothing else.

  But after stepping out of the shop with two bulging plastic bags on my pram handles, I felt the dizzying spin of loneliness. I couldn’t go home, not for sure. I felt too scared to call Ted, and it was probably 2am over there. And then I’d have to admit to this whole sorry mess of my own making, and how I’d been concealing it from him.

  My eyes swam with tears as I looked up and down the high street, desperate for some open door, some beacon of sanctuary. Could I sit in the cafe and hope – just hope – Cherry would be OK and not catch something off a badly washed spoon while her immunity is low. The library?! Maybe not. If only it was the right day for a weigh-in. At least the health visitors could tell me what to do with my life.

  But as I waited for the green man at the crossing, my watery eyes fell on a big tarpaulin sign strung up against some railings opposite – the Montessori would be having an open day soon.

  I hadn’t completely lost my mind: I wasn’t going to take a Cherry full of sickness bug to a room full of toddlers – like a crazy terrorist with a deadly virus hidden up their sleeve in a deodorant can. But thinking of the Montessori – the twins were there. So Will wasn’t with them. So if I was with Will, I wouldn’t be cross-infecting any other kids.

  I unlocked and hit the Contacts option on my phone. Please be in, Will. Please.

  * * *

  Three hours later, I am on my fourth cup of coffee in Will’s kitchen and he’s walking around with a pink Cherry high up on his shoulder, singing softly in her ear about The Grand Old Duke of York. She fell asleep an hour ago but I think he’s enjoying the cuddle with a girl who can’t yet run away or give a smart answer. And it’s a good displacement activity while the updates come in.

  When I turned up at his door, looking like an unwashed extra from Les Misérables, he ushered me in and listened to the whole sorry tale of the puking and the papping. He was quick to reassure me it was probably nothing, that it was a flash in the pan. ‘And anyway,’ he said calmly, ‘I have a Google Alert set up for First-Time Mum – have done since you first confessed it was you, because I didn’t want to miss a thing. So if something should pop up over the next day or two, we’ll know about it. It’ll do you good to have some time apart from your devices, maybe?’

  He was right. I felt myself sink into his luxurious brown leather sofa, my limbs instantly going loose and heavy. It was probably nothing. Who’s going to be bothered about one little blog post? Who cares? Tomorrow a soap star will say something ill-advised on Loose Women and the news cycle will get its new fix. They probably didn’t get any good pictures. And I didn’t say anything they could quote. It’s nothing. I’m just over-reacting because of the worry about Chezza. And now I know it’s just a common or garden (though horrific to go through) vomiting bug that we have to wait out, I can grab hold of my marbles again.

  As I closed his front door, Will gently lifted Cherry out of her pram for me. He draped a big muslin expertly over his back and took her through to the kitchen. ‘I’ll get the kettle on,’ he said reassuringly.

  I did need a break from my phone. From blabbing out confessional blog posts and then obsessing over the outcome. From typing thousands of words with just my thumbs in the dead of night. From wondering when my husband would call me. I buried it deep inside the change bag, under a Tupperware box of raisins that might be some months old. It could sit there, have a time out. Think about what it’d done.

  But when Will walked back into the living room a few minutes later, he wasn’t holding a mug of warming, life-giving caffeine. He wasn’t calm or reassuring. His face had fallen. And there wasn’t even a trace of sick on his shirt.

  ‘Stevie, there is something.’

  It had taken them little shy of an hour to write up a lace-thin piece, chuck in the most unflattering pictures of a woman anyone’s ever seen and slap it all over the Daily Britain website. ‘EXCLUSIVE EXPOSE: First-Time Mum is wealthy housewi
fe in the suburbs as she advises other mums to ditch their husbands!’ I’ve got my hand up to the camera, an angry roll of my eyes making me look halfway batshit… but what takes me the other halfway there is my stained baggy T-shirt and greasy hair hanging in clumps. I couldn’t bear to read it properly but as my eyes darted about the page, names and phrases leapt out at me:

  a PR executive, who we can safely assume is well versed in spin … husband Ted Cameron works a demanding job to support his wife while she vents her irritation at motherhood … relatively new to their town of High Wycombe … neighbours say they ‘kept themselves to themselves, though the baby is often heard crying’.

  Keep themselves to themselves?! That’s what people always say about serial killers! And, yes, maybe Cherry does cry more than the average baby but that makes it sound like I pinch her fat folds for kicks.

  So they found me. The real me. I just blinked and blinked at the glowing screen.

  ‘How?’ I muttered. ‘But… I was so careful. I never used real names, or said where we live. How?’

  Will sat down with Cherry in an armchair in the corner. ‘Well, it can’t have been anyone who leaked it, because there were just three of us in the know, right?’

  I nodded.

  ‘What would they do in the movies, Chezza? Trace the phone number, track a mobile signal, crack the IP…’ His eyebrows shot up.

  ‘Wait, what? What’s an IP?’

  Will rubbed a hand down his face, squashing his chiselled features briefly. ‘Your laptop has its own individual number, regardless of where you use it to log on. And it’s hidden away when you send emails and post things online. But it’s there if you want to track someone down.’

  ‘I just didn’t… I just didn’t think.’ My voice ended with a squeak. ‘And now everyone knows. And it’s all gone to shit.’