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whose needs now surpass any of your own i could tell you about the loneliness a singular loneliness that comes from feeling trapped by the sheer logistics of moving with an infant how it s impossible to meet a friend for a coffee or pop to the shops or pay an impromptu visit to the cinema as you once did and that venturing outside now must be choreographed and planned with military precision i could tell you that you will find yourself arguing with your significant other or your mother or anyone else close to you who participates in your care for your child i could tell you that you will understand the fight for equality in whole new ways and that no matter how good your man is and how hard he tries the bulk of the emotional labour and the care for your child the running of your household while you juggle your job will fall on you take this with a grain of salt there are full time and single fathers out there too i could tell you that your body will feel different whether you still have reserves of fat on your hips or your breasts have changed in size or volume or your stomach feels strangely squishy but when you look at it remember this body of yours grew and nourished another human being it deserves kindness too i could tell you about the guilt perpetual lingering from all the different factions of this new tribe you now belong to and beyond because you opted for a c section or you re unable to breastfeed or you re the wrong age for your child or you have to return to work or there are things you are doing or not doing that will surely leave indelible scars for years to come i could tell you about the loss of your old life your old self of old friends of time of opportunities you are no longer able to grasp because you are no longer and perhaps never again will be the priority in your life i will tell you though about the joy the pure unfiltered extraordinary joy the privilege of watching a tiny human you helped create advance before your eyes coo babble giggle play with you crawl take their first faltering steps reach for you with slow chubby arms and i will tell you about the love the enormous bottomless pit of love you now feel that terrifies you in its infinity that will enable you to cross deserts and slay dragons that has broken your heart into a thousand pieces and stitched it back together in the finest softest yarn shrouded in gossamer so your heart and how you love and how you see the world will never feel the same again walt whitman said do i contradict myself very well then i contradict myself i am vast i contain multitudes this is motherhood on matters of life and death and dignity july 8 2018 july 14 2018 sunnyrap 12 comments when my father was diagnosed with a very aggressive brain tumour eight years ago and admitted to a hospital in barnet i flew back from cairo to see him anxious and nervous he was just about walking and talking at this stage but clearly with more and more difficulty we visited him every day grateful for the wonderful team of nurses who fed and cared for him and the harried doctors who tried to keep up updated when he continued to deteriorate they told us it was time to move him to a hospice he spent the last two weeks of his life in this beautiful space a tiny oasis in the suburbs of north london where the staff did everything possible to make him and us comfortable when i found myself pregnant with my first child two years ago i flew back home to england once again and moved back in with my mum thus began a seemingly endless cycle of trips to my gp and midwife and the hospital in enfield where my mother had worked as a nurse for many years and my sister gave birth to my beautiful nieces two decades ago for all of the routine scans and a few extra ones once again i was nervous and anxious but once again the quality of care and support i received saw me through i had a complication free pregnancy and delivery in the end and i will always remember the amazing team of medical staff so many people of all colours and ethnicities and religions who made that possible i say all this because we celebrated 70 years of the national health service in the uk this week and i wanted to express my love and gratitude for this incredible service it s not a perfect system i don t think it can ever be but what it represents and what it offers its citizens is truly remarkable because of the nhs we are able to go through the most challenging parts of our lives the stuff of life itself births deaths and everything in between without having to worry about how much each stage costs or the bill at the end when you visit hospitals in the developing world and see the vast divide between poorly funded government hospitals and the few private ones offering decent care or hear your american friends worry constantly about their health care options you appreciate this fact even more for all of its much publicised problems i think the principles on which the nhs was based the creation of a welfare state to provide healthcare education and support for all of its citizens from cradle to grave remain more rather than less valid today in our increasingly divided world they seek to level the playing field so that every child can grow up assured of the right to be looked after if they need it they remain the thing that binds us as a society and remind us of our common humanity we are all born we will all die and we all deserve to live our lives with dignity i ve seen too many people in other countries deprived of this right and too many politicians now who try and argue this is a conditional right that needs to be earned it isn t and it should never be the right to live and die with dignity is perhaps the most fundamental right there is which is something the nhs with all of its complicated and occasionally cumbersome bulk still strives to deliver i for one will always be grateful i hope one day this is a right that s afforded to all notes from the motherhood trenches the first year october 24 2017 november 2 2017 sunnyrap 12 comments everything we did was a first first bath first walk first drive in the car it was like we walked into an alternate universe that looked just like the old one but all the rules were different and we had to relearn how to live soleil moon frye it is sometime in february in england and i am skipping yes skipping to the cinema cappuccino in hand like a prisoner on day release or a teenager skiving off school i am off to see la la land on my first afternoon off after giving birth to my son in october my sister is looking after noah and i am giddy with excitement at reconnecting with my old first love the cinema and at having a few hours to myself after weeks of focusing on a tiny new being another memory a frosty early morning in december around 4 a m and i am sitting up in bed bottle feeding my son with one hand and editing an urgent brief for work on my laptop with the other wondering sleepily how my life has come to this i m learning to do a lot of things one handed these days a sunny november afternoon a few weeks earlier and i m preparing to take my son out in his stroller for the first time i m terrified almost as much as when i went to the hospital to give birth to him i ve tried to avoid using a stroller in favour of an eco style wrap but noah s a heavy bub and my body simply isn t built for it i am frightened both by the sheer logistics of taking my son out and the fact that his pram symbolises to the world that i am now officially a mum right back to the beginning i am lying in a hospital theatre in north london woozy from a spinal block and the world is swaying slightly it is around midday on october 24 2016 and my son is about to be born by an elective c section on the same date incredibly as my best friend s son in a hospital in cairo exactly seven years earlier after months of trying to come to terms with this pregnancy and wondering whether given my advanced years and despite a battery of tests my child will be healthy the moment of truth is here within what feels like minutes i hear the wails of my son loud angry determined there is so much life in this cry relief overwhelms me and i feel my eyes welling up this is what i learn about motherhood that like many of the biggest life events it is both intensely profound and intensely banal at the same time my son is a constant source of wonder i still haven t grasped the fact that i grew this child in my tummy that he is a product of my husband and myself and all our forebears that he bears our genetic blueprint and yet is his own little person that he evolves every day before our eyes and yet this process of evolution though miraculous can also be profoundly tedious involving long relentless days of nappy changes and feeds and bottle washing and baths and naps and drool on what feels like a constant loop intense is the word i use most often when people ask me what it s like every emotion is heightened i spend the first few weeks of noah s life in a hazy slightly surreal but deliriously happy blur everything has gone better than i expected i am lucky with my c section recovery my child who is perfect spends most of his time sleeping and i am in awe every time i look at him i read somewhere that having a child releases similar hormones to falling in love for women anyway despite the bone wrenching tiredness i feel like i m floating on air my heart flutters every time i see him love songs take on a whole new meaning and there is a smile on my face and a softening in my heart that can only compare to being utterly and completely in love but when i try to write about my experiences of motherhood i hit a block i find i m still struggling to comprehend the enormity of it all to describe exactly how it feels i feel an obligation to be completely honest to keep it real i want to avoid the cult of motherhood the dreamy idealised version of beautiful young mums bodies already back in shape beatifically breastfeeding cherubic infants the reality is of course more complex you may not be able to breastfeed like me your stomach will feel like a lump of dough for the longest time there will be poop lots of it explosive at times and spit up and projectile vomiting and frantic attempts to burp him at ungodly hours your bub will cry at times for no discernible reason as will you you will argue with your partner also for no discernible reason sleepless nights and rioting hormones will play havoc with your emotions when i ponder later why it s so important to me to write about the bad stuff as well as the good i realise a big part of me feels guilty i think about my friends and people i know who desperately want a child but can t have one i didn t seek to be a mother and i didn t invest any time and energy in becoming one and yet i have become one despite myself and so i hold back from celebrating my new status too much it seems unfair when i finally write a brief piece that i think is relatively light and send it to my sister for feedback her response after a long pause and for the first time with my writing is negative it s so dark she says carefully perhaps you could try and inject some humour in it in late april in cairo as the season turns from spring to summer and the shadow of ramadan looms depression strikes i am exhausted from too many interrupted nights and a sleep deficit i wonder if i will ever remedy my usually moderate workload has tripled because of a forthcoming event and i ve barely left the house in days most of my closest friends have long since left cairo and i haven t had the time to make new ones friends contact me from abroad but i never find the time to write or initiate a call my husband though supportive works long hours and it is exhausting to constantly renegotiate our relationship as new parents i am lonely and tired and i miss my old life one night after i put my son to bed i drink half a bottle of wine and listen to my favourite maudlin songs and find tears rolling down my face i spend a few days like this but throughout it all my love for my son and my happiness when i see him never dissipates this is another truth about motherhood i learn it is a paradox it is possible to feel intensely lonely while realising that you will never be on your own again it is possible to grieve your old life your old body the old you and all the freedoms you took for granted while taking absolute delight in your child and loving him like you ve never loved before the truth is that there is no greater change in a woman s life hormonally practically physically and emotionally than giving birth there is such a profound shift in your circumstances and such a huge sense of responsibility for the tiny creature now dependent on you that it is almost impossible not to feel overwhelmed i read somewhere that the first year of motherhood is the loneliest and the most crippling for your self esteem and i understand this in my son i have gained the world yet as a new mother i am more vulnerable more emotional less confident less myself perhaps than at any other point in my life i suspect exhaustion has a lot to do with this but i am also an accidental mother singularly unprepared for this experience a woman who has carved out her whole life on twin poles of freedom and independence in this year i often feel like i have neither but as much as the lows cripple me sometimes the highs sweep me away also on great clouds of sweet fluffy baby goodness there is so much sheer joy in a child of a different kind than i ve ever experienced before how do i explain the beauty of a baby s babble to someone who has never heard it the delight i take in the very first sounds he has decided to make or the rapture of every milestone we experience together his first bath his first smile his first tooth the first time he puts his hand in mine or reaches for a hug the first time he rolls over the first time he says ma ma his first attempts to crawl or stand up and most of all his giggle the ecstasy of a child s uninhibited chortling which is now my favourite sound on earth as much as i ve cried in this first year not just in my own life but at every terrible sad story i hear or read about because the process of giving birth also seems to loosen your tear ducts and leave your heart permanently exposed so my already empathetic self is now so sensitive it hurts i have laughed too because it is impossible to feel anything but joy when i see my son impossible not to try and make him giggle as i go through my daily repertoire of silly sounds and made up words and games of peek a boo and impossible not to feel a new sense of contentment when i am alone with my husband and son after years of struggle to imbue meaning into my life there is a singular peace in reverting once again to a family unit as the seasons shift and my son grows stronger and more resilient as he literally begins to feel more solid in my arms so ironically do i it isn t until noah s eighth month or so that i ...