The sob escapes me before I have even realised. A huge gasping sob that I feel unable to control. Flinching, I hurl my hand towards my mouth, muffling the sounds as much as I can in the fear that Henry might hear me from his office below. Now is not the time to get emotional. I am here to be professional. To carve away at any pain that has been left behind and in some way, try and make it a little bit more bearable.
Michelle had called me a month ago to tell me she was no longer pregnant and that she had had a miscarriage. It was 2am when the mobile by my bed burst into life and I urgently scrambled around, trying to locate it in the dark. Rather than answering the phone to hear hysterical crying, as I would have thought might have happened, Michelle was strangely calm and quiet.
‘I know it’s late and you must think me mad calling at a time like this, but we have just lost the baby. I wanted to let you know as soon as possible so you didn’t waste time doing any more work for us. I know you have lots of other mummies who need your help.’
My initial reaction was to ask her to repeat herself – surely my mind was playing tricks on me in the middle of the night and I had misheard? Only last week we had been unpacking the final bits of baby kit for the nursery. I remember her throaty laugh as she told me in a mock stage whisper that she had already hidden Henry’s credit card bill so he didn’t freak out at how much money we had spent.
‘Well, this baby is going to be the best thing that ever happened to us, so I need to make sure I give her the best, even if it does mean we have to remortgage the house!’
I had smiled along with her, remembering that feeling well.
‘Michelle, I’m . . . I’m not sure I . . .’
‘Please don’t worry about me. About us. We’re fine, it’s just one of those things.’ I could hear her voice cracking as she spoke and I so wanted to reach down the phone line and cradle her breaking heart. ‘I just know how tirelessly you have been working, and I keep on thinking about all of those things I asked you to do, and research . . . and I just don’t want you to waste your time . . . now that there . . .’ A sound like a woman being torn in half rattled down the phone and the sobs followed. ‘Now that there is no baby.’
When I started working as a Mummy Concierge, I must admit I was naïve in thinking it would all be baby grows and happiness. Like so many couples desperate to become parents, there is a dark side of pregnancy that rears its ugly head more often than we like to admit. Although 95 per cent of my job is celebrating life and new babies, I’d be lying if I said that there haven’t been tears and losses along the way. But Henry and Michelle were the first couple who I had to be brave for.
I had actually been the one to offer to help with the nursery. Paralysed by their own grief at losing their little one so late in their pregnancy, I ended up spending hours on the phone to Michelle, just listening to the grief pour from her like sticky syrup. Rather than researching baby prams and pointing her in the direction of the best baby clothes shops in London, instead I nudged her towards a grief counsellor and suggested that I go to her house and ‘undo’ her nursery for her.
* * *
Patrick thought I was mad when I announced what I was going to do for Michelle and Henry.
‘I’m going over to theirs tomorrow and I’m going to clear out the nursery. They can’t bear to even go in the room and I know that unless someone does something about it, that room will stay like that, as a shrine to their unborn baby, for years to come. I have to do something to help.’
Patrick walked towards me slowly and placed his hands on my shoulders, forcing me to look in his eyes.
‘Are you sure you can do this?’ he asked, quietly. ‘You’ve got a newborn to look after and this isn’t on your services list, you know. You don’t have to do this.’
But I was resolute. These clients were more than just people I was helping, they were a family – ready to face the world with a loss that would be hard to get over. And I needed to do whatever I could to help them.
Tidying out that nursery was one of the hardest things I have ever done. When people ask me about my job, they laugh and smile as I talk about baby scans, nursery décor and babymoons. It’s considered a job of happiness, of new beginnings, new life, and here I was dealing with one side of my job that was the complete opposite.
It took me five solid hours to clear out that nursery. Every baby item that I touched, I felt I needed to respect. I needed to acknowledge that this was intended for a little human being who was no longer able to experience it. Bit by bit, I packed away bags of unused nappies and scribbled ‘hospital’ on the box in thick black marker pen, so I could take it to the nearest maternity unit as per Michelle’s request. I tidied away a baby first aid kit (how cruel that it should even be here, given the circumstances), a pile of bamboo muslins printed with white rabbits holding pink balloons, a teething toy, the BabyBjörn bouncer that Michelle had spent hours choosing.
It was a sobering experience packing away their nursery. My job usually involved lots of ‘to-do’ lists – neatly typed-out inventories of ‘things to buy, things to do, things to prepare’, followed by little square boxes that parents take great joy in ticking off. But today, it was as though I was doing my job in reverse: all the kit was here, the wallpaper covered in little boats with blue sails was up, the cot was assembled, and I was taking it apart. Crossing off ‘ticked’ items, peeling off wallpaper, unscrewing and dismantling the cot for the baby.
I’d be lying if I said that that evening, when back at home, I didn’t march straight into Rupert’s nursery and pull him from his cot, hugging him so tightly that Patrick had to take him from me – worried that I would squeeze him too hard. When something is taken away from someone, with no warning, it really does make you realise how precious the things you have in your life are. I learnt a huge lesson that day – never take anything for granted. That night, I slept on the floor of Rupert’s nursery and nothing was going to move me.
I just needed to be close to my little boy.
PART SIX
FOURTH TRIMESTER
Chapter 18
When I was pregnant with Rupert, people often asked me if I was going to breastfeed and I nodded along, mumbling something along the lines of, ‘Sure, I’ll give it a try, but if it doesn’t work for me then I will happily switch to formula.’ Even when I was pregnant, I had an unease around breastfeeding. Other mummies seemed intent on sticking to ‘breast is best’ (God, how I hate that saying), whereas I already had anxieties building up around it. How do you actually breastfeed? Was it going to hurt? How did I feel about getting my boobs out in public? But there was also something else there, right in the back of my mind, that I was never willing to admit at the time. (And even find hard to admit now, for the fear of being judged.) The thought of having a baby sucking my nipple made me feel queasy – I just didn’t feel comfortable.
I pushed that thought away, knowing ‘it wasn’t the way a mother should think’, whilst trying to bolster up the jovial confidence that I saw every other breastfeeding mum on Instagram portray. If they could do it, so could I. ‘Stop being such a wimp’ was my daily mantra.
When Rupert was born, within seconds the midwife asked me if I wanted to ‘put him on my breast’. I nodded, not really allowing myself the chance to contemplate if I did actually want to do it. Embarrassed, I pulled apart my hospital gown and clumsily tried to put Rupert near my nipple. I felt hot, flustered and completely out of my comfort zone. I even asked Patrick ‘not to watch’ as it felt so uncomfortable to me – a small human was about to suckle on my nipple and I was about to produce milk. It was very unnerving to me.
I sobbed through the multiple feeds that came after. I vividly recall my sister and mother coming to meet Rupert at the hospital and they sat in the room with me, my obstetrician at my side, all trying to encourage me to feed my son. Patrick had gone for a walk so it was just us four women in the room, each of them making suggestions on how to hold the baby, one how I should be s
itting, asking if the colostrum was seeping from my nipples. I felt like a caged animal. I didn’t want this, it didn’t feel natural to me. Instead, I felt like I was on show, proving to everyone in the room that I was already failing as a mother despite Rupert only being two hours old.
When we got home from the hospital three days later, I took to my bed and heeded the advice of my doctor to try and rest as much as possible so as to recover from my C-section surgery. Days started to merge into each other with one startling factor that filled me with fear: every three hours, I was going to have to feed Rupert.
I wasn’t going to admit my fear to anyone – I didn’t want to give anyone a reason to think I wasn’t being the best mummy I could be. So, feeds became my nemesis. Whenever Patrick handed me Rupert, saying, ‘He’s hungry,’ I would plaster a smile on my face and retreat into the nursery, where behind closed doors, I would sob uncontrollably as Rupert fed. As night-time approached, I tried to gee myself up for what lay ahead. I would download episodes of comedy stand-up routines in the hope that something – anything – would make me smile during those night-time feeds. I would always retreat to Rupert’s nursery to feed him – even in the dead of night when it would have been easier to pull him next to me into our bed and feed him lying on my side. The nursery was my ‘sanctuary’. It was the place where I could close the door, block out the outside world and sob freely. It was the place where I could dig my nails into the palms of my hand as Rupert drank hungrily, the place where I looked at my little boy in the dim 3am light and thought, Can I really love you if you make me this sad?
A few days after Rupert was born, Patrick’s parents flew over from Ireland to meet him. That morning, I woke up a bundle of nerves – feeling as if I was an actress about to go on stage. I remember standing in our tiny en-suite bathroom in our home, smearing tinted moisturiser over my face, adding more and more, hoping it might disguise the sheer panic that was etched on there. I stood in front of my wardrobe and picked out a bright pink sweater – hoping this might distract from the way my hands shook every time I was handed Rupert. Then I heard his parents arrive and the gentle, soft coos as they were introduced to Rupert downstairs. I took a deep breath, plastered on a smile and descended the stairs. I knew I didn’t look right. I knew I wasn’t looking like the adoring, contented mother I should be – but I was going to try my hardest to put on an act.
No one could know how I was really feeling.
I knew something was really wrong with the way I was feeling. It was much, much more than ‘baby blues’. Holding my baby and feeling like I wanted to put him in his cot and run away was not normal – I knew that too. But I was scared. So incredibly scared of admitting the truth to myself or anyone else.
It’s hard to admit that. Very hard. And the reason? I always thought I was just born to be a mummy. I just presumed it would all come easily and that I would excel in looking after a little baby. Never for one minute did I anticipate that, for several weeks, I might hold my newborn ‘bundle of joy’ and just be overcome with a sense of panic. I never thought that the cracked nipples, extreme tiredness and the baby’s endless cries could actually bring me to my knees. Also, breastfeeding was hard. Harder than I could ever have imagined. And I had no idea what was about to come . . .
My breastfeeding experience wasn’t what I wanted it to be. And looking back, it probably would have been better had I never done it, but I did still learn a lot and for that, I’m really grateful. So here are my own top ten truths about breastfeeding.
Top ten truths about breastfeeding
1. You’ll probably have a lazy boob. Like it or not, one boob WILL decide it just can’t be arsed. And as a result (let’s call it competitive boob syndrome), the OTHER boob will decide it wants to supply as much milk as humanely possible ALL IN ONE GO. Yup, you’ll have one A* boob and one D- in the achievement stakes. As a result, one boob is very likely to be triple the size of the other. (See truth 4 for more info.)
2. Nursing covers are a scam. I bought every one. LITERALLY. EVERY. ONE. And what did I end up using? A muslin tied in a knot around my neck. Why? Because muslins are so much EASIER. Nursing covers might ‘claim’ to be ‘the essential for discreet feeding’ but I have yet to meet one that actually works. By the time you have worked out how to get it around your neck, slipped your arm through the right hole and positioned your wriggling baby underneath, you might as well have screamed out to everyone in the coffee shop, ‘I’M GETTING MY BOOB OUT NOW AND ATTEMPTING TO HIDE IT UNDER THIS MONSTROUSLY UGLY NURSING COVER!’
3. You can eat, and eat, and eat . . . and not put on any weight. DISCLAIMER: As soon as you STOP breastfeeding, then you continue to eat, eat, eat and the weight just piles itself back on. (Yup, there’s that honesty I was talking about!)
4. You will end up waterboarding your baby. Nipples leak, and squirt and produce a HUGE AMOUNT OF MILK AT THE EXACT TIME YOU DON’T WANT THEM TO. Usually when your baby is positioned underneath, smiling and waiting for his breakfast. And what happens? As your ‘let down’ occurs, it is essentially like ‘letting down’ Niagara Falls. In your baby’s face.
5. You have to rejig your wardrobe – goodbye tight-fitting and high-neck tops. It’s all about easy boob access. That’s literally ALL you will care about when breastfeeding. Gone are the tight-fitting Joseph cashmeres or the Whistles high-neck winter polos you were desperate to wear. In their place? Anything with zips, buttons or (dare we admit it) one of those ‘Ooh, look, I can lift this up and my boob falls out the bottom!’ tops that are ‘on trend’ in maternity clothes outlets.
6. Your boobs will quite literally change size every day. Want to have DD boobs? I can give you that on a Monday. Fancy testing out a left 34B and a right 36C? Yup, scheduled in for Tuesday. Boobs filled with milk equals boobs of continual different sizes. Just get used to it.
7. Hello there, drips, stains and leaks. All hail the sanitary towel for the nipple (aka breast pads). Without these genius inventions you will constantly walk around with milk stains on your T-shirts (not quite the look you were going for, right?). Also, when you are breastfeeding, one boob will always leak whilst your baby feeds off the other so you essentially end up sitting in a pool of milk. My advice? Make sure you have plenty of muslins to hand.
8. You WILL wake up in a wet patch. Oh yes, that milk likes to leak at the most inconvenient times. Such as when you’ve just nodded off to sleep (having spent four hours trying to get the baby to sleep!). Suddenly, mid-dream, you’re woken by the strange sensation that you’re lying in a sticky, sickly wet patch. And you are . . . Yup, that will be your milk (and dare I say it, the smell is also AWFUL!). Change those sheets immediately!
9. It can make you feel isolated. If you’re not one of those ‘I love breastfeeding, it’s so natural and lovely’ type mothers then (ahem, this is so NOT me), this one is for you. I HATED breastfeeding, particularly in public, which meant whenever my baby needed feeding, I whisked myself upstairs (or at times to the disabled toilets) and breastfed there . . . alone and isolated. The solution? Download a good box set and set aside breastfeeding time as YOUR time. It’s not often you have an excuse to sit by yourself and watch Made in Chelsea on repeat (I mean, David Attenborough, um, David Attenborough . . .).
10. You will probably end up expressing in the disabled toilet or a Portaloo. Fancy a nice big glass of wine or a trip to a festival? Yup, that Portaloo or disabled toilet is your new best friend. I’m being serious.
Chapter 19
Before Rupert was born, I confidently told anyone who would listen that I wasn’t putting any pressure on myself whatsoever as to what I was going to be like as a mother. I nodded along with my NCT group when we all chatted about ‘giving breastfeeding a try, but not stressing if it didn’t work’ and happily researched baby-wearing, co-sleeping and other parenting trends, internally giving myself permission to give or not give anything a try. I wanted to be the epitome of a ‘chilled mama’ – not letting my baby rule my life but als
o not letting any decisions I made about parenthood cause me any drama. I adopted the mantra ‘you do you’ and repeated this to anyone who would listen – I’ll do me, and you do you. NO judgement.
So, when I brought Rupert home from hospital, I stuck by my promise and gave breastfeeding a go. Subconsciously, I noticed the praise I was receiving from everyone around me when I told them. Friends messaged to say: ‘Yay, breast is best!’ Magazine articles online virtually clapped their hands at me when I joined the ranks of breastfeeding mums. My health visitor practically jumped up and down when I lied and said breastfeeding was going well (but did sneer in the direction of a random formula bottle we had on the shelf, asking why I needed that if it was all going so well).
That formula bottle was both torment and relief. On days (which were becoming more and more regular) when I was sitting downstairs, idling watching catch-up episodes of Entourage, silently willing Rupert to stop feeding, I would glance at that bottle and think, Maybe I should just stop. Maybe formula feeding isn’t so bad? But there were other moments, usually those dark moments in the middle of the night, when I’d think about switching to formula and hear all the voices in my head: Don’t do it. It’s bad for the baby. You’ll be a bad mum if you don’t breastfeed. You’ll be a failure. Everyone will judge you.
At first, I didn’t realise I was seriously ill with postnatal depression. Since Rupert was born, I awaited the onslaught of ‘the baby blues’, which your doctor and NCT class warn you about. On day five, I sobbed (completely textbook) and then laughed with Patrick afterwards that the baby blues were incoming.
A week later, I was still crying. My days were spent with Rupert on my breast, feeding him on demand and hating every minute of it. With this, came the tears. The complete onslaught of negative emotions that I didn’t know how I would survive another day. The exhaustion was overwhelming – I couldn’t sleep because I was worrying too much about the following day. What if someone suggested going out for a walk with Rupert and he needed feeding? What if I couldn’t get him out of his pram? What if he started screaming and won’t stop?
Secrets of the Mummy Concierge Page 12