Secrets of the Mummy Concierge

by Tiffany Norris

  Panicked, I took out a notebook and started writing a list of all the things that could go wrong. By day seven, I had filled 13 pages with worries.

  At the time, it did not feel like postnatal depression so much as a months-long panic attack.

  A month later, and I was delirious with exhaustion after two hours trying to settle my miserable, screaming baby. He just wouldn’t sleep and I had tried everything. I knew that if I fed him, he would probably settle, but the thought of putting him to my breast filled me with such an innate fear that I couldn’t face it. I thought about putting him down, walking out the front door and never coming back. Five minutes later, I was tearfully apologising to my son, nuzzling his neck, promising I’d never leave him.

  There were moments when I would stare in the mirror and not recognise who I was. I had many moments when I would wonder what it would be like to fall down the stairs, because if I got hurt, I wouldn’t have to take care of the baby and maybe, just maybe, I could get some sleep.

  Whilst I was crumbling inside, I didn’t want anyone to know. By admitting how I was feeling, I felt like I was admitting that I was a bad mother. Every other woman out there seemed to be nailing motherhood and there I was, failing at even the most basic bits.

  I also started to notice various family members looking nervous around me and this sunk me even lower into a pit of gloom. I didn’t want them to see that I had failed. They had to think I was a super mum. Suddenly, I felt like I was being a burden to everyone. Every time Patrick came into our room, he was greeted with a sobbing mess of a wife. When my sister called to chat, I could barely form a sentence, too worried was I that I’d start crying and never stop.

  I was tired of being a burden on everyone too. I didn’t want people whispering about me behind my back. I saw the way friends and family were looking at me with disappointment in their eyes and I wanted them to think I was happy and enjoying motherhood. So, I had a brilliant idea – I would simply pretend to be OK. I would put my drama degree to good use and just play a role. If I couldn’t be the perfect mother in real life, I could at least pretend to be one.

  My NCT class were arriving at my house one day for a baby massage class which I had arranged with a local baby expert – so desperate was I to fill my days and have people around me. Being alone in the home was something I was getting increasingly incapable of doing. The fear that vibrated through my body when Patrick closed the front door behind him in the morning as he set off to work on occasion had me rushing to the bathroom upstairs, Rupert hanging off my hip, whilst I silently vomited into the loo. So, I began to do what I always did when I felt stressed: I planned. I sent out messages to my NCT group suggesting various baby-related classes and activities, I made list upon list of baby things we still needed to buy (convincing myself that ‘if we just had this’, life would become easier).

  Opening the door to be greeted by a clatter of smiling new mummies, their tiny newborns cuddled to their chests in baby slings or sleeping peacefully in various brands of prams, I felt the sensation in the pit of my stomach that was becoming more regular: fear. All of them looked so pulled together, so capable. They laughed and smiled and joked as they picked their babies up and placed them gently on baby mats in front of them.

  I held back for a few moments, under the pretence of putting coats in the spare bedroom, and let the tears flow freely. Rupert lay in my arms, his big grey eyes staring up at me as tears dripped onto his face. Then, as quickly as I had started crying, I stopped, pulled myself up off the bed, straightened my top and pushed my chin out. Walking past the ornate mirror in the corridor at the stop of the stairs, I inhaled deeply and then plastered on a smile. It was the fakest smile I had ever seen, but it would be good enough to fool them – the last thing I wanted was for them to think I was failing.

  Twenty minutes later and seven babies had been massaged and sung to in my living room. I can’t tell you anything else about that class apart from the fact that I remember watching the women around me sing and smile and laugh. It was as though I was trapped in a horror movie. Everything seemed to be going in slow motion. The smiles on their faces got wider and more terrifying, the music from the instructor’s iPhone louder and more tinny with every song. I was getting more and more anxious: ‘They’re looking at me, they’re thinking I’m a terrible mother, I am a terrible mother . . .’ Before I knew what I was doing, I’d jumped up from the floor and sprinted upstairs, back into the safety of my bedroom. Rupert had been left, abandoned on his playmat.

  His mother had failed him again.

  I’d never heard of ‘a mother’s mask’ before, but up in that bedroom I started frantically googling. Meanwhile, I could hear the concerned voices of the NCT girls downstairs. Someone asked if they should ‘take Rupert upstairs to be with me’. This was followed by a silence which you know means people are talking about you in hushed whispers.

  So, I did it again. I stood up, I rubbed the leaky mascara from under my eyes and smiled at myself in the mirror. That’s when I clocked: I was putting on my motherhood mask. The fake smile, the upbeat vocabulary – it was all a mask to hide behind so that no one could see the person I actually was – an awful mother to my baby boy. Then I walked back downstairs, scooped Rupert up in my arms, smothered him with kisses and then apologetically (and casually) explained away my recent exit due to ‘exhaustion – I was awake from 1–6am this morning!’ This of course was met with numerous sets of shoulders dropping in relief, a communal exhale. It was as though I had given permission to every mother in that room not to worry about me.

  ‘I didn’t sleep last night either,’ they all exclaimed, relieved that they were now in the realm of being able to impart advice. ‘Have you tried feeding less/more/a white noise machine/a night nurse?’ Nobody actually looked at me properly and realised, ‘She needs help, this isn’t normal’. And I suppose, because of that, I continued to convince myself too.

  This was just motherhood. This was just what life was going to be like from now on . . .

  But there were some days where you just don’t want to wear that mask, so you stay in the house. I cried constantly and became overwhelmed by the simplest tasks, such as entertaining Rupert when he was awake or putting his baby clothes in the wash. Everything felt like an uphill struggle and even the most routine day-to-day activities felt like an impossible challenge.

  Whilst Rupert slept, I would sit at our kitchen table writing routine upon routine, detailing minute by minute what I should be doing each day. I suppose a part of me felt that by doing this my days would be filled, so I would have less time to ‘just be’. Because ‘just being’ was the scariest part of my life. It would be when I would sit, often in a dark room, sobs heaving out of my body like there was no end. Or I would stare at my small son sleeping calmly in his cot and think, Are you OK? What if I just walked away and left you? Maybe you’d be better/happier without me around. If postnatal depression had one distinguishing characteristic, it would be that I felt totally like my mind and body were not in my control. My thought patterns were totally irrational and I felt smothered and heavy, like I couldn’t breathe.

  In those moments when I attempted to get out of the house (advice that was constantly imparted on me by family members who were convinced I just had baby blues), I would look down at Rupert in his pram, tell him ‘I love you’ and in the same breath hear myself apologising to him that he’d got me for his mother, how awful I was and that I hoped one day he’d have someone better. I knew, in those raw moments, that something was wrong – that it wasn’t normal to feel this way, but like wrapping myself up in cotton wool, I refused to face the truth and battled on, my mummy mask plastered on my face.

  There is a certain cruelty that comes with being a mother who is suffering from postnatal depression: you want so badly to be happy and in control, you want to be enjoying the moment, because everyone keeps telling you that this is the most special time in your life. Instead, you’re a crying, confused mess.

&n
bsp; The day it all came to a head was when my mother came to visit us. I was so looking forward to her arrival, but for all the wrong reasons: once she was here I could hand the baby over. I could feign ‘exhaustion’ and ask if it was OK if I went and slept. And then I could shut myself away in our room and hope that I would never wake up.

  True to form, she arrived at our home, arms filled with gifts for the baby and a car boot bursting with home-cooked food, which she swiftly placed in our freezer. She took a crying Rupert from my arms and within seconds, he had stopped, entranced by this new, magical woman who seemed so at ease and happy to be around him.

  Patrick arrived an hour later and I watched him and my mother chat easily, my husband laughing, and regaling her with stories of what Rupert had done that day. I remember sitting there – completely numb – and realising all these milestones that Rupert had met – a squeeze of a thumb, a smile – hadn’t even registered with me. Here was my husband in complete marvel at our little boy and I felt nothing. I constantly compared myself to Patrick, who seemed to take to this whole parenting lark so naturally that I looked woeful in comparison – he was being an incredible father, whereas I was failing incredibly, it seemed.

  I walked up the stairs, not feeling anything, and opened the door to my room. I clocked the Moses basket next to our bed, my ‘breastfeeding timetable’ taped to the wall, the breast pump taunting me from the bedside table. My breath started to shorten, each one feeling as though someone had their hands around my neck. An intense heat travelled up from my toes, to my legs, to my torso and I started to shake. I heard footsteps running up the stairs and it was only then that I realised an animalistic noise was coming from my mouth: I was screaming. Fear, terror and sheer panic were making their way out of my body in one long scream.

  I don’t remember much after that apart from running to our en-suite bathroom and locking myself inside. Patrick and my mother were outside, banging on the door, begging me to confirm I was OK. I sat on the floor, hands over my ears, willing it all to stop. Willing life to go back to what it was like before Rupert, before this complete mess I had made of being a mum.

  It was only when I realised Patrick was trying to bash down the door – he later confirmed that he was concerned I was going to do something awful – that I slowly slid back the lock and collapsed in my mother’s arms. It was one of those moments in life that I will never forget. Here I was, at the lowest ebb of my life, desperately needing my mother yet the thing that was killing me was being a mother myself.

  * * *

  The next few days blurred into one. Patrick called various doctors and I had numerous initial phone chats with perinatal specialists. Our health visitor came to see me, her face ashen with concern as she made me fill in a postnatal depression form. I had to answer questions with a rating of 1–10 (10 being suicidal).

  I scored 7 and above for every answer.

  My family stepped in as soon as they realised the severity of the situation. My mother didn’t leave our house after that fateful evening and silently slipped into a role where she cooked us meals, hugged me when I needed it and updated my father on how I was doing.

  I remember spotting a stream of texts on her phone between her and my dad. I had picked it up, thinking it was mine and was hit with a deep sadness when I saw the text: ‘How is our little girl doing today?’ My mum had replied saying that I was trying to get better and that I ate a piece of toast (followed by a thumbs-up sign.) She signed off, ‘Our little girl will be fine. We will make sure she is.’

  That’s when I realised that even though I was in my thirties, I was still their ‘little girl’ – that parental love is all-encompassing, and they would do anything to make me better. I remember feeling a flash of hope then.

  I must – and would feel like this – about Rupert. I must get better.

  As we slowly went through the motions of getting me help, Patrick was my rock. He never once questioned me, never once confirmed my fears that I was a bad mother. Instead, he took it on his shoulders to make me better. He googled article after article about postnatal depression and wrote notes as he did so, comforting me with recovery statistics at the end of the day as he handed me a cup of a hot chocolate (‘Chocolate solves everything’ used to be my other motto).

  He also spoke to a close friend of his from university who he knew had suffered postnatal depression, and she gave him a list of books, blogs and experts I could research to make me feel better. But the main thing he did, which I honestly think saved me, was to encourage me to stop breastfeeding.

  Having my husband actually say the words, ‘Why don’t we switch to formula?’ was like a huge, suffocating weight being lifted from the fog in my brain. It was as though I was suddenly being given permission to do – if I honestly admitted it – what I had been wanting to do from day one. Postnatal depression is triggered by different things for different mothers – tiredness, a traumatic birth – but for me, the trigger was 100 per cent breastfeeding.

  I can be completely honest about how it made me feel (and please don’t judge me for this – I understand the benefits, but I also understand every mother must do what works for her): I felt like a cow being milked. It’s that simple. I didn’t have any other excuse for hating breastfeeding. I was lucky to have enough milk. Rupert fed well and apart from one bout of mastitis (an inflammation of breast tissue that antibiotics sorted out quickly), the mechanics of breastfeeding was going well. But I wasn’t used to using this part of my body in this way. I wasn’t used to having a small human suckle and squeeze and essentially ‘milk’ me. It wasn’t the romantic, wonderful image that so many other mothers describe it as. To me, it was a form of torture. Something that made my toes curl and made me feel less like a woman. I hated the thought of breastfeeding in public, of breastfeeding in front of my family. I wasn’t one of those women who could happily whip out a boob and continue a conversation – I wish I was, but it wasn’t me.

  I must admit, I’m scared writing this, because even though I have made peace with my decision to bottle-feed Rupert, I know some people will still judge me. I know they will whisper how I ‘didn’t give my baby what’s best for him’ and that people will argue that I should have kept trying for longer – that it would have got better. But it’s important to me that I’m honest. And it’s also important to live by the mantra that I always tell the mummies I work with: You do YOU.

  Without a happy ‘you’, you won’t be the best mummy you can be.

  I want to make sure that anyone reading this doesn’t think I’m saying that breastfeeding might cause you postnatal depression. That is not the case at all. For me, it was the trigger, but that is for my own personal reason that I discussed with a psychiatrist and dealt with. I work with, and have many friends who are breastfeeding mothers, and who genuinely love every moment of it. All I want to make clear is that, like every woman is different (some enjoy running marathons, others can speak multiple languages), every mother is different too. We all have our different ways of doing things, our triggers that make motherhood hard and our unique motherhood moments that make us feel like superheroes. Just because one mother has nailed motherhood in one way, it doesn’t mean you can’t nail it in another.

  * * *

  The first day I gave Rupert formula, I completely tortured myself. My mum and Patrick were both with me and we decided to try and make it a casual ‘normal’ thing to do by heading into Chiswick on a hot, sunny day to sit outside in the beautiful gardens of one of my favourite restaurants. The plan was I would nip into Boots to buy Rupert a bottle of ready-made formula and then we would all sit outside in the sunshine, whilst I fed my little boy and the three of us celebrated with a G and T.

  The reality was awful. As I walked down the road pushing Rupert in his pram, my mother and Patrick chatting happily behind me, a sense of dread started to build up with every step I took. I watched other mothers walk by, presuming they knew that I was about to do the worst thing ever to my baby and give him fo
rmula. As I got closer and closer to Boots, my heart started to palpitate in my chest and my hands grew hot with sweat. I looked down at Rupert, happily playing with a grey muslin in his bassinet and apologised silently to him.

  Patrick and my mum went on to secure a table at the restaurant and left me to tackle the shop by myself. I have since asked why they did this – why they didn’t come with me to support me? – and they insisted they thought me doing it by myself was for the best. They had hoped I would realise no one was judging, no one even cared what I had in my shopping bag, and that I would emerge from the shop feeling more confident.

  That wasn’t the case. As I walked into the shop, I rapidly scanned the names above the aisle until I saw the baby section. I pushed Rupert towards it in slow motion until we were facing a shelf full of baby formula. I felt a hot trickle of sweat run down my back and grabbed the first ready-made bottle I could see, swiftly covering it in my basket with an array of dummies, bibs and nappies that I didn’t need – I suppose I was trying to hide my shame, praying no other mother would see what was in my basket and judge me.

  When I eventually sat down in the garden of the restaurant, my face streaked with hot, angry tears, I clumsily opened the bottle and shoved it in Rupert s mouth, desperate to get this public feed over and done with. It was the wrong thing to do: he started crying as milk spluttered all over his face and in a moment of desperation, I pulled at my T-shirt, my body heaving with tears as I tried to get my boobs out of my bra – insisting it was better to feed him that way.

  In the end, Patrick took Rupert off me, wiped down his face and slowly put the formula bottle to his mouth. Without a minute’s hesitation, Rupert happily latched onto the bottle and guzzled away. Minutes later, he was fast asleep in a milk-induced nap and looked as happy as anything.