To Wriggles' Father

Unless you live in a cave, you must know today is the day before Father's Day.

Or maybe I just notice it more as a single parent, painfully aware we are missing one half of the parenting team my daughter should have.

Normally I barely register it, so used to it just being Wriggles and I. I am pretty OK with how things are; I've never known anything other than single parenting and it works for us, maybe selfishly but works for me. That is not to say the door is closed, that I have tried to shut you out, shut you up, blot you out. You know where we live, you just don't come knocking. And right now as gifts shops around the UK and the parenting world knows it is the cusp of Father's Day. Call it a commercial ploy, write it off; it doesn't stop it hurting when it rolls around though. Because up and down the country, families, little children, big children, partners of brand new children will be celebrating the man in their lives. And we are missing one; to be honest more than missing you we are missing what we could have had. And a part of me thinks that even if you turn out to be a reformed character in years to come, Father's Day will always be a reminder for me at least of your initial lack of enthusiasm. I hope you step up, truly I do. It makes me feel sick to think my Wriggles might grow up feel ignored, unwanted, not half as special as she is. So I hope you come back for her. I wish you would. Today the world seemed alive with dads. Doting, playful, exasperated, grumbling, adoring dads. Dads there in the thick of them. Some had partners, some were alone. But they were there.

I've just put her to bed. We had a rough bath time after she refluxed and was sick everywhere, crying her eyes out. Exhausted, she fell asleep on my lap as I mindlessly watched The Voice, more listening to her breathing rise and fall than a bunch of hopefuls. Over a hour later as she snored softly and my leg went numb, I softly put her down in her cot. Nearly 3 and she still sleeps deeply like a new baby, fists clenched and face screwed up. All those nights you never saw, the baby years you will never go back. That intimacy of a sleeping child. How did you not want it? Not crave it? My favourite mornings was waking nose-to-nose with a gurgling child, sweaty curls matted on her head. I know you can't always miss what you don't know, but I can't imagine how I wouldn't need that knowing I had a child. My shoulder is now wet with her dribble. I wonder if you'd think that was a bit gross. To me it's a badge of honour.

There is so much I want to ask you but far more so much I am afraid to. In all honesty, I don't think I want to know why you have chosen to withdraw. I am certain it wouldn't make me like you any more. Is it because you're not here, you can't see her and fully experience that love? Is it because you don't understand her disabilities? Is it because you simply never wanted children? Is it because of me, because you didn't love me and therefore don't love your child like you could? All fill me with fear mixed with the unknown it might be none of them. I cannot understand being the one that lives with her, knows her so closely. I can't do anything without thinking of her.

I'm not sure what you'll be doing tomorrow. I wonder if you'll miss her; think of her first thing and last thing. As you see your own father will you wonder what happened to your own fathering? Wriggles is too little I think to understand it all yet. She certainly is not wanting for loving men in her life, thank goodness. That is your loss at this moment in time. The potential for loving divided out between others. Humans are forgiving beings though and love is more complex than we'll ever understand. I know in time if you wanted you could have splodgy hand-printed cards, bent and dog-eared crafty items, hot breathed hugs. But you have to ask; a chosen and deliberate absence deserves nothing.

I will make sure she has a good day tomorrow as always. It will be a strange one. I might have to provide all family roles but it will never be my day. I am not a father. So until you reappear in our lives, her life, it is a day to effectively forget. Just another Sunday. 

Two Tomorrow

Two. She's going to be TWO tomorrow. TOMORROW. TWO.

I can't believe it.

I feel intermittently delirious with excitement on her behalf, and sick with fear as the memories race through my head.

Two years ago, I was pretty much without a care in the world.

Today, I have a bundle of giggles who also requires a higher standard of care than other two year olds.

Why hasn't there been a fanfare, why didn't a bell toll two years ago? How can it happen so quietly, so unassuming? One day a singleton, the next a mother. One day at home, the next in hospital. And conversely, one day in hospital, the next at home. 

Two years ago I knew little of heart ache and far less about love than I would have liked to think.

Two years later I know the dizzying heights of sheer joy and pure adoration and that love is not soft, it is fierce like a tiger. I know the line of despair, terror and consuming guilt.

A little under two years ago, I bought a book roughly around the time my daughter was in NICU or possibly just came out. The Heart and the Bottle, by Oliver Jeffers. I loved his illustration style, but the book made me cry instantly. It was far more grown up that his previous works, and dealt with love and loss. 

"Once there was a girl who was much like any other

Her head was filled with the curiosity of the world

With thoughts of the stars

With wonder of the sea

She took delight in finding new things

Until one day she found an empty chair

Feeling unsure, the girl thought the best thing was to put her heart in a safe place

Just for the time being..." 

And so, the book examines how when your heart is in a safe place, say a bottle, it seems to fix things at first. Maybe at first it is necessary. But as time goes on, it dulls the world around you. You start to think less of the stars, see less wonder in the sea, and new things are left undiscovered, the world slowly drifting further and further from your island. 

After the shock, and I hate to say it, but trauma, of having Wriggles, I was very afraid to feel. I was afraid to grip any emotion head-on for the fear it would consume me whole for breakfast. All through NICU, I was so desperate to feel something, anything. I felt protective, I felt fiercely protective, but I also felt numb. I felt like I was in a bottle, looking out clearly on the world but with a sheet of glass between us. I could shout but no one could hear me. They could see me, and waved cheerfully. But I could only stand, pressed up, and wish to be free yet afraid of what was out there. I wish I could say that when I brought Wriggles home, the spell was broken. I think very slowly it began to break, but I still felt so fogged. I knew I was in love, but who knew love was so painful, so fragile, so vulnerable and so closely entwined with a deep seated guilt that threatened to destroy things? 

I can't pinpoint when the moment was that things changed, and I found the key to unlocking things. In the book, the girl finds a little friend on the beach who easily unplucks her heart for her. In my life it was not so simple. I was slowly emerging back into the world and allowing myself to sink completely into a devout love with my child, free of any terror or hauntings of the past months of NICU or birth, when she abruptly ended up slap bang in PICU. I knew then what I had to loose, once she was there and it set a terror deeper than anything when I realised that the most precious thing to me might be ripped away again. It was so clear how much she meant to me then and that maybe I hadn't been being true to us both, when I had felt too afraid to love her without abandon. Those days until she was out of the critical period were the worst I have ever felt. Going to sleep with no snuffler by my side felt so bleak, as if the world had stopped turning and lost all it's colour, smells and sounds. I felt bereft, even walking to her cubicle, without her by my side. That moment, weeks later when she came out of her induced coma and I could hold her again was in glorious technicolour. Oh she was floppy, she was pale, she was weak. But she was mine. Mine, mine, mine. I will never ever ever let you go, baby girl. 

Of course, it wasn't as simple as that was that. Having my baby back with me, being back with her all the time was the most wonderful feeling ever and affirmed how much I had given over to her, but when we got home I struggled to deal with how things had gone and fell deep into a state of mental unrest coupled with cripplingly guilt that I wasn't making the most of things. I would walk along and cry for no reason, convinced that however much I loved her it would never be enough to make up for her little life so far.

I don't know when that stopped, but it did or at least got to the point of being manageable and I was able to tell my inner jimminy cricket to sod off from time to time. I began to go to baby groups again, to venture to exotic lands like The Park, The Seaside, Coffee Shops. And suddenly things improved. I began to have conversations with fellow mums and not feel a fraud or a headcase.  I saw my baby for being my baby, not a fragile being with too many miniature scars. I began to see that there was a chance, no a fact, that she loved me back. Last birthday was still a struggle. I was doing better but nearer the date became flustered with too many memories and kept nearly blacking out. This birthday, I think I am better. I am excited. I have done present shopping. I have blown up balloons with a faulty balloon pump: now that is love. I'm wearing my heart on my sleeve now most days. It's frightening because there it is, right there, free for the taking. It's not protected, it could easily be broken or damaged. But it's better than locking it away, isn't it? Better than locking me, us, away. I think. I'm not sure every single day or in every single situation. But right now I am.

Happy birthday in a few hours, baby girl.

Music

I used to love and adore music. I grew up around music; my father sang and played multiple instruments, I had a folk upbringing being dragged from festival to music session to concert and back and one of my earliest memories is my mum, sister and I dancing like loons to Madonna on vinyl around the living room. I had my first teenage kiss at a gig. I spent my university days going to gigs constantly, standing in sweaty upstairs bars listening to the "next big thing" sipping rum and cokes and trying to rock a long shaggy fringe. I could dance til dawn with the best of them. I worked at music festivals and hung out at musicians parties. I was never without my iPod. Even for five minute journeys I slipped my headphones off and let myself fall into the world that transported me away. Music got me though some painful moments; though break ups, through let downs, through my father being desperately ill.

Then I had Wriggles and slightly lost the plot.

Music, once my saviour and emotional haven became something else. Music brought ever conceivable emotion out in me and heightened it all. It forced me to feel things I wasn't ready to feel. It made me connect to things I couldn't. It brought everything back, the good and the bad. It seemed to mock me with it's once-loved melodies whilst I sat there with tears streaming down my face.

So I stopped listening so much.

Music at baby groups made me cry. I have lost count of how many panic attacks I had listening to nursery rhymes or an acoustic guitar. Just when I had stuffed my feelings away and turned over a new leaf, it pushed them to the fore and I bit back howls.

My iPod collected dust. Sometimes I would dance to the radio on good days and Wriggles would giggle at me. I danced more and turned it up.

Instead, I sing nursery rhymes and children's songs. My own voice (tuneless, hardly musical) doesn't count and I can bellow my way through the day. As long as there is no more musical accompaniment other than a tambourine or a rattle, it's fine. 

Incy wincy spider climbed up the water spout...

And then the other night, I dug out an album I loved. As I put it on, the throat constricted and I welled off. But I didn't turn it off. It still hurt, but it also lifted my spirits to something which felt like ecstasy compared to lows of depression. It made me feel alive as a human being again, not just 100% a mother. Or maybe that should be 100% a mother which some added percentage of a person too. I still cry and it still hurts. There are many songs I can't listen too; songs that have no links or bearing with any of my experiences but for some reason still jog memories they have no association with prior.

I'm going to try though. Music is such a wonderful thing and I want Wriggles to grow up with the same fervour I did and hunger for songs and expression. Surely tears can't last forever. I am fed up of being scared and hurting.

An old favourite: Malcolm Middleton, Week Off

Without Faith

I am not a religious person.I never have been, apart from a brief zealous period in the Brownies when I wanted to carry the flag in the Sunday School parade. I completed my A Levels at an Irish Catholic school which strongly resembled a spin off of Father Ted crossed with St Trinians; lessons were cancelled if a crucifix fell off the wall ("a sign"), classes were taught via the medium of various versions of Jesus Christ Superstar (I wish I was joking) and everyone generally ran riot. I was indifferent to the religious attitudes surrounding me day in day out, but really very fond of the community I was in. I became decidedly more atheist after going to university and encountering some for more militant religious types who thought that bullying others because they disagreed was acceptable. I know these were mainly in the minority compared to hundreds of gentle, caring soul but it was an unpleasant eye-opener. My family are not religious but my parents and sister quietly have their own beliefs which they follow in ways they feel comfortable with. My father had a slightly more traditionally Christian upbringing from what he says, but his own way of doing things is more insular and private. Many of my friends have faith, from the agnostic maybes to the very committed. I like the idea, but I just cannot believe. This is not just about religion though.

I often wondered that if faced with a dreadful situation, would I instinctively call on God, a God, any God, multiple Gods, to give me strength? Did I feel atheist because I had never been challenged enough in my comfortable life?

Sadly in January 2009 this was put to the test, when my father having contracted an aggressive infected that was shutting down his body and ulcerating his heart was rushed for emergency and life-saving surgery at a major London hospital. We were were a 33% chance of survival. As we sat in the waiting room all night for 6 hours waiting, watching as dawn broke and the smoke from the incinerator several floors belows curled up into the crisp new sky, I thought many things. I wished many things and hoped many more and worried about stupid stupid things. I wanted to find an inner strength, a inner connection, an inner belief. An all-knowing kind benevolence that could be a guarantee on saving the life of this intelligent and kind man who's life hung in the balance on an operating table, at mercy of the experience and capabilities of a team of surgeons we never met before, and at the mercy of even worse: chance. Chance has no compassion. Chance doesn't care about statistics or history. Chance strikes opportunistically.

But I found nothing. Nothing but blindless hope that I hadn't hours earlier spoke my last words to the man who gave me life and brought me up. I wished and I wished; to no one but the silence that cloaked us. When finally, we were told the operation had ceased and we must now watch and wait to monitor the success of that and the antibiotics, the wishing carried on. Wishing is probably the wrong word; it was to no one but for everything. It was a mundane disbelief that this could not be happening to the strong man I knew. Almost a deliberate lack of acceptance and a need to keep going, for if we did as a family, then he would too. And in April that year, he came home.

Many times afterwards, the odd religious friend who knew about the experience would say, "so surely now you believe, now you have been spared."

I'll admit, that made me angry. Being without the foundations and faith of religion, I did not see how I 'should' be a convert. Yes, my father had been saved. By the quickness of the NHS, by renowned doctors and clever nurses. By luck, maybe, but my precision and skill also. By the brilliance of modern care and the civilised world. If I was to believe, even if I wanted to, and goodness did I some bleak days, where was this omnipotent God when my father got that ill? Who, who saves, would let someone get in that situation in the first place? My atheism was more concrete than ever, although with a much softer edge and more understanding of those who did believe. The attitudes mentioned above did make me cross, but I understood how some people needed and felt healed by religion and their faith. Me, I found the things that got me through was not belief but monotony and memories. Memories of happier times and monotony must pay bills, must eat, must update relatives, must wash, must dress.

And then Wriggles came into the world, 12 weeks early on my bathroom floor.

And again, no God even so much as poked His nose around the door of NICU. If I had had a glimmer of believing, I might have done the religious equivalent of leaving him a sherry and mince pie to entice him into my life to give me some cheer and the best present ever, that was currently fighting in an incubator. But I didn't. I couldn't. Where I imagine some keep faith, was an empty box. A hole that was filled certainly with cautious hope as days ticked by, but not directed anywhere. Again monotony gave me strength. That and an-increasingly dog eared photograph of a little scrap that was called my daughter. In order not to be allowed thinking time, I tried to do everything under the sun. Including a spate at work in the middle of the NICU stay. Partly I was run ragged about finances and a very grey-area-ed work contract, but it also offered some salvation of not having to hope or wish or think or be guilty. Hello you're through to .... can I help you? I could just burble under the surface and then run, often literally, as fast as my legs would carry me through the city centre, up past St James football ground, through the park, past a&e and up, up the stairs into NICU where the world stopped turning again until I left.

She started to look like a shrunken baby, and then came home with me. Life started up again. Things fell into place, ironed out, I tried to forget, but even if I didn't, I had a very real reminder of the happy outcome. I could pick her up and carry her around and kiss her until she got fed up with it. And then suddenly I was in my third Intensive Care unit in two years. 

I didn't find anyone there. I didn't expect too. A little of my heart was feeling hardened to the testing and mostly, I knew that the one thing I had faith in didn't have magical properties or an all-seeing benevolence, reason and complex plan. She did have ten fingers and ten toes though. Having had a taste of "normality" was what drove every day into the next day. I could barely leave her side without feeling that the distance might bring us further apart not closer, so my set up vigil provided my hope. I was touched though by a little community drawn up for me by others.In absence of local family, my circle of friends outstripped any expectation and went beyond the call of duty to bring me food parcels, sit with me silently, bring me clean socks, provide a shoulder to cry on (not that I did. That would mean admitting how bloody terrified I was) and some times not leave until 3am in the morning because I refused to leave Wriggles' side. Until the point my mother arrived, and beyond that, all I had to do was mention something and it was done. If I ever needed belief in humanity and kindness restoring, it was now. They didn't do it because they had to or had been told to or believed it would get them to a better end, but because they cared. On my first mother's day there on PICU I received three cards all "by Wriggles" because no one wanted me to feel alone.

Now that is what I believe in. Love of the here and now.

Dear NICU

Dear NICU,

I am angry. So angry. I know I shouldn't be but there are so many things I want to say to you. Maybe it's not healthy nearly 2 years on but I need to get this off my chest.

You denied me my role of motherhood. You took away my basic rights as a parent. You can SAY I'm still the mum, but how was I really being a mum just sitting? Sitting and staring. Watching and waiting. That's not parenting.

Do you know how demeaning it is to ask for permission to touch my baby? Not even hold, but touch? And when told, albeit gently, no not now, no not today, how you snapped my fragile heart and stamped over it before brushing it aside for dead.

How patronising and sad it is to have cuddles put on a rota, as if it was another chore to tick off. 15 minutes a day; 3pm after cares.

How I felt as small as a gnat, no smaller, as worthless as a flea because I wasn't breastfeeding. I couldn't even do that and you didn't care. You didn't even say, don't worry because it wasn't important as long as my child grew.

You smashed every one of my dreams and preconceptions of my first child, my baby I will never ever recover or now live. My innocence was lost within hours. It doesn't matter if I go on to have another baby; I will never get those hours back with her.

You were rubbish at sharing. All those weeks and I could only visit. Every night I had to leave. Every night I had to leave my baby with someone else. Someone very kind and very skilled but a stranger. Every night I had to accept that someone else would comfort my baby because I couldn't be there to do it, and might get to hold her precious hands while I wasn't allowed.

You had the most important job in the world looking after tiny vulnerable beings that were each the centre of someone's universe and yet you had no compassion. Day in day out some babies would get sick. Worse, some might leave this earth. Why didn't you do something? Something more?

You weren't me. You might have cared for my baby but you will never love her and you took her from me when she needed love the most.

Kind regards,

but maybe not that kind,

Mouse

ps. By the way, thanks for y'know, saving my baby's life and looking after her. Thanks for giving her the chance to live so we could both be happy today. More than happy. Um. Maybe you could just ignore all of the above?

*screws letter up and throws it in the bin*

Sigh.

Choosing to See

One dilemma for parents of ill children, particularly very young ones, is choosing how much to watch with the consent of the medical team; how long to stay and when to leave. As well as being there for your children, you have to protect yourself as you are the adult living with the knowledge, the memories and the decisions.

I was watching the fabulous yet emotionally wrenching Great Ormond Street on BBC 2 this week about pioneering and experimental surgery. One brave set of parents were asked an incredibly difficult question: if an operation was going wrong, would you want to be brought into the theatre to be with your child? I have never been in this exact position, but I have been asked a similar question. When Wriggles was in Intensive Care and had her cardiac arrest, one of the doctors who wasn't doing life saving procedures gently suggested I might want to leave.

I didn't.

"Are you sure?" a nurse gently asked. "It can be very distressing."

I stayed. To her immense credit, my best friend who had happened to be sitting with me at the time, stayed with me. I'm not sure I could watch someone else's child go through that.

Although since I have been haunted by the memories that have been fiercely burnt into my mind, I don't regret it. Some people might see it as rubbing salt into a wound, of doing further harm to yourself, of not looking after yourself. It is a very personal thing and one that I think can only be truly decided by the exact circumstances in that exact minute, and the severity and gravity of the situation. Obviously your own beliefs also play a part and your knowledge of your capabilities. 

When Wriggles was is NICU, I preferred to stay with as many procedures as they would let me. I stayed for the head scans, the retinopathy exam, the blood tests. I stayed when they had to stimulate her at times if she lost colour and had apnoeas and bradycardias. I don't think that this makes me a better person than someone who couldn't stay at all. Everyone knows what is best. In NICU, a large part of staying for procedures stemmed from a sense of guilt and a very precarious mental state that I was in. Yes, of course I wanted to stay for Wriggles' sake but also I felt I had to. As I have written about before, the very early days were a minefield that were dictated by pure shock and with no roots in emotion or rationality. The guilt from this once it passed was horrendous and taunted me that however much I loved her, I could never make it up from the ambivalence of the first days. Of course this isn't the case. I know now that shock and trauma breeds automatic responses that don't reflect love, passion, family, memory or truth. I became a little obsessed with the idea of staying by her as a mark of my devotion. Luckily, I didn't see anything too horrible and was rewarded by being able to sneak extra cuddles as compensation. Had our journey been far more rocky, it could have been a different kettle of fish so close to that time.

Intensive care at 6 months old was a different situation. I was mentally a lot more "with it" and had allowed myself to fall hopelessly in love with my daughter whom I had cared for, for four months since discharge. I didn't have the same conviction that leaving the room was the equivalent of deserting her for good. However, I still stayed throughout the ups and downs. This was very different though: in NICU, she was very sick and very fragile from prematurity. But, aside from the first week of her life, there wasn't a point that either the medical staff or I believed her life was endangered. Vulnerable, yes. Developmentally uncertain, definitely. But on the absolute brink? If anyone thought so, they never said. In intensive care though, she was in a very critical position. At the beginning of the stay, although I wanted to be with her, with persuasion I could walk away and sit next door when they intubated, x-rayed or took bloods from her. At this point she wasn't yet critical so I was confident that I could come back and she would still be there; be mine. The ties became much stronger over the coming days as she became sicker. By day 4 of PICU when she arrested, I was thrown into the dilemma: do you want to watch? 


There was no way I was leaving then. If, in that split second as I had to acknowledge, I might loose her then I wanted to be with her. I wanted the person that loved her most to be within touching distance if the unthinkable happened. It's a funny parallel: you simultaneously never give up hope and believe stronger than you have ever believed in anything in that moment, but at that same time, you have in your face the very real fact that life is hanging in the balance. It is like being on a tightrope, but hugging it tight, so tight as if you will never let go and that is what will save you. I felt the same when my dad was critically ill a few years prior-you don't allow yourself to project that life will cease but yet you know it may and the fact nips on your heels as you run on, believing in love and life. And this is the point where only you can choose what to see. Some people will need to stay; some will equally need to go. There is no wrong and no right. One parent may need one thing, and one another. Each may have regret afterwards, but that will vary massively on the outcome.


We were the lucky ones.


One minute thirty seconds.


It could have been so much longer.


It could have been so much quicker.


It could have been a different story altogether.

Could I do it again? I hope against hope I will never ever have to. It is not something I could ever forward-plan. Ours was a one-off episode and thankfully Wriggles has never been that severely ill again. Yes, poorly, yes needing support, but never like that. Watching and listening to stories of families that live that state for infinitely longer was utterly humbling. Both the children and their parents have strength beyond anything you imagine when your child is first placed in your arms, or through an incubator porthole. Love is a force that truly is incredible.

My girl?

Plop.

Through the letterbox came the written report of the last appointment at 15 months corrected with the paediatric team which had gone fairly well. They were happy to leave it until around August, just before Wriggles is 2 and seemed content that I was doing all the right things and generally being a Good Mama.

"...at clinic, Wriggles was quite happy playing on the mat and was reluctant to go back to you [me]."

Bang.

Like a dagger to my heart.

Inside I crumpled up again, momentarily back swimming in confusion, hurt and rejection. 

After I got over the initial struggle of NICU coming to terms with my very new, very surprise and very vulnerable little scrap in an incubator, I fell in love. There was never a question over that. The struggle I had was accepting that Wriggles felt anything in return for me. This struggle was a very long one and took many session of counselling, many cuddles and many many months (I would say well over a year) until she started blowing me kisses and hanging onto my leg.

 

Parenting is a very unique relationship that breeds unconditional love from the responsible carer towards their dependents. And it is always assumed that this love, in a different more taken for granted way, is returned by the children. At it's least sentimental, because in most cases, the child knows no other parents and no other love. It is the first relationship, and hopefully most long lasting and simplest yet most complicated they will ever have.


When our minds play with our confidence, cruelly, we question even these most basic facts. Whether she knows what love is, I am Wriggles' constant and the person she is with by far the most. I am there morning, I am there night. I am there in the middle of the night. Just me. Just us. I am there in sickness (either of us) or in health. I am there in good spirits and there in a grump. So knows that. As my friend V pointed out recently while Wriggles was blowing kisses to her, she knows what kisses are and distributes them so freely because we have such an affectionate relationship and to her, kisses are the norm, because she has always got them. What a lovely innocent world.

I know the report was not in any way criticising me or suggesting my daughter is indifferent, or worse, doesn't know who I am. It's my fear shouting over my rationale and that if she didn't know my world of security and comfort, she would be fearful to do any venturing. It's just that my (not so) secret fear is that deep down she doesn't understand who I am, and running on from NICU thinks that the entire world is her family, happy to embrace and be caressed by stranger after stranger taking my place.

When I first discovered the world of blogging, particularly those with a premature baby aspect, one of the most important posts I read was this one by Beadzoid. It very much spoke to me and in my dark moments when I felt very alone, offered a chink of light that someone had had similar worries to me, and if they hadn't been certified then I wouldn't either.  

This week, Wriggles is in temporary childcare; not an ideal situation but a necessary evil as she will only try and eat the printer at work. She has started to cry when I leave and I am told, stand by the stairgate for a while after looking out. It breaks my heart and I smother her with guilty kisses on return. You do care. I'm so sorry I doubted you. I'm not leaving you. I love you. The minute we are home, she scrambles away to explore new worlds and hoot down toilet rolls. Then out of nowhere gives me a big hug or grabs my hand. Then the spell is broken and she is off again, but I am revived.

Oh, to be a parent. You just can't win either way.

Then and Now

Then.

 

I miss looking into your screwed up squished "term" face, seeing glimpses of features yet to come.

I miss your snorting and snuffling through the night: you sounded exactly like a hungry hedgehog in the undergrowth!

I miss being able to be still with you; just watching and waiting for nothing.

I miss your napping, curled up on my chest. Now if you consent or are allowed to sleep on me, you are more lolloping starfish than a little dormouse.

I miss your whole tiny hand being still almost too small to hold just one of my fingers-and I have tiny hands myself.

I miss, in a wierd way, you grabbing my hair and getting tangled up in it. Things I thought I would never say.

I miss putting you down in one place and knowing you will still be there, albeit a bit lopsided in two minutes time!

I miss at least two naps a day.

I miss that utter dependence on me.

Now.

I love it when I carry you around, and you cling on tightly with your fists and wrap your arms around me like a bushbaby.

I love that you have such a personality and a huge range of expressive faces. Even your stuck out bottom lip cracks me up.

I love that you give cuddles back. When you reach out it is The Best. Thing. Ever.

I love it when you try to pull yourself up by pulling on my trouser legs.

I love it when you "bring" me a toy (normally thrusting it up my nose) you want to play with, or better still, want me to play with with you.

I love it when you copy things and do actions. You are so sweet when you hit yourself on the head with a hairbrush ('brushing your hair').

I love seeing you get excited: bet it about the swings, a train, Mr Tumble or coming home after a long day.

I LOVE it when you blow kisses.

I love it when you curl your fingers around mine.

I love that your understanding is growing each day.

I love that you are such a daredevil and scared of nothing (except possibly eating and our friend Leila's hippo torch).

I love it when you are with other little children and I can see you trying to work them out. And then trampling on them-must sort that last bit out.

All in the Mind

The human mind is incredible.

 

It is such a sophisticated thing and the most sophisticated thing is, you can't even see it. You can see the brain yes, and really clever people with whizzy machines might be able to see cells and neurons but what does our mind, our thoughts, our intellect and personality look like? Does it look different if we are ill or sad?

Mostly, the mind is incredibly clever and benevolent.

Sometimes it is also incredibly cruel.

You only have to turn on the news to see what human thinking and consequently actions cause sometimes. It might be one person or a collective. It might be one spark or a long thought out plan. And less newsworthy, people out there every day struggle with mental health when their mind is not 100% their own. It might be fleeting; it might be lifelong.

After my recent wobble, I have been feeling so much better for having some time off work with Wriggles. It really helped me reaffirm myself as Alpha Mama (alright, then: a mama at least) and in that month, I did more mum-friendly and social things than I had in over a year. I returned to work as I knew then that redundancy was imminent in around 6 weeks and figured that I could do that, knowing there was an end. I hadn't given up the idea of continuing working if something else came up and I could find appropriate childcare and I was getting maybe a little cocky thinking I had put the worst behind me. Largely, I think the "worst" is behind, just the tough bit that is easy to forget is that there is no magic moment when your feelings go away in a puff of smoke. Nothing has to happen for them to creep back out again from where they have been lurking, but sometimes they sneak up unexpected and uninvited as if to remind you who was once boss.

I had a silly hour or so today. It wasn't quite a panic attack, but was unsettling to say the least. I had a rare few hours apart from Wriggles; we had a lovely lunch together (eaten: one fromage frais, a dollop of banana & custard, several rice cakes, the corner of my panini and some multigrain hoop-type-snacks) and I dropped her off at the creche. She barely looked up, having befriended one of the staff instantly. I kissed her, once, twice, needily three times and still she didn't flinch. Off I slunk, with my tail between my legs and my metaphorical ears wilting.

She doesn't love you.

The thought hovered in my head. I furiously brushed it aside.

She doesn't care.

She's just independent. And sociable and friendly and a toddler for chrissakes. They all go through mad phases.

You keep telling yourself that. How do you even know she realises you're her mother?

All babies know their mothers. She would have known my voice, my smell. She settled with me and fell asleep in my arms.

She was born early not long after developing those senses and lived in a plastic box for two months.

That didn't stop me loving her and telling her I loved her. And once she came out and came home, I didn't stop holding her and being as mothering as I could.

I'm not talking about what you feel. She wouldn't care if you walked away now. If you went and never came back. She'd be fine. She'd still smile and giggle and laugh. How do you know she would miss you?

How do you know?

Would she?

I wish sometimes there was an off-button to silence minds.

As anxiety and growing hysteria with a growing conviction I was unwanted swept over me, I could feel myself getting light headed and shaky. Walking past a window confirmed I was as white as sheet and looked peaky to say the least. I honestly thought I was going to collapse with the intensity and was terrified that after all the good work of being able to separate mad brain from normal brain that I was falling back fast into a barren and bleak pit of despair whereby I couldn't control my grasp of my little world.  

Thankfully, my more conscious and rational self came back not long after it had left and banished any such thoughts, focussing firmly on what was happening right that second (wandering round IKEA, a task impossible with a small noisebag) and the knowledge that soon I was going to be back with Wriggles and she would be happy with that.

And indeed, she was. I picked her and smothered her with kisses and she happily held my finger on the metro home. We "fed" her toy cat rice cakes on the way back and she squwarked with mirth. I was once more myself and let out a sigh of relief and contentment. Now, surrounded by my things with my daughter sleeping softly in the next room, I know all is well. 

A blip. 

A silly blip. 

Philosophically, you could debate the notion of love, relationships, parenting, nature and nurture but I know one thing: I have a very happy little girl and happy little girls do not stay happy without love. Little girls who do not care are not full of smiles and contentment. They do not blow kisses or offer to share dribbled-on breadstick. They might scream and try to climb in the bin and ignore all authorative "No"s and happily climb on anyone's lap, but that does not mean indifference or dislike.

I've got so many happy memories with her, and I hope she has too. I know memory is far less sophisticated in the very young, but I hope somewhere in there, there are recollections of moments prized. I'm not, in them by default as the only parent there day in, day out I hope but because I have earned my place and my reward of my daughter's affection as I have loved her to the ends of my ability and further every day, and done the best I possibly can by her. I may not be perfect, but I will bloody well try to be for her sake. (Allowing bin-and-toilet-climbing excluded of course. That will stay not permitted, however many tears it produces).

Winging It

After a period of uncertainty, a wobble and some time off working, last week I finally heard what was happening in my job. Namely that it wasn't happening. Unless divine intervention hands me a new contract, as of the end of June I will be made redundant.

It is both a relief and terrifying.

A relief because I will have the pressure of trying to do it all and have it all taken off.

A relief because I will be able to drop the mask of pretending it's all hunky-dory and of course I can do everything. In five minutes. Five minutes yesterday that is.

A relief because I will be able to feel more of a mummy rather than someone who says goodbye several times a week.

Terrifying because I haven't been with Wriggles 7 days a week since she was about 6 months old (illnesses notwithstanding).

Terrified because I am worried how I will be judged-yet another single parent reliant on the welfare state for a period of time.

Terrifying because I am scared I will not be up to the job.

Terrified because it feels like so far I have been winging it and it is just pure luck we have scraped through.

What if I can't entertain her all the time? What if she's bored? What if she misses going to the childminder and is in a grump with me? I can't provide a cat or a garden swing. What if when I have no escape I tip back into fighting demons every day? What if it is years before I can contribute financially again?

Part of me is really looking forward to some time with my little girl.She is growing up so fast and it makes me sad to loose out on her new discoveries, even for 24 hours a week. When I drop her off in mornings and she instantly goes to the toy box and waves me off it makes my heart ache. Whilst I am proud of her Independence and assurance, I miss the closeness and warmth of my little baby I carried everywhere. When we are at home, she is vehement in that even though she wants to do everything by herself, she wants me to be watching, hovering in the background to jump in and rescue her or praise her achievements. I am looking forward to doing that all the time, and am hoping without the stresses of work I can throw myself into it without distraction.

But part of me is worried and feels like a failure if I am not putting something in to the bank of my own doing. I know it's just a stereotype but it does worry me that I will just be chalked up by people and written off. I never ever envisaged that I would be in this situation. I feel at odds with myself-the idealist black-and-white view against the compassionate. The maternal urges against cold hard reason. 

Sometimes being a mother, and a single mother at that, is like having two voices in your head constantly arguing. Go to bed, voices. Please.

Single Mummy-dom on Valentine's Day

However much you may like to, it's pretty hard to ignore it is Valentine's Day. Unless you are a hermit living in the hills with only goats as company, you will at least have an inkling about a nauseatingly commercial day and that there are more people holding hands than normal.

I don't actually mind.

When I was a singleton, I was quite against Valentine's day. Well, that was if I didn't have plans involving a boy, in which case it was next only to birthdays and Christmas. It seemed a way of spinning out money and encouraging people to rub salt into the single person's wounds. I would do things with girl friends, in the tongue-in-cheek way. There was one quite lovely year at university where my friend Rachel and I went to the beach for a walk and then had dinner. We bought a cheap bottle of Cava and drank it out of mugs in our art studios and hunted out some half-price heart shaped chocolates. I can't recall but I imagine we then just got pissed in the pub later and ranted about men and how come they were so bloody, well, men-like.

Since having a child, I don't even have that. Many friends are married or in stable relationships. They have their chosen partner to be soppy with. Friends not quite at that stage are busy with enjoying life, and I see them less and less. Not deliberatley, but life moves on. I no longer have the freedom to dance the night away and join them in berating the latest dastardly catch over dinner. My trips out revolve around wherever has space for a buggy and doesn't mind a backdrop of shrieking baby. Also, I am a single mummy. My ex-partner has very little involvement and our lives though do cross over, are infrequent and though civil, not heartfelt. Don't get me wrong, I have days when I am bitter and slightly devasted that things did not turn out like the stuff of dreams, but most days I just don't care.

The thing is, I quite like my life on my own.
I have found true love. It might not be the stuff that is traditionally celebrated on 14th February, but something I celebrate day in and day out. And I haven't quite given up hope. At heart, I am still a romantic. I am cyncial that Mr Darcy will come riding through my front door, wet shirt and all, but it's nice to dream. Whether he does or not, I am at peace with being on my lonesome. Today is just another day. Do I wish someone had brought me breakfast in bed and some red roses? Yes. Do I wish that I had a loving partner by my side to share my highs and my lows? Yes. Would I say no to physical affection? No. Do I wish my child was brought into the world in true love as a union of two lovers? Of course. But, life doesn't always turn out how you expect it to.

And right now, I think I'll take waking up to a dribbly toothy grin.

Love

Put quite simply, nothing makes me happier than looking into this face day in and

day out.

There were lots of things I thought I loved, Wriggles, until I met you.

Chocolate biscuits for one thing.

But then I learnt what true loves means, and to use a cliche, I am nothing with you 

now.

 I am sharing an image of something I love with Love All Blogs and Albelli. I was going

 to try and be slightly less obvious, but when I looked through all the pictures I have 

 ever taken, there is nothing better than my small Wriggly person, so here she is.

 Superior to a KitKat and better than hobnobs.

Separation

Imagine your child can't be home with you.

Imagine, just imagine. Imagine leaving your child, having to say goodbye and walk out the door. It's hard isn't it? I'm not talking walk out the door to go to work, to have a haircut, to have five minutes peace, but to walk off for the night and not return until the morning leaving a vulnerable child. I don't have to imagine, I know all too well.

Wriggles, my baby daughter is 16 and a half months old, 488 days. Since the day of her birth, I have spent 72 nights apart from her. That is almost 15% of her lifetime, not being there in the dark hours to attend to her every need. 15% forfeiting motherly duties and feeling helpless and guilt that my child may well be scared, being looked after by strangers. Of those dreadful 72 nights, 61 were spent in Neonatal Intensive Care and then Special Care as a neonate, needing to get to the optimum stage of getting home. The last 11 were while she was 6 months old in Paediatric Intensive Care. Between the remaining 85% of night times, we have spent numerous nights in hospital wards. I don't care to specify numbers or days, all I know is that it is quite a lot. Thankfully, those nights I spent sharing her bedside or cubicle in a pull-down bed, a fold out chair or a camp bed. They were tough, yes, but I was just so grateful to be with her I couldn't give a hoot. Because leaving your child at bedtime and not coming back is, well I can't find words for it.

Bizarre.

Heart-breaking.

Wrenching.

Guilt inducing.

Surreal.

Shameful.

They maybe are a few, but they don't even come close to summing up the well of loneliness and emptiness that you carry with you. Never have you feared silence so much, never have you keenly felt the emptiness of your arms.

There is no etiquette either for how to act. When Wriggles was in Special care and not in any immediate danger, there were the conflicting assumptions: 1) that life had to go on and 2) I should be by her side. It is not physically possible to spend every waking minute beside an incubator, for some parents it is not possible to spend every single day. Yet the times you are not there, you are in a daze, a sort of no-mans land. Time is not as you know it. During the SCBU stint, I had one night where I went to the ballet, taken by a friend who thought I needed distraction (she was right, it turned out to be a crucial night for straightening my thoughts. My premature daughter never left my mind throughout the whole performance, and it was this that really hit home just how much everything meant. As the saying goes, you can run but you can't hide) and for four weeks when I went a little potty, returned to work 20 hours a week in the office. That definitely was a mistake. I could barely concentrate at work, I resented being there however much I needed the money knowing that imminent single-parenthood was around the corner and a long stretch of time off work caring for a child on oxygen, and I ran myself ragged trying to simultaneously be at hospital and office and continuously running (literally, I must have looked mad) between the two, which luckily where a fifteen minute walk apart. I also had to collate all baby items that I had not yet bought in that time and rapidly sort out finances and living space. I would stay at the hospital late into the night and would sleep with a increasingly crumpled photograph of my daughter on my pillow. It was no replacement.

Intensive Care was different; her health was an utterly different state of affairs and the experience was far harder. Again, I knew she was in the best hands and separation was a medical necessity but sleeping away from your critical child is not something that is easy. In fact, sleeping may be an overstatement. Can you imagine going to bed without hope? Waking with a hollow dread-alone? A bed had never seemed bigger and night seemed cruel.

We still share a bedroom now, thankfully back in our cosy flat. At first, after the times apart it was a comfort to share a space and know I was not even metres away from her, but could reach out and brush her cot with my fingers. Now she is getting older, I just have not had time or spare hands to move my bed in my own room and give us both some grown up space. I will do very soon, it is time to move on and put some of the past to rest. The bad times are over, and we pulled through, Wriggles triumphant. Now I sleep every night with my snuffler and I love it, whether through the baby-monitor or my own ears.Until she is old enough for sleepovers or I have gone mad with baby-chatter, I will be uneasy unless we are under the same roof each night. It makes me feel safe to know she is nearby. There has been enough separation. 

This is part of the Yummy Mummy campaign for CLIC Sargent, raising awareness for children with cancer. Visit www.yummymummy.org.uk for information and fundraising ideas and search Twitter for #dosomethingyummy. No one ever expects it will be then, but what makes the difference if it is, is knowing that there is help and support available.

Go to Nickie at I Am Typecast to view others and see what she has to say.

Smile

Augustus and His Smile by Catherine Rayner is one of my favourite books. I adore Catherine's illustrations which are classic, whimsical and full of character. This is one I will happily read again and again to Wriggles; if she will let me! It is one of the very first books I bought 'for her' when she was a few weeks old and still months away from being classed as 'term'. Once she came home I would show her pictures and read the story to her when I became stuck on what else to say to a newborn. (The books say talking to them is vital, but they are not very conversational!)

Augustus is a happy tiger until one day his smile goes missing. He sets out on an intrepid adventure to find his pesky runaway grin, taking in the treetops, the desert, the sea and the mountains. Rayner's pictures transport me instantly and her colour palette (it's the former art student in me!) is gorgeous. I love then enormous pictures that you feel like you could step into.

Luckily for Augustus, his smile is not far away. As he skips through the rain, he catches a familiar sight in a puddle....you'll never guess..his smile! Have a point and a chocolate biscuit all round if you got that one. 

It is a sweet tale without being nauseatingly twee, and I think the tiger and jungle setting makes it loveable for both boys and girls alike. I like the simplicity of it and the purity. toGranted, I have never met a materialistic tiger hellbent on this season's antelope handbag, but I think it has a really strong message that all you need to be happy is to be yourself and to enjoy life and all the experiences that it throws at you. My baby daughter already seems quite keen on throwing herself into life, and she has the most blissfully gorgeous cheeky smile that I hope will be plastered on her face for eternity. 

This story reminds me of all that I want for her-happiness. I can try to provide as best as I can and doubtless will sometimes fall short. I may not be able to literally bring her the mountains, the desert and the sea (THINK of the carbon footprint, not to mention airport tax... ) but I hope I can show her, or guide her through the richness of life enabling her to sample everything.
I think children become your "puddle" so to speak. We all have moments when we wobble and fall down and feel really, really rubbish or lost. But the magical thing about being being a mummy, is that you have this little mirror trailing around your legs; an infinite reminder about what life and living is all about. When I came home from work today, my daughter didn't want to play with her toys, she wanted me. It was either one of the more explicit times that she demanded unadulterated affection, or one of the first times I've really noticed since starting to shake off the fog of depression. We played on the living room floor, she sat on me as if I was a seaside donkey and we sang, tickled and laughed. As I plonked her into the bath, she would turn to me every few seconds inbetween gleefully splashing (her new trick), offering up a huge toothy grin. It made me feel all wibbley inside. It's such a soppy cliche, but her smile is my smile. 

When she looks at me, nothing else matters. 

When I was really struggling in the past, in the thick of hospital admissions and uncertainity and horrible doubts, I never thought I would be able to think as simply as that. I have always known that was the 'right answer' so to speak, but there always seemed to be a "but". I'm not naive enough to say that's it, the bad is all gone away and shall never return, life is so more complex than that and the human mind is more complex still, but I know what is real and what really matters. 

And that is what I want Wriggles to know most of all out of life: that happiness is more important than perfection. If you can be happy and make other people happy, then you're doing pretty well. As you become an adult, then a parent, it becomes a very intricate balancing act taking all sorts of factors into play to achieve such an end. What I'm learning is that you don't have to have it nailed completely, not all the time. Life evolves, what is important one day is not the next. But that's the great thing about special people. They don't change. My baby will be my baby in 50 years time and will be as cherished then as she is now, just a lot bigger. I don't know how our lives will pan out, I'm pretty sure that there will be hardships and heartache as well as lots of fun. I know realistically I can't keep her grinning the whole way through and that by the time she is grown up, I will be one of many people who are at the core of her life but I was there at the beginning. It's quite awe-inpsiring to think I set her on this journey as she makes her world around her. To go back to the book, that is why stories are so important. They help the smaller people see and equate things in their life with names and experiences. They provide pictures and words to confusion and consolidate rules that surround them, both the spoken and unspoken. And they always have a happy ending! (Or at least the good ones anyway) I think it is equally important for adults to sometimes be reminded of that, and hark back to very clear cut facts. We all know that good isn't always good and bad isn't always bad by the time we've grown up, but sometimes you need to shake off all the heavy 'stuff' and just look back into your puddle or whatever metaphor you want for yourself, and just relish in the better times. to stop thinking and worrying for a moment and just be.

Growing up: Wriggles in Review!

It's that time of year again, spring cleaning my frankly horrific flat. In a delayed New Year state of reminiscing I have also been getting very nostalgic, not least as I've been boxed up grown-out-of baby clothes and coming across things still packed up from the last move, in April 2011. So to start the year off (again. Yes I do realise it's now 7th January not 1st) I am looking back at Wriggles' life so far and how we came to this point where we are.

The past 16 months have been very high and low. It has been a real struggle sometimes, so completely not what I expected with your first baby. I'm pretty sure this is true for every new family, but on top of this I have emerged with a wealth of medical knowledge and can hold my own in a doctors round. My mental "fog" is now much clearer than it has been. I'm not sure whether the past muddle has been PND, Post Traumatic Stress or a mixture of both, flitting smoothly from one to the other, but it has snatched memories I will never get back which makes me very sad. I am proud of where we are now: not least because I got here in the main part on my own.

As I have been clearing and sorting, I've been reflecting on what physically is truly precious to keep. Answer: not much. However there are some special things like any Mummy that I will treasure forever. Favourite tiny outfits; cot sheets that smell of baby, or at least baby scented washing powder... My most treasured possessions of the physical variety stem back from our time in Special Care. I do have things which mean a lot pre-Wriggles and more recent things, but the one thing I would be bereft of is a pink box (above). This was collected whilst in SCBU and the box and yellow diary were gifts from Tiny Lives, the charity attached to our unit that fundraises for life-saving new equipment and provides vital family support. 

In this treasure trove are the following: diary of our stay, Wriggles' hospital band, my hospital band, the information sellotaped to her cot, some prem-baby socks never worn, her blood pressure cuff, the photograph that I slept with all the time she was in (so it was the first thing I saw in the morning and the last thing at night), the probe which conducted her oxygen sats traces, her first dummies and her first (well not literally first; replica of) nappy.

It is so easy to forget how small she was. Born at 1090g (2lbs 5 and a bit oz) at just under 28 weeks gestation, she was not a lot bigger than my hand. Maybe head to toe she was two small hands long, maybe just under. She was, and this is crass to compare, about the size of a handpuppet. I don't know why it is so desperate for me not to forget, and we all know size isn't everything, but these physical reminders bring it back like yesterday. Our journeys make us who we are, and SCBU strongly shaped the early days of our lives and later ones two. Any ongoing issues now are put down directly to prematurity, so these objects from the 'beginning' are very precious for me. They make up for the absence of what I ideally wanted for my newborn. I do have some happy memories of SCBU, first cuddles, brief attempts at kangaroo care, days spent by the incubator, watching her grow and the privilege of seeing what would otherwise be a developing foetus but it is the stark reminders of the reality rather than the New Baby! cards which mean much more to me.

 

Images: 1. first dummy next to standard 0 months + dummy 2. first nappy next to newborn sized babygro, which finally fitted Wriggles somewhere between 4-5 months! 3. Look how far I've come!

My other precious object is not in the box because it is in the photo-album. It is the first picture ever taken of her, in NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) on the night of her birth shortly after she had arrived at the unit from a&e at a different hospital. She is battered, bruised and bright red. Her skin is see-through and still smeared with blood, only one eye had opened and there is a slight perferation to her chect. There are ECG leads on and a tube attaching her to a ventilator. It is not a pretty picture. But I love it. It gives me back what I wasn't there to see. I couldn't hold her hand but it does give me that piece of history to hold on to.