‘Oh, goodness! Influencer alert . . .’ Christine the maternity nurse nudged me in the ribs and looked over haughtily towards a small child and her mother. I looked back at her in confusion. Influencers to my mind were skinny teenagers dressed in tiny hot pants wearing far too much make-up, pouting into their mobile phones, but looking around, I couldn’t see one anywhere.
‘There,’ Christine stage-whispered back at me and turned my body around so that I was facing the mother and her baby again – in squint in case I missed something.
Just as I was about to protest – I couldn’t see an influencer anywhere – the mother picked up her toddler, who I could now see was dressed head to toe in Burberry, and placed her under the bauble arch. The toddler tottered slightly (this could have been because of her fur-lined boots, or simply the fact that she was only just learning how to walk) and then turned to her mother and pouted.
Flash! The light from her mother’s phone captured the picture perfectly.
‘Darling, say something to the camera, sweetie. Can you say “snow”? That’s it, show Mumma your Burberry bag.’
I watched entranced.
‘It’s insane, isn’t it?’ said Alexa, joining Christine and me whilst blowing on her mulled wine. ‘I’ve worked with so many mums who have turned their children into mini-influencers. Some of them have over 20,000 followers and they’re not even six months old.’
‘A client I once worked with used to earn hundreds of pounds every time she posted a photo of her baby at a luxury hotel,’ quipped Monica, one of the nannies. ‘Quite a few of their friends got in on it too and before we knew it, Baby Bay had seven friends who were also baby influencers. I think their parents got pretty competitive about who got the most “likes”.’
‘I met some porcupine parents the other day at a job interview,’ said Emma, the youngest member of our group, who had just made the switch from au pairing to nannying.
We all exploded into fits of giggles.
‘Porcupine parents? What the hell does that mean?’
‘Well, they’re the type who coordinate their wardrobe around wraps, slings and other baby-wearing devices and use terms like EBF [exclusive breastfeeding] and assume everyone knows what you mean.’
‘Yes, they’re the type of mums who give their children kale chips and know great placenta recipes.’ We all grimaced at this. ‘They sew cloth nappies, home school, co-sleep until the child is 11 . . .’
‘I think it’s awful that people always put labels on parents,’ Alexa chimed in. She is one of the more sensible ones in our group – I love her for it – as she’s constantly sticking up for mums, no matter what.
But Christine ignored her – she was on a roll.
‘What about period parties? Have you heard of them? A friend told me a mum from school held a period party for her 13-year-old. She invited all of her daughter’s friends round to celebrate her first period, complete with red-themed food and drink!’
We spent the rest of the afternoon picking up stocking presents and filling ourselves to the brim with hot chocolate and marshmallows, before hugging goodbye on the Southbank. I decided to walk along the Thames for a bit before heading home. I was feeling nostalgic for my family Christmas – I would head home to my parents and my mother and I would sit in my bedroom on Christmas Eve, wrapping up all of the presents and chatting until the early hours. Then, without fail, my mother would leave the room demanding I get into bed and ten minutes later, a slightly wobbly (let’s blame it on the Prosecco drinking during Christmas wrapping) Father Christmas would emerge – ho ho ho-ing and delivering stockings around the house. My mother’s father used to do it when she was little and the tradition has continued ever since. Christmas Eve wouldn’t be the same without a red-clad member of the family, a pillow up their sweater, delivering stockings.
It’s funny how, when you’re pregnant, you think about your upbringing and your relationship with your parents so much. Walking along, watching the street lamps silently flicker with the background noise of a slightly-too-merry Christmas party singing carols as they exited the pub, I gently placed my hand on my newly pregnant tummy.
‘I’ll make sure I give you the best Christmases ever,’ I promise. ‘We will dance around to musicals and look out the window for Father Christmas and squeal with delight when it snows. I promise.’ I wiped a silent, happy tear away from under my eyelashes. ‘I’ll be the best mummy I can ever be to you, just like mine is to me.’
Conclusion: Bumps, Babies and Beyond
A few weeks ago, I had one of those days. Work was busy, which in theory was great, but it also meant I was putting intense pressure on myself to divide my time equally between my clients and Rupert and Patrick, whilst also trying not to overdo it as I was six months pregnant. I swore (loudly), fed Rupert baked beans for lunch and then pretended it was his bedtime an hour before it actually was.
It was only when I sat down at 10pm with a hot cup of tea that my thoughts started to beat me up.
Was I a bad mummy? Should I really be trying to run a business when I could be spending more time with Rupert before baby number two arrived?
Like an old-fashioned slide show, memories of the last couple of months, subtitled with ‘you are a bad mother’, started to flicker across my brain. I remembered the day I ran into the kitchen, late for a meeting with a newly pregnant client, and Rupert’s face had lit up, the words pouring from his mouth with excitement: ‘Are we going to the park?’ He had noticed I had my shoes on and was reaching for the car keys. ‘You can watch me on the swing and we can slide down the big slide together.’ His crumpled, tear-stained face when I explained I had to go to work will stay with me forever.
I also thought back to the day Patrick and I went in for one of our first scans for baby number two. Despite being so excited that Patrick joked I was like a Jack-in-the-box, I remember the sense of guilt that sat in the pit of my stomach as I saw the tiny image of our baby flash up on the scan.
How could I ever love this baby as much as Rupert? Was it wrong for me to bring another baby into the world, when I didn’t think I could love anyone quite as much as I did our little boy?
Thrusting my shoulders backwards and switching off the TV, I marched upstairs and snuck into Rupert’s nursery. The scene could have melted anyone’s heart – his hair was plastered to his face and the pillow had left little indents on his skin, which actually looked like miniature hearts. He was clutching Blue Blue (the blue rabbit he had had since birth) so tightly to his chest that I could see it move as he breathed. In his left hand was the dinosaur toy that I had given him a few weeks before, refusing, as he so often did now, to let it out of his sight (despite the fact it growled every time it moved, meaning it regularly woke him in the night). Stroking his hot, soft skin, I reached down and planted a kiss on his forehead, breathing him in as I did so. But the subtitle appeared in my brain again: Am I a bad mummy?
That’s when I decided to confront this thought head-on. I had heard about and read about mummy guilt, but this was getting ridiculous. Could I no longer enjoy even a night-time kiss with my baby boy without challenging myself?
Leaving Rupert’s room (making sure the door was held half-open with the hedgehog-shaped doorstop and that the night light was on in the corridor), I found my laptop in the kitchen and opened it up, carefully typing in the name of a parenting expert I had read about in the newspaper. Clicking on her website, I located the original article I had seen and began re-reading it. One sentence really stood out: ‘Think about your other friends and how they look after their child. Think of specific scenarios that they have done and ask yourself, “Do you think they are a bad mother?”’
I took out a pen and wrote down a list:
• My best friend’s four-year-old still has a dummy. Does that mean he will still have it when he goes to university and that she’s a bad mother? No.
• Some mothers put their babies to sleep in their own room after six months. Does this mean they don
’t love their children? No, of course not.
• Some mummies scroll through their Instagram instead of listening to their toddlers (minute-by-minute) account of what just happened on Paw Patrol. Does that mean they’re not interested in their child? No.
• Some mummies co-sleep. Some mummies use full-time nannies. Some mummies feed their babies Ella’s Kitchen pouches instead of cooking fresh organic meals 700 times a week. DOES THAT MAKE THEM A BAD MUMMY? Absolutely bloody not!
• Motherhood is HARD. We are all doing the best we can, in the way that works for us. So, if you feed your baby formula because it means your partner can do a bottle and you can have a glass of wine, go for it. If you need to sit your toddler down in front of Peppa and George so you can actually put some make-up on, then do it.
As I stopped writing my list and re-read everything that was on the piece of paper in front of me, it hit me there and then: when you become a mummy, EVERYTHING becomes about your children. These little things (the choices you make every day, just to make your life a little bit easier) are absolutely fine to do. You will worry that things you do might be wrong or someone else might be doing something better or just different to you. But that worry just proves what an amazing mummy you are. Some people like to judge you for the choices that you make. Some people will tell you that the way you parent is wrong and that the choices you make are not right. But in that instance, I decided something. I would say: SOD THEM AND TELL THEM TO BUGGER OFF! What you’re doing is enough. You are an amazing mummy. Every mummy is different and every mummy is nailing motherhood in their own individual way.
Myself included.
* * *
Two months later, I was eight months pregnant. I had taken a day off to spend time with my mother who was visiting whilst Patrick worked away in London. I’d promised her that my work phone was turned off (it wasn’t – it was on vibrate in my handbag) and so we headed for a lunch of sushi in the sunshine. We began chatting about numerous ‘birth stories’ that we had heard.
‘Did you know that your grandfather delivered me on the bathroom floor?’ My mother raised her eyebrow in expectation of my reaction.
‘What? Pop delivered you? Are you serious?’
‘I think my arrival was a bit of a surprise. I’ve always loved a bit of drama!’
At the time, my mother’s comment didn’t mean that much to me, but I look back now and giggle every time I think of it because of what was about to come.
Later that evening, my mother and I had just put Rupert to bed when she looked at me strangely as I slowly closed his bedroom door.
‘Are you OK?’
I realised I was grimacing slightly and holding on to my stomach.
‘Yes, just slight tummy cramps. I think I’m going to have a bath.’
I’ll be honest with you, at no point did I ever think I was going into labour. I was only eight months pregnant and wasn’t due to have my C-section for at least another three weeks. But something inside me made me text my obstetrician anyway. I’ve always been the nervous type so the last thing I expected was a barrage of questions and then a text response that said, ‘Get in the car asap and get to the hospital. I’ll meet you there.’
What ensued was an hour of panic, including dramatic phone calls to Patrick – who was already on the train back to the Cotswolds – to explain that the second he arrived, we would be jumping in the car and driving straight back to London. The pains in my stomach were getting stronger but, having never had contractions before, I was still just convinced these were Braxton Hicks (false labour pains some women experience in their final trimester). There was no part of me, at all, that thought I would be having a baby that day. Call it ignorance or fear, but my brain refused to even digest it as a thought. As far as I was concerned, we were going to the hospital to be checked over and I would be back home in no time.
Kissing a sleeping Rupert on the head, I stood in his bedroom for a few minutes, breathing deeply. Then, I jutted my chin out, grabbed my hospital bag (just in case – as a Mummy Concierge, I’m always prepared!) and jumped in the car. The main thing I remember is my mum waving lamb chops at me (that she had cooked for our supper, but we hadn’t had time to eat), asking if I wanted her to wrap them in tin foil for the journey!
The car journey was horrific. I had always been nervous that living an hour and a half from London, yet planning to have our baby in the city, something could go wrong and I’d end up giving birth on the M4.
And that’s nearly what happened.
* * *
‘How’s the pain, darling?’ Patrick sounded calm and in control but inside I knew he was nervous. There was his wife sitting next to him, a contraction timer on her phone, writhing around in agony every couple of minutes. As soon as we had got into the car, we called our obstetrician, who confirmed to me, she thought I was in labour: ‘Just breathe deeply and get here as quickly as you can.’
It was now around eleven at night and the dappled lights of the street lamps reflected onto puddles in the road. I tried desperately to concentrate on the sounds of Classic FM that were filling the car, rather than the pains in my stomach.
‘Oh my God, what was that?’ Terror completely engulfed me as I felt a pop in my stomach that made me double over in pain. ‘Patrick, I’m scared. Something just happened. We need to get to the hospital.’
Pulling into the underground car park – usually swathed with cars but now eerily empty – I jumped out of the car only to feel a huge gush of water between my legs.
‘It’s my waters, they’ve broken! Oh my God, we’re going to have the baby in this car park!’
Patrick scooped me up in his arms and pushed the button to the lift furiously.
The doors to the hospital swung open and I felt myself in the arms of a midwife. Immediately, I started to relax. It was OK, I was safe. The next half an hour was a blur of hospital gowns, midwives, a quick ‘hello’ from Natasha the obstetrician before she disappeared into the operating theatre and frantic phone calls to our family.
We were going to have our baby – now!
Despite going into labour and being 7cm dilated, I was still able to have a C-section. I remember being wheeled down to the theatre with memories of Rupert’s birth intertwined with the reality of what was currently happening. Everything was slightly more rushed this time – I was later told that I actually had an emergency C-section – but a strange sense of ease fell over me as I knew what to expect and what was going to happen.
As the numbness travelled up my body, thanks to the spinal drip, I lay on the theatre table and tried to concentrate on what was happening. I knew from last time that the doctors would tell me when they were going to start, i.e. make the first cut, and that usually, all being well, my baby would be in my arms within five minutes.
Closing my eyes, I started to count.
One minute . . .
I felt Patrick’s hand squeeze mine and I opened my eyes briefly to catch his reassuring smile.
Two minutes . . .
My mind flicked back to Rupert’s birth and what it had felt like when he was shown to me for the first time. How my life had changed instantaneously and had become so much richer and worthwhile in that simple second.
Four minutes . . .
A collage of images flashed across my eyes – the women I had worked with over the last years, their babies, the relief on their faces when I assured them it would be OK. That first text message I’d receive, announcing their little one had arrived. The moment their lives changed forever.
Five minutes . . .
And here she was. I saw my little Ophelia for the first time as they brought the medical drapes down and I heard her tiny cry. Within seconds, she was lying on my chest, blowing bubbles from her lips and I felt it again: that momentous moment that will never become any less magical no matter how many times you do it: I am a mother. A mother!
To me, motherhood is the single most important role any human will ever play i
n the life of another. Nothing else can produce the joy or broken heart that motherhood allows. Motherhood is walking around with literally all of your nerve endings raw and exposed. There will be days when you want to give up, when you are just too physically tired and you wish for the life you had before children. But there are also days when you have never felt happiness like it. I love that at the age of 38, I can fly a kite whilst squealing with joy, blow raspberries, pretend to be a dinosaur, decorate pavements with chalk, eat cake covered in Smarties, observe ants, play catch, build cities in the sandbox and laugh hysterically, constantly.
When Ophelia turned one, I remember overhearing Rupert console her over a broken toy tea cup – ‘Don’t worry, Mummy can fix it. She can fix anything.’ It was one of those moments when the world slowed down around me as the words flitted through the air. Looking over at my small son, gently stroking his sister’s hair and reassuring her ‘Mummy can fix it’ proved to me just how much your role as a mother can literally change your little ones’ lives.
You are not just a mother. You are not just someone who cooks and changes nappies and gets cross at bedtime. You’re not just someone who sits up until the early hours when your child has a cough and measures out doses of Calpol whilst stroking tired heads. You’re not just someone who magically turns into a dragon and rescues numerous princesses from towers. You’re not just a sandwich maker, a bath runner, a plaster applier or a cuddle giver. You’re so much more than that. To your little ones, you are a superhero. You can fix anything. And who doesn’t want to be Batman?
Useful Resources
The Baby Book: How to Enjoy Year One by Rachel Waddilove
Secrets of the Mummy Concierge Page 21