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What a difference a year makes

and I'm not talking in an esoteric, gave up coffee, embraced juicing, 'swear by kale' kinda way. I'm talking in an HAD A BABY kinda way. Yes, grew an actual living, breathing, ten-fingered, ten-toed person in my belly*. A person who is now nine months old, still rocks the mohawk she was born with and has earned herself the hashtag #littlelenses. Not the most creative hashtag in the world for a copywriter – pretty paint by numbers – but hey, I haven't exactly been getting my prescribed 8 hours of shut eye for the past 18 months**

So, I had all these lofty ideals about having a newborn bundle of joy that slept and ate and slept and ate on a sorta 'rinse and repeat' cycle, which was going to give me plenty of time during my four months of maternity leave to reflect upon the magic of motherhood and blog about those first few weeks through baby powder scented tea breaks. Um. Yeah, right. Let's just say that – for me – the emphasis in the phrase 'maternity leave' was well and truly on the maternity part.


 Sure, through the Facebook lens, those first few weeks (and months) were a montage of perfect baby, 'besotted' mom, Valencia-filtered bliss often labeled #oopsanotherpicofmykid – accented with that emoticon thingee with the two hearts for eyes. Because, let's be honest I wasn't whispering for hubby to 'quick, get the camera' at 3am when there was crying (Little's and/or mine), poo'mageddon (Little's) or an 'outta nowhere' vom-bomb drizzling down cabbage leaf scented cleavage (mine).

New mamahood 'aint pretty... it's pretty awesome and pretty exhausting and pretty darn all-consuming but it 'aint 'pretty'-pretty. It's not like the sunset over Camps Bay or ice blocks bobbing away in a chilled glass of Life from a Stone, it's more like a Highveld thunder storm complete with lightning and remembering (too late) that you forgot to close your mommy wagon's sun roof.  [Insert freaky little rosy cheeked emoticon with big, wide eyes here]

BUT...
The thunder does subside and the lightning dissipates. The passenger seat carpet eventually stops smelling like Eau de Wet Pooch, the grey sky cracks open and that little nipple-cracking, sleep-stealing, 'what do you mean you need to shower?' person becomes just that... a person.

Sure, you read about the first smile and the first this and the first that, and how each milestone is supposed to make it all 'worth it' but as mom who really didn't 'love it'*** – I loved her (fiercely, utterly, with every millimeter of my C-section**** scar) – but I didn't love 'it'... The pads and pumps, the second-guessing and triple-checking, the deflated bean bags you once called 'breasts', the having to order 'one-handed' food*****, the mechanics of it all and the mom guilt. Wow. That's possibly the worst of 'it'.

I look back at those first 6 weeks, which I now fondly****** call 'the trenches' and I realise that it's not about it 'all being worth it' because that implies that you've given something up. For me, it's about that first time I felt 'worthy' of what I'd been given. That was the first time she just wanted me. She wasn't sick or hungry or tired. She didn't need something from me, she just wanted her mom. And, that was it... the lightbulb, the penny dropping, the lightest sprinkle of cinnamon on the perfect milk tart... I was her mom. Not dairy cow, not winder/burper/suppository-sticker-upper... mom.

I'd #blessed, but there's some well-founded controversy around that particular hashtag so let's just go with #grateful 'cos Lord knows I am. So, very, very grateful*******.



*pre-baby you may call it a stomach, an abdomen, even. Post-baby it's a 'belly'... forever more.  
** 9 months of pregnant'hood plus 9 months of parenthood
*** In reference to all the women who come up to you in those first few weeks and say 'Don't you just love it?'  – But that's a blog post all on its own. 
**** Let's just say I'm team VBAC 
***** Food that can be eaten with one hand, without the need for a knife, while holding crying/sleeping/feeding infant. See also 'drinks that come with straws'.
****** They say you forget. Turns out you do. 
******* Things I am also grateful for within the theme of this post (ie. new mom survival 101) incl. The Bub Hub, a Whats App group of women who know who they are, Baby Tastes, Pigeon's Peristaltic and Magic Beings

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