PostingOther people's children

The friend of a friend has just given birth to her first child. "How did it go?" my friend asked Sharon. "Brilliant, just brilliant," said Sharon. "No drugs. I just had faith in my own body to give birth and being so positive got me through it." As I remembered my own childbirth experience (let's just say it involved a lot of drugs), I tried to remind myself that Beanie arriving safely was the important thing, that jealousy is a sin, that my delivery could have been much, much worse, but a sense of inadequacy crept over me.

Looking after Ben has proved a breeze, at least if Sharon is to be believed. "He doesn't cry. No, really, he doesn't cry. And he's slept through the night ever since he was born." My jaw fell open when I heard that and I had to fight the smirk that crept across my face. "Really?" I managed. "That's.... unusual."

"And how's feeding going?" asked my friend, adopting her most determined smile. "Really well," replied Sharon. "He latched himself on as soon as he was born and he's been feeding for up to an hour at a time. In the day. He's never hungry at night." Baby Ben woke up at this point, perhaps aware that his food intake was under discussion. His gusty cry somewhat belied what mother had said earlier, but we pretended we hadn't heard and said nothing. After all, she had just been through childbirth, even if it was a doddle and she really had given birth to a child destined to be the next Dalai Lama.

At the sound of Ben's cry, Sharon eyed him like one might a wild animal, picked him up, shuffled her bottom around, reached for one boob, then seemed to think better of it, yanked up her jumper on the other side and gingerly unclipped her nursing bra. As she did so, folds and folds of saggy stomach flesh fell out over her maternity jeans, and I began to feel sorry for her. After some seconds of further fumbling under her jumper, she extracted a disc of sodden tissue that she placed on the floor next to me, at some distance from herself and the howling infant. I tried not to look at it, in case it put her off what was proving to be quite a delicate procedure.

After all this, baby Ben, now very wide awake indeed, decided he wasn't really peckish after all and refused to latch on. But eventually, Sharon persuaded him to feed. An expression of intense pain flashed across her face. All bragging, indeed any talking at all on her part, ceased. About three minutes later Ben lost interest and detached himself from his mother's chest. I swear a roguish grin crossed his two-week-old face. As for his mother, a look of disappointment and guilt replaced the furrowed concentration on her face. "Feeding's going really well, but still, I'm thinking of going to a breastfeeding support clinic on Friday," she said. Truly, I am a horrible person. For at last, when I heard that, I started to warm to her.

Posted 13 March 2008 12:19

Angst Breastfeeding Childbirth Childcare

Comments

Rosie said:

Oh bless her for being normal! I had warmed to her too by the end of your post. I knew immediately that she was lying. I'd actually be concerned to hear a baby wasn't crying.



My brother and his wife had their first baby on four days ago. Baby Emma is feeding for most of the night but the situation is improving after my sister-in-law discovered she was not breastfeeding properly. Everyone is tired and exhausted but it's all perfectly normal.



By the way my sister-in-law gave birth in an NHS hospital in London (normal birth, epidural)and the care was excellent. And believe me if it wasn't my brother would have had something to say about it!

Posted 13 March 2008 12:31

Helen said:

Rosie, tired and exhausted is normal, isn't it. Personally, I've never come across a healthy baby that didn't cry either.

Posted 13 March 2008 12:42

Guineapigmum said:

My mum - despite her occasional faults, she was a wise woman (comes of having 6 children, the last well into her 40s) - always said that people who bragged how wonderful their children were as babies had just forgotten. Or else they were lying. She also assured me, when I was fretting over potty training and wet beds, that the boys wouldn't still be in nappies at 20. Fortunately they were out of nappies a lot sooner than that.



Poor Sharon - perhaps if she'd admitted it wasn't entirely rosy she'd think she was failing.

Posted 13 March 2008 14:16

Erica said:

You don't mention the age of this friend of a friend, however, do you think that older mums feel like they should take motherhood in their stride?



Do people expect more of older mothers - ie they have more life experience, they are often very successful in their careers etc, and therefore motherhood should be a walk in the park?



As a society, I think we expect older mothers to find it easier, and their younger (more inexperienced) counterparts to struggle, or fail.



What do you think?

Posted 13 March 2008 14:37

Sass E-mum said:

I must really make my in-laws cross. I can't bear to admit any inadequacy to them. Reading this I realise I should lighten up.

Posted 13 March 2008 14:41

iota said:

You know, it's fascinating being in a different culture. Here in my corner of the US, birth is much much more medicalised. Midwifes hardly exist - only for women who opt out of the whole medical scene and have home births, which is a tiny tiny percentage. For the rest, many births (the majority, in my limited but perhaps representative experience?) are induced before 40 weeks, it is the norm to have an epidural at the very beginning of labour, the Caesarean rate is very high. I wouldn't have liked it at all myself, BUT - and here is the big positive - as far as I can tell, it does remove this dreadful burden of competitiveness from new mothers. No-one draws in a breath when a woman confesses to drugs, no-one looks at her with pity as if her life has been ruined if she needed stitches.



As my NHS ante-natal class sensible experienced midwife told us, there are no medals.

Posted 13 March 2008 14:44

Helen said:

GPM, I know, I know, but some of these people are so plausible!

Posted 13 March 2008 14:46

Helen said:

Erica, can't be sure of her age, she looked early thirties. She combined an air of super-confidence with obviously being out of her depth. Yes, perhaps there is more pressure on older mums (probably from ourselves), but it seems insulting to younger mums to expect them to find it harder. After all, everyone has to do it for the first time once, whatever age they happen to be at the time.

Posted 13 March 2008 14:49

Helen said:

Sass E-Mum, we've all got to keep our pecker up with in-laws, you can't go showing your more vulnerable side to people who might use it against you.



Iota, how strange, because it's a US midwife, Ina-May Gaskin, whose ideas on birth as life-enhancing rite of passage have had such a big influence on the 'natural' birth movement in the UK. I thought her ideas would be hugely popular in her home country! Ina-May has a section in her book where she says she's not encouraging pain for pain's sake, but because you're less likely to suffer tearing/stitches/after-birth problems if you go drug-free. She does have some scathing things to say about US hospital policies on birth - suggesting much of it's designed to avoid litigation.

Posted 13 March 2008 14:55

DJ Kirkby said:

You are so 'kilarious'! (thanx to N3S for the use of his phrase) I've met far too many mums like this one...

Posted 17 March 2008 08:07

Helen said:

Never been called that before, but it sounds good - thank you DJ.

Posted 17 March 2008 10:36

Post a comment

Enter your comment here.

You can use some html tags such as <b> and <i>.

Word verification

Name

Email (will not be made public)

Website (optional)

Remember me