Looking Back: My first year being a mum

I cannot believe that I have reached this point! This week is Zoe’s first birthday, so I thought it would be a good time to look back and reflect on what my year with her was like and how I experienced my first year of being a Mum.

How I felt becoming a mum

Becoming a mum has been a huge adjustment (as would be the case with most first time mums!) both physically and mentally. The biggest issue for me was mentally wrapping my head around the fact that I was a mother now and had another life to look after. As most mums would agree, it’s hard to deal with the concept of motherhood and what it means to set yourself aside and be selfless for another. The fear that I experienced in the first trimester was very real. I wouldn’t say it was anxiety because it never manifested to that level. But it’s knowing the fact that one day your child is going to die. You have brought this beautiful life into the world and one day it’s going to leave it. I remember having that fear everyday in the back of my mind. I remember talking to my mum and asking her “how do you deal with being a parent and never knowing if today’s the day your kid is going to die?” She told me that it’s always there but you just get on with it. And she was right (as all mums are!) You just get to the point where it’s too exhausting to think like that and you just have to roll with the punches as they come. That took a long time to adjust to, but I think I am comfortably there now.

I went through a bit of an identity crisis too. Like most mums, I definitely feel like I lost a part of myself. It’s like you are not the person you were before- now you are just “mum” a nappy cleaning, milk making machine. But gradually as the year went on, I felt more and more of me come back. Slowly, drip by drip. It’s still not all there but I think it never will be. As we know, motherhood changes you. I remember having conversations with James (quite recently too) about how I feel that when people see me with Zoe, they don’t see me as her mother. That I don’t look “enough” like a mum. My style really hasn’t changed since I was teen- it has gotten ‘milder’, but I still have crazy coloured hair, I still wear black skinny jeans and hoodies. I said to him how I feel like when people see Zoe and I together they must assume I’m her aunt or carer. An addition to this is how I behave with Zoe in public. I chat to her, I play games with her. The onetime we managed to go to the play centre I got down and crawled with her, playing with her and rolling her around, she was having a ball. But the other parents tend to just stand and watch, which made me feel like a doofus. Should I not be doing this? Am I acting too much like a child? I am by no means trying to throw shade to other parents, who I am sure are having a much needed break, but it makes me feel like they’re watching me and judging me on being “too much” (an issue I have had my entire life- I am often “too much” for people.) But I think that this at its core is a big problem. Society tells women what they should do and how they should behave, and that most certainly does not end with motherhood. In fact, I would say it increases tenfold. The push and pull from the kind of mother I want to be, the kind of mother Zoe needs me to be, the kind of mother society wants me to be, and my own non-mother self pulls in all different directions. It is something I am still working on, and probably will be working on for a while. But for the time being, I am probably at my most comfortable point in my “being a mum” journey.

My first day with Zoe and first day being a mum

What Zoe was like

What can I say? Zoe is just been brilliant this whole time. Yes, there are tough times. And yes, those times are getting tougher with age. That first molar was a doozy and those 5 days of not eating or sleeping made me worried sick. But she’s been a champ. She is such a happy little ray of light. Everything makes her laugh, and she seems to find true joy in the simplest things. Thinking about her now makes me smile so much and I just know she’s going to be a little comedian once she starts talking. I’ve watched her personality grow, and as strange as this sounds, I can actually use adjectives to describe her now. When she was a newborn, like all newborns, she just kind of lay there. But now I can see her work things out. I can see what it is that makes her laugh, what makes her upset. She’s resilient, she doesn’t give up easily. If she can’t do something, she keeps trying, again and again, day after day until she can. She’s curious. She loves looking at and inspecting things really closely between her tiny fingertips. She’s LOUD. She loves to chat with people, gives strangers friendly smiles at the shops, and always wants to join in the conversation with her babbly screeches. She devours food. Anything and everything, she’ll take it. Hopefully she doesn’t become a picky eater later on!

We knew from pretty early on that she was a “chill” baby and luckily that has continued throughout the year. Nothing really fazes her; she could be pushing out a tooth and you wouldn’t know- which has happened on occasion! I have stuck my finger in her mouth to find a little razor poking through even though she’s had no symptoms. Although she is getting fussier now; nappy changes are a nightmare, and being mobile is not helping. Yet it is such a joy to watch her flourish and thrive day to day. To see her grow and learn, see her play and laugh.

This kid is just too cute!

How Covid has affected our first year

I think I can’t really reflect on Zoe’s and my time together without mentioning Coronavirus. As much as I don’t want it to infiltrate yet another aspect of our lives, for Zoe and I, Covid is are wrapped up and twisted into all of our experiences. With lockdowns and restrictions governing what we do and where we go, it has really made an impact on how Zoe and I have worked though this past year. Some parts of me are sad: sad that we have not been able to experience so much- going out for coffees, playing in play centres, seeing friend and other babies. As she gets older, I feel that more and more. Now that she is actually able to play on play equipment and enjoy others’ company it makes it harder to not let her do that. For the first few months the lockdowns really worked in our favour; we wanted to stay home and be in our own little bubble so that we could take care of her. But now it is getting tiresome. Now there are more hours in the day to fill and less things to do in them. She wants to get out and explore and I want to show her things and get her curiosity ticking. One day we will!

I can honestly say that 1 year ago I could not see this day. I couldn’t see how Zoe would be one. Couldn’t fathom that she would be anything other than a few days old and how our life could be different to the constant wakings, constant feedings and constant pumping sessions. I remember how each week it was a different issue- burping one week, settling another week, dry skin another week. And while somethings haven’t changed a lot has, and it’s reassuring to know that most problems don’t last forever so there’s no point in sweating the small stuff – just enjoy and cuddle your child!