Growing Up On The Job

So I'm actually just about getting over the shock of our relatively easy bedtime- you know those days where you just nail it? Nap times on schedule, lovely snoozes in the pram and then our bath, book and bedtime routine executed to perfection. Smashed it; one hundred Mummy points.

Back to the topic in hand.

About a week ago now, I realised something absolutely frightening: I have become a grown up. Until recently, I have been a thirty year old, Never-Never-Land living teenager trapped in a bloated, stretch marked and slightly wrinkled older woman's body. Farts still make me laugh, I giggle internally every time I'm teaching a lesson and am in the process of writing 'analysis' on the board; 'a-n-a-l... chortle.'  But during a recent visit to see an old school friend following the birth of her second very gorgeous son, a dawning realisation that I'd entered adulthood hit me in the face like the smell from one of Freya's particularly shitty nappies. I am a Mum. I am a kid raising a kid.

Jenny's oldest son, Alfie, playing with Freya on our visit.

Our visit to see Jenny was so lovely; we had bumped into each other a few times since leaving school fifteen years ago, but this was the first time we had spent quality time together and once again, it was the arrival of our children that brought us together. This isn't the first time a reunion like this has happened either. I have reconnected with so many old friends and connected with the most unlikely of new friends since Freya arrived- there's something about that shared experience of pregnancy, giving birth and parenting that creates a really special bond. We are like some sort of double-hard mega gang (not to mention we all pushed a watermelon sized object out of definitely not a watermelon sized hole. That's a pretty serious shared experience.)

As we sat there, holding each other's babies and sharing labour stories, I faded out to another one of my internal montages of all the times we had spent together at school. The evenings meeting up to practice singing for the school variety shows- which sounds cool until I point out that this was pre-Nirvana and Offspring discovery and we were singing Celine Dion duets. Two twelve year old girls, fighting over which lines we should sing: "BABY THINK TWICE..." *that so should have been my bit*

Then there was those years later on, getting drunk off White Lightning and Mad Dog 20/20, talking about unrequited love and how we were at a clear disadvantage in the love stakes from both being 5"11 and our crushes barely scraping 5" at 15. Now here we are, talking about if our babies sleep through the night, which nurseries we will send them to and breast feeding vs. bottles. It was amazing and crazy and a little sad all at the same time. Those teenage years I spent desperate to grow up and wishing my days away had flown by and all of a sudden two decades have passed. Two-actual-decades.

The arrival of Freya has taught me so much about myself and about life, what with my new adult perspective. One such realisation is that my body is amazing. For all those teenage years of hating my body, I now look back and realise I wasn't fat, I wasn't ugly and my ginger hair wasn't that awful. It's strange because now I do have a fat wobbly belly, I do have cellulite and my face is past it's best before date, yet I'm more comfortable with it all than I've ever been in my life. I may not totally like what I see, but I'm so in awe of my body for growing Freya.

Reading Festival 2010.

But probably the most important thing I've come to realise is that time goes so quickly- I mean, I swear two minutes ago I was a care-free teenager. Now, I've become acutely aware of my own mortality and unlike a few years ago where I made debauched decisions with little regard for the consequences, I now know that I won't last forever. Time is absolutely vanishing before my eyes. It seems like yesterday that I was a twenty year old girl, just broken up with my first long term boyfriend and going on a holiday with my best friend to Malia to recover; all the fishbowls, the bar crawls and the dancing on bars. It feels like yesterday that I was in London trying to make it in the world of PR and A&R; the mornings going to work after being out all night and realising that an hour journey home to Greenwich would leave me approximately 6.5 minutes to sleep before having to make my way back into Holborn so thinking: "Ah- screw it... one for the road!" And it virtually WAS yesterday that I was absolutely rotten drunk, crowd surfing my way to the medical tent at Reading Festival. All the beers. All the Sailor Jerry's.  All the hangovers.

Partying every weekend.

I'd been totally putting off growing up when along came my little bundle of life-changing joy. Gone are the days of random conversations with total strangers in the girl's toilets on a night out- telling each other our life stories, giving love advice, drunkenly shaking them and slurring "you are gorgeous do you hear me? Don't you ever say you're not 'coz you are. You're the best human I've ever met" and declaring love for one another. Now these random conversations with total strangers are usually with other women my age who are also pushing a pram, also covered in milk spew and make up half way down their faces as we clock each other in a cafe with that desperate look of: "This is well 'ard...be my friend!"

I didn't know when to stop!

I genuinely have had to grow up 'on the job'- this is like the scariest, most challenging work-based training you could imagine. I have to make decisions not only for myself now, but for a whole other person and they're life or death survival decisions too. I can no longer spend money like it's going out of fashion. Unlike the old me circa. 2008 who was up to her eyes in debt and overdraft, I now have complete control over our family finances (which includes the use of spreadsheets *shudder*) and Kris even gets pocket money if he wants to go out. I can't roll in at 4am after my husband desperately tries to drag home from the pub only to be told: "Look I'm a young woman Kristian- don't hold me back! I'm still in my twenties unlike you [harsh] and I'm going to stay out and have fun OK!" I'd put money on the fact he is not going to miss those nights.

Me and my girl: my world.

The truth is, twenty-something year old me dreaded this moment- the moment where I would be house bound by 6.30 every evening on account of a baby's bedtime. The moment I had to say 'no' to those spontaneous nights out or road trip suggestions. The moment I couldn't go out for dinner and get drunk with friends on a weekly basis. But guess what went and happened- I turned into a real grown up. My priorities changed and now I want nothing more than to be 'stuck' in the house with my new little family. Yes, there are times when I'm sat looking at the photos of amazing drunken nights out on Facebook and think about how much fun it would be to have been there. But I have been there and done that and will do it all again at some point. For now, I am constantly aware that Freya is probably going to be my only child and every first I experience with her is also the last-first I will ever experience as a mother. When I'm near the point of tears from the frustration of spending an hour trying to get her to sleep, I remember that one day very soon she wont need or want me to hold her to sleep. She may even refuse to cuddle and kiss me at all.

In the transition from twenty-something party girl to mother of one beautiful daughter, I learned a huge lesson in selflessness and that's, like, a well grown up thing to learn init. Give me a few years and I'll be making special appearances as 'Party Holly', but for now: enjoy your hangovers. I'll be the smug one, fresh as a daisy on a family day out somewhere and loving my new life with my girl.

Date Night: Our First Night Without Baby

"You have to make time for 'you' and remember you were a married couple first."

The wise words of my Mum.

Of course she is absolutely right, but at six weeks after giving birth to my baby, this just didn't seem natural at all. However, I knew I needed to get out of the house and Granny was desperate for some alone time with her 'wee angel.'

Pregnancy was an incredible experience for me. Despite the morning sickness, the painful stretch marks covering about 99.9% of my body and the 'fanny daggers' (those uncomfortable shooting pains down below from baby sitting on a nerve. Her head was so low in my pelvis from 34 weeks I actually sometimes wondered if I'd go to the toilet and find a leg hanging out. Googled it: not possible), I will always look back on those nine months fondly.

Crazy 41-weeks pregnant lady building flat pack furniture in our new house the day before induction.

I spent almost ten months knowing I was never alone. I had a little heart beating inside me, a tiny human that could already recognise my voice and would kick whenever I sang 'My Girl' or played her 'Aqueous Transmission' by Incubus. It  was a constant comfort knowing she was there and I would talk to her all the time. I even had a book by Dr. Seuss that was specifically written to be read to bump: "Oh Baby, the Places You'll Go- A Book to be Read in Utero." Kris read it to her almost every night.

But as much of a blessing and miracle as pregnancy was, when I reached 42 weeks, I was fed up of feeling like Sigourney effing Weaver in 'Alien' and wanted my little ET out of me. The kicks stopped being cute when I could see actual human toes under my skin. But she wasn't coming out of there fast- she was quite happy on her little All Inclusive Babymoon- food and drink on tap. Why would she want to come out? So I ended up stuck in hospital for a week of inductions. I tell you what- my foof has never seen so much action; the world and it's cousin were down there having a good old prod and poke at one point or another. I wouldn't be surprised if the caretaker had popped in for a nosey. It was like some really shit orgy.

The family have their last rub of the bump before the fourth and final induction.

Four days, four inductions and fifty million internals later, my girl arrived in all her beautiful ginger glory. The moment I saw her face, I said: "Of course- that's what you look like, little one!" (shortly followed by asking the registrar, Dr Will, if I could have sushi again now, explaining the uncanny similarities between my placenta and rare steak and asking him on a scale of one to ten how gross my fanny looked. Gas & Air- I love you.)

I felt like I'd known her face my whole life. 

Granny holding her first born grandchild minutes after she was born.

Freya Ivy Rose

Suddenly I had my body back. I forgot how it felt to bend in the middle and nearly rejoiced when I realised I could lean down and put some socks on. Oh and lying on my front in bed- the most blissful feeling in the world. But that moment of freedom wasn't to last-  Freya still totally owned my ass. I was a walking milk bar- every hour was happy hour and my little cluster feeding guzzler just couldn't get enough of the stuff. A total milk drunk. (It does taste amazing though, like the milk leftover at the bottom of a bowl of Frosties. So I get it.) 

Six weeks passed by and our friend's band 'Radar Test Target' were playing a gig at a local venue where there would also be a street food festival going on just around the corner. This was the perfect opportunity to get out and have a break- have some couple time. But the day arrived and the feeling of excitement I had been anticipating didn't seem to happen. The bond between Freya and I after spending the last eleven months together was so strong that being apart from her felt unnatural.

              I had spent the days leading up to the event pumping milk ready for my night out. I felt so sorry for Kris- there really is nothing sexy about watching your wife with an electric pump fixed to her udders and being milked like a cow. [As an aside it really annoyed me that he wouldn't try it- so you'll drink milk from a cows tit but not from your wife? Also, who actually figured out you could even drink it? *picture in head of prehistoric man lying underneath a cow and milking it straight into his mouth for the first time and thinking, 'Yeah, it's good that.'* I majorly digress.]

The hours before we went out I was desperate to get some more milk pumped just in case, but nothing seemed to be happening. The stress and anxiety of leaving her had clearly affected my milk supply and even Freya was picking up on my nerves and getting really naggy. My outfit didn't even occur to me until an hour before leaving when I realised I had nothing that would fit, resulting in my whole wardrobe on the floor and me sitting in a nest of maternity wear and size 40 clothes covered in baby sick absolutely sobbing.

It didn't help that earlier that day I had gone to get my hair cut so that I looked like some kind of super hot MILF on my first night out in months. I had internal slo-mo montages of me walking into the pub, hair blowing in the wind a la Beyonce, passers by totally awe-struck by how flipping fantastic this brand new mum looked.  Not to mention skinny. But the really lovely stylist made a major mistake and cut the front of my long hair into a bob on one side. I looked like some kind of asymmetric German lesbian from the 80's- mullets weren't sexy then and they aren't sexy now. So that was the shitty cherry on the shitty cake. Oh and then it rained.

At this point, the succession of disasters just became laughable and a feeling of SOD IT washed over me. I might be wearing a maternity top with sick on the sleeve cleverly concealed by my leather jacket (which has either shrunk in the wash or I've also put on weight on my shoulders), but I was going to go on this night out and bloody enjoy it of it killed me.  I ran out the door, making no eye contact with baby and we made our way, in the rain, into town. I absolutely felt like I'd left a part of me at home and unfortunately it wasn't my spare tyres of fat arse. It was like I couldn't get enough air in my lungs.

It was amazing to see all our friends. For the first time in six weeks I felt like young fun me again.  I'd even expressed enough milk that I could have four whole shandies, which went straight to my head after not drinking for over twelve months. I was a veritable party animal. 

At the start of the night, we bumped into another friend who had a baby not long before me. As I stood there chatting to her, her gorgeous baby started to cry in her pram and that oh-too familiar feeling of pins and needles covered my body. Total panic. Where is my baby and how could I have left her? But thankfully the feeling lasted for seconds and once that moment had passed, I realised that my boobs were indeed leaking. The sound of baby had actually made me leak milk- they weren't lying, it's a real thing. In true Holly style, I made a point of telling everyone that was in hearing range of this fact. In my head that meant I couldn't get embarrassed, not if I told them. 

The night was great and despite constantly checking my phone, it felt so good to watch the band play, dance with friends and catch up on what I'd been missing- which turned out to be, well, not much. Our social scene kind of carried on as it was whilst I was carrying a baby and being torn in two.  But the peak of night out piss-take was not long before we left. My boobs were at bursting point because I hadn't fed her for five hours and it was agonising; cut to me in the ladies bathroom, milking myself into the toilets. What have I become? The glamour was overwhelming.

The beautiful walk home along the River Severn.

At ten o'clock, I'd had just about enough of being the old me. I wanted my girl and was ready to go home. We left, letting everyone know that we 'had to get back to the baby'- I'm now that person on a night out. How times have changed. We walked home along the river and stopped to pick up a pizza en route just like the old days (only this one ended up in my mouth and not as a veggie supreme pillow and matching duvet. Oh those good old drunken days.) I burst through the front door to find my Mum gazing adoringly at our sleeping baby. She hadn't even noticed I'd gone.

We didn't venture out again for another ten weeks when we celebrated our three year wedding anniversary. We went for beautiful food at our friend's restaurant, Momonoki, and wandered around the town having drinks and enjoying each others company. At one point we realised that for about four hours, we hadn't uttered the words 'poo' or 'nappy.' It felt so good to be Kris and Holly the couple for a night.

Gorgeous anniversary food at 'Momonoki'

Date Night: celebrating three years of marriage.

So my wise Mum was right- couple time really is important. Whether it's once a month or every other month, remember your little human was born out of love and that is still a priority; happy parents means a happy baby. The wonderful thing about coming home now is that our little girl is there and the main challenge is not waking her up just to cuddle her cute little face off.

Mama La Rouge tips for venturing out for the first time after giving birth to your baby:

• Make sure you feel ready to go out. It's quite an intense feeling of separation and you need to be certain you're ready for that. I know women that were totally ready just a month or so in and other's who couldn't leave their child until way after their first birthday. Both are just fine.
• If you're breast feeding, make sure you start pumping a good few days in advance and freeze it/store in the fridge for up to five days. Don't make my mistake of leaving it until the last minute; the pressure to produce could be counter productive.
• Depending on how long you are out for, be prepared that you may fill up with milk to bursting point. You may want to take a hand pump or hand express, especially in the early days.
• Take it at your own pace- don't be pressured into staying out longer than you want to. This is a big step you're taking and you should feel proud of yourself for getting out there. Baby steps.
• Get your OH to give you some pamper time. Have a bath, do your nails, spend time getting ready and picking out an outfit. You may feel self conscious wearing something you haven't for a year, but trust me you are rocking it. You just pushed out an entire person; you'd look like a rock star in a bin liner. 

Parenting 101: I Never Got My Copy

My first post gave you a little insight into the incredible roller coaster four months I've experienced as a newbie mum. The elation, the depression and all the soiled nappies and milk burps in between. But I barely touched on the level of crazy I actually reached during those introductory months of Motherhood. 

All new mums are nervous, that's a given. It's all totally alien. Buying the 'how to' books, whiling hours away on Baby Centre forums and googling every move and sound your baby makes. But I took this to a whole new level. I'm talking 'coo-coo', someone give the girl a Valium type levels of cray cray.

As I mentioned in my first post, my 42 week long pregnancy revolved around studying and practicing hypnobirthing and preparing myself for labour. I was an expert in the art of taking my mind to my 'happy place'; I could breath away pain [in through my nose to the count of 4, out through my nose to the count of 8] and feel absolute calm through the practice of rainbow relaxation [breath in the colour of blue, glide through fields of purple, breathe love down to your baby.] I was able to completely zone out and enter a beautiful state of meditation and despite the horror story labour that was to unfold, I still absolutely believe that these hypnobirthing techniques allowed me to remain totally calm and silent during labour and manage the pain of contractions. But amongst that stack of well-thumbed pregnancy and birth books on the coffee table, sat not one single book entitled: "What The Bloody Hell You Do Once The Baby Is Here: 1st Ed"

But I was told I'd 'J Breathe' my baby out on a chuffing rainbow! A baby that didn't shit or cry or need feeding every 2.5 minutes... Why did nobody tell me I had forgot the bit when she actually arrived?

Now I'd like to specify at this point that I'd managed to get to thirty without ever having held a newborn baby. Never changed a nappy, never seen a baby be breast or bottle fed, never thought about what they do in a day and certainly never considered what night time with a baby might look like. This was absolutely foreign territory and almost as soon as I arrived home, I had to radio in the troops for back up and supplies (meaning my Mum, chocolate and a shed load of it.) Mum was here pretty much constantly. She would stay over and sleep in my bed with me when Kris was on nights because I didn't want to be alone. She likes to laugh now at one phone call she received from me when we first arrived home from hospital: "Yeah Hi, Mum. Oh yeah we're fine thanks. Uh- Mum... what do I actually do with her when she's awake?" This was a real thing. I had no idea.

Part of what makes Kris and I a perfect match is that we have the same interests, the same outlook on life, the same naughty sense of humour and the same life values. We are a total cliché in that he genuinely is my best friend.  But we are polar opposites when it comes to how we handle certain situations- I over think everything where he is super laid back, almost blasé. But more often than not we find a perfect balance by coming to a middle ground in our decision making (or this is what I lead him to believe- we still do it my way, obviously.) However in the context of handling a new baby, this same formula didn't apply. Kris did you hear the way she just cried, is she struggling to breathe of maybe she is choking? NAH doubt it, go to sleep [snores like a pig.] I was on the verge of calling 999 at every wet fart; Kris would sleep through the night and was phased by nothing.

Now this laid back approach should have been a good influence on me; he had been-there-and-done-that eleven years ago with his gorgeous son, Eli. But it didn't. It made me panic even more, spend my life consulting Dr. Google and turned me into your archetypal bunny boiler. I googled everything:

"Baby just burped whilst simultaneously looking left, is it terminal?"

"Baby cries even though I'm giving her everything she needs. Does she hate me?"

"Baby tries to suck nose when hungry. Visually impaired? Clearly looks nothing like a nipple."

"Baby three weeks old healthy poo pictures."

OK so some of those are made up, but if anyone saw my Google search history I'd have been sectioned (including utterly hilarious questions about the recovery of my 'lady bits', which I'm happy to report after 18 weeks are fully back to normal, answering my "will it forever look like a windsock?" google search.)

Now we've departed the so-called fourth trimester where babies just sleep-crap-eat-repeat, the real hard work has begun. Having regained relative sanity, I'm slowly realising that there are absolutely no definitive answers. There is no text book in the world that will detail the perfect way to raise a baby. In fact, every single text book will tell you a totally different 'perfect' way to do it which- if you're anything like me- will make your head slowly implode.

Sleep is the massive one for us at the moment. Freya absolutely refuses to sleep- she lulled us into a false sense of security during the first four months by sleeping anywhere and everywhere. Now, she will fight and fight it -there's far more interesting things to do when she is awake apparently- and so I have to catch her in that tiny window  of 'tired but not too tired' in order to put her down to nap. At bed time, for some reason, she seems to channel Michael Flatley and flails her legs around as if she is Lord of the flipping Dance. This is followed by about ten attempts to keep her sleeping before I dash out of the room like Ninja Mum, desperately trying to avoid every creaky floor board in our Victorian semi. So if one more person asks me: "is she sleeping through the night yet?", I'm liable to whack out some of my Jiu Jitsu moves circa 1996. No. She does not sleep through the night. In fact, having reached the well known 'four month sleep regression", she actually wakes up nearly once hourly some nights. Oh and she doesn't self-settle either. Cue smug face as 'little Harry slept through from night one!'

I bet Harry shits solid gold bars and farts glitter too.

The suggested methods are endless: 'cry-it-out' vs 'no-cry techniques' and everything in between. Just as you think you've decided on a route to go down, some research pops up that suggests "letting a baby cry itself to sleep is psychologically harmful.  The child will grow up thinking they cannot trust their parents and will exhibit trust issues in adult life." Brilliant. So we will go the 'no-cry' gentle parenting route then: 'Not if you want to sleep ever again in your whole life EVER.'

The truth is, there is no one size fits all. Just as every adult has a different personality and temperament, as do our babies. When I get frustrated that Freya won't go to sleep on demand, I remember that I sometimes struggle to sleep. Sometimes it's too bright, my head is too busy, I'm stressed or I've had a really exciting day. Now that Freya is at the age where babies have sleeping patterns more like an adult (this happens around the four month mark), she too may find it hard to sleep sometimes. However, there are folks (like Kris) who are lucky enough that they can fall asleep anywhere and everywhere and again, some babies are lucky enough to be the same. This helps me manage the utter frustration that bedtime sometimes brings.

It turns out my baby would rather stay awake all day and night partying just like her Mumma: she has to nurse to sleep otherwise we have a mini meltdown; she can't seem to nap anywhere but our dimly lit and quiet bedroom so we have a two hour window to go out of the house before the next nap (unless we go for a drive where she will sleep almost instantly); sometimes taking her out in public is hard work if she is having a bad day; she can't self settle because for four months I didn't know whether she was crying from agonising pain and needed me (which turned out to be the case) or if I should just leave her to cry so that she learned how to get back to sleep herself. It is hard. But I'm not jealous or bitter: she is mine and I love her so much it hurts. Utterly beautiful, a kindness in her smile that warms my heart and a wisdom in her eyes that makes me feel she has been here before. Despite all the hard times with colic, dairy allergies, chronic reflux, teething and her own frustration at not being able to do the things she wants to yet (little Miss Independent), she is our perfect princess.

As far as I'm concerned, if your baby will only go to sleep while you stand on one leg, patting your head with one hand, rocking him in the other whilst singing Metallica's 'Enter Sandman' backwards in Finnish,  then you do that.

I wish I had spent less time reading the 'how to' books and just did it. You will find a way that suits you and your family-whatever your hurdle or challenge- and you might have to change the way you do things every week to suit the ever changing needs of your baby. But never forget that you are doing amazingly, despite how tired or frustrated you may be some days. You created that tiny little energy-draining, all-encompassing, life-fulfilling human. What a bloody miracle. Every day s/he grows and develops is another day you've absolutely nailed it.

Holly

NB. One book and app I have to recommend is 'The Wonder Weeks'. Click here to find out more. It might just save your sanity- no parenting advice as such and again no definitive answers, just a lot of 'this is a normal developmental thing' from a bunch of doctors that have studied baby behaviour and development for 35 years. Plus it's really interesting. Freya has been a text-book case of every developmental behaviour leap they outline. 

New Beginnings: A Why and Wherefore

I've wanted to start a blog for years, but despite my annoyingly overactive brain, my continuous internal monologues, my love for the written word and my ability to find myself in the midst of the most unusual and extraordinary situations, I've never really known where to start. I have done a fair amount of travelling, but my spare time was spent boozing and dancing my nights away with my twenty - something counterparts. I have plenty to say about music, film and the arts, but could never decipher my audience or purpose. Then, twelve months ago, life as I knew it changed forever.

I met my husband in 2007- I had returned home to Shropshire, disillusioned after my second attempt at London living, and decided that after being pursued by him for years, I was going to let this attractive father of one take me out. Fast forward five years and we married in the beautiful Spanish town of Nerja.  In that time I qualified as an English teacher and secured a position at a lovely local school, we brought two furry babies into our family and moved house three times. By 2014, we decided that perhaps it was time to bring another tiny little ginger human into the world. What we didn't expect was to hit a bump in the road before we had even got the chance to pick up speed.  

My husband found out that he would find it very difficult to conceive a child naturally and though he could, getting fertility help wasn't off the cards. Seven months of ovulation tests, fertility apps and reminder alarms later and we finally managed to do it ourselves (I'll skim over the part where I sent Kris a text to tell him to 'hurry home sexy; I'm ovulating and in bed waiting' only to find I'd sent it to my Dad. One panicked phone call to my mother later and the phone was retrieved and messaged deleted.)

Though I never forgot the miracle of pregnancy or the blessing we were given, it had its highs and lows. Lows: 12 weeks of first trimester morning sickness, becoming stressed with work and being signed off when my blood pressure sky - rocketed and moving house at 41 weeks pregnant. Highs: feeling my little human growing and moving inside me, feeling closer than ever to Kris and adoring my pregnancy body.  

Getting ready for the arrival of baby was fun: attending hypnobirthing classes; baby shopping; ALL of the baby name books and half hourly name suggestion texts to my (then policeman) husband; building cots; baby showers and decorating the nursery. But despite reading every book going about labour (which was a futile exercise as everything I read and planned went out the window. My serene, candle lit, atmospheric ocean sounds, no pain hypnobirth turned into a week in hospital, four inductions, water broken via massively unnatural sharp stabby object, intense contractions, 28 hour labour, short lived birthing pool stint, failed epidural, forceps delivery followed by 900ml blood loss and roughly ONE MILLION stitches to my third degree tears) nothing prepared me for the real challenge. Motherhood.

The moment I held Freya Ivy Rose in my arms, my body was overwhelmed with love. I looked into her beautiful eyes and the dawning realisation that she solely relied on me washed over me in a cocktail of sheer joy and utter fear. Here I am, a thirty year old woman who still has to call her Mummy to get her advice on what to wear that day, now totally in charge of keeping this perfectly fragile and utterly reliant little being alive. That first night alone together in a dark hospital ward, two drips in my arm, a catheter installed, totally bed bound, wound dressings being changed every two hours (by a nurse that was my ex- boyfriends current fiancee- a whole different blog) was scary. Just me and her. Nobody else on the ward, the nurses a panic button away, husband at home in our bed, visitors gone- what do I actually do with you, little one? Tears of joy flowed, panic raised from my chest to my throat, my heart felt like it beat only for her yet the fear of responsibility was overwhelming me to the point of regression and calling MY Mum to come and look after ME. I panicked that I wasn't ready for this. 

After our first wobbly night together, waking to see her face in the perspex box beside me was probably on par with the combined feeling of joy of every Christmas and birthday rolled into one.  I don't think I will ever experience that particular feeling again. Pure and overwhelming happiness. There began the tears that would flow continually for about six weeks. Tears of love, agonising pain as I tried to function with my internal and external stitches, from the flashbacks of my horrific birthing experience- I was a total basket case.

Baby blues hit me pretty hard. My dignity went out the window as I peed in the shower to stop the stinging from my stitches. I didn't leave the house for fear of something happening with baby that I couldn't handle and strangers looking on at the terrible new mother that couldn't make her baby stop crying. Breast feeding was painful and left me with bleeding nipples and mastitis. I felt utterly helpless as she screamed in agony at what was dubbed colic for 14 weeks but would later be diagnosed as dairy and lactose intolerance (a lesson learned in ALWAYS trusting my motherly instincts and again another blog!). I wondered why other mummies made it look so easy yet I felt so utterly crap and incapable. Those were dark days. 

Four months later and though my life is ruled by nap times and I'm still woken up at least every two hours throughout the night (I write with baby using my boob as a pacifier as I feed her on my third wake of the night- it's 11.45pm!), I'm starting to feel like the old me. Well, the new old me. 

So here starts new beginnings. This blog is going to be some in retrospect of the last four months and mostly the experiences we share as a family as we start our journey through life. Expect some rants, some reviews, a little about music, film, food, health, relationships but above all some very frank accounts of life as 'La Rouge: The 30 Year Old Mummy Version'

Holly 

**La Rouge is a nickname I was given many years ago by two beautiful friends on account of my red hair. Maybe also my sexy and mysterious worldliness. But almost certainly just because of my red hair.