Motherhood: Pregnancy part tWo

Have you ever dreamt that you’re driving, despite not owning a license or driven a car before in real life? You’re doing it, and you’re weirdly in control - all the while acutely aware that you’ve not actually been taught how to drive? Every now and again, you think ‘shit, I can’t drive - what am I doing?’ But you keep going, hit a few curbs, but keep going nonetheless. In your dream, you own the road. Liberated and licence-less. You wake up convinced that you’ve driven before at some point in your life, but you’re unable to identify a real memory (because you haven’t). Well, my third trimester felt a little like that - an unauthorised joyride. I didn’t need a licence to do this, I didn’t need to complete a course.

I always thought I’d require a sit-down explanation of what ensued, an in-depth, step-by-step guide, with visual aids to keep my attention. Someone to teach me how to teach myself. But I was doing it, without these things. My body was on high anti-bullshit alert. I rarely missed a moment to handle ‘pregnancy admin’ (which no-one told me is basically a full-time job, like, the number of to-do lists I wrote made me feel insane). It felt like my body had muscle memory from a previous experience that I could not identify. I know maternal instincts are a thing, and despite never really having a distinct yearning for children in the past, they played into this to some degree. I was convinced that someone had high-jacked the real me and put a happy-go-lucky, ‘let’s do this,’ ‘things will all work out’ robot in my place. I was weirdly in control, my mind occasionally intercepting, thinking, ‘shit, I can’t do this - what am I doing?’. I’d developed a familiarity with self-doubt over the past 7 months, though, so I kept going regardless. The resilience inevitably becoming the learning curve needed to trust my own capabilities

I remember going to sleep at 2am, and waking up at 6am, writing my University dissertation. Getting ready at 9am, to be at work for 10am. Getting back home at 5pm, to eat and continue my dissertation - writing until 3am, starting work at 12pm the next day. There were many times where I admitted defeat; I was going to drop out. My back hurt, and baby-brain made it impossible for me to write anything sensical. I’d take a break here and there - due to exhaustion and obviously considering the effect of stress on the pregnancy, but eventually, crawl out of my hole and continue. Deep down, I knew that once Zola was here, I wouldn’t try again (I commend those raising kids who gain qualifications - I mean, just wow). The prospect of repaying four years of university fees, with no degree to show for it, haunted me like the Grim Reaper, except instead of a scythe, it just carried a white flag with the Student Finance England logo on it. I also just couldn’t be sure if my Jamaican mum would’ve survived a combination pregnancy drop out from her only child within the same year. So I obviously had to consider whether it would be worth risking her life, too.

My manager let me take a break from my shift on results day; I stood at the shopping centre entrance, biting my nails and angling my phone for the best signal. I remember pacing up and down the shiny granite flooring, palms sweating, as I refreshed the results page a thousand times. Half expecting not to even see my name show up. When it did, it was like my whole body unfurled in an expression of relief. I felt my muscles breathe, releasing months of prolonged tension and uncertainty. Two streaming tears landed simultaneously in each corner of my grin. I couldn’t believe it.

The last few weeks of my third trimester were for nesting and for my stomach to grow larger than I could have ever thought possible. Zola was very overdue, so my partner and I did all the things; walking, dancing, spicy food, sex. The only thing that worked was the breast pump method. I beamed with joy feeling my first few contractions (yes, they were painful, but after almost 2 weeks of trying to naturally induce- I was overexcited). Zola arrived 46 hours later, birthed at home, in water. She was tiny and perfect. I watched birth videos and vlogs in preparation. Through these videos, I learned of the overwhelming sense of love, often experienced when your child is placed in your arms for the first time: an ‘unexplainable’ and ‘extraordinary’ feeling. I was so looking forward to that. But in all honesty, my brain was absolutely scrambled from the 5 canisters of gas and air I’d huffed (one nurse commenting on it being the most she’d seen used in her 10 years of midwifery). I looked down at Zola, shattered. I remember thinking, ‘Oh my God, she’s real. Hold on, What do I do with a newborn again? Oh yeah, feed. With. Breast.’

Around 3 days later, running on approximately 10 minutes of sleep, I leaned over my bedside to peer into her Moses basket. I listened to her breathe, the snuffly, grunting newborn exhales. I traced her forehead with the tip of my index finger. I examined her minuscule fingernails and wrinkly baby knuckles. I wanted to wake her, but knew I couldn’t - so opted to gaze. And in gazing, it came to me, 3 days late. That feeling I’d been promised, the unexplainable one.

Motherhood: Pregnancy part tWo

2020

MOTHERHOOD: The home-birth edit ft. georgia roses