Pamper please
Sunday musings #1, 16 March
Should I start with some insightful musing. One that takes more than the half hour I have to jot down, configure and share with you all. Probably.
But alas, the pancakes took precedent today. As did the nervous system protection, as we took the steps needed to avoid spine rippling scream from either the three year-old or the four-monther. Or the rippling wince on my partner’s face as tensions rise.
Like Jekyll and Hyde - the fine line between the most loving and gorgeous morning and pain-stricken spikes is a matter of moments. And doing the feed and doing the imaginary play has curtailed them today.
So here we are, musing of the week, and before I forget, I want to jot down the good life. The ‘Give me champagne in bed before 10am - rub my feet and lather me in lavender oil’ life.
The colours pamper should be.
Often, mothering (eh pregnancy, birthing, recovery) is projected as utter pain. Mostly by myself. Burn out, cracked nipples, health crippling sleep deprivation, service, sacrifice, kill me now - worst of the lot - subservience. Don’t mind me, I have no needs. I’ll come last.
Some of this I adore. In the sense that it gives narrative to the unmanageable pressures people undertaking mothering, feeding and birthing undergo. Thereby rejecting the patriarchal institution of motherhood that silences these experiences to ‘maternal instinct’ and simple painless care work.
For a good woman, this comes easy too. Lol not in my experience. You can ask my friend as I moaned and panted on the five minute woddle to the beach. Bloated ankles and double chinned pinpricking for insulin levels as I pined for another croissant to ruin my unborn child.
But what I didn’t acknowledge was just how opulent and indulgent the whole carrying and birthing thing is, or could be? (eh one of the two)
For starters, to simply go into labour, you need a hella dose of oxytocin. Midwives at the hospital gave me and my partner the brief: lights down, music on, sex up, chocolate on.
I was literally prescribed to watch comedy and all my favourite romcoms to get the good hormones pumping. Massage, massage, massage, facial. And in my case, champagne. This my friends, is the foundation of labour.
I was rolled into the birthing suite with chanting ear-phones on - and it took my midwife all but two minutes before her fairy lights strung up, diffuser smelling out the disinfectant. Truly, as soon as the doctor examined me, and the massage had stopped, so too slowed the contractions.
Fleetwood mac and dancing to bring them back on.
Then for breastmilk - bring on the nipple stimulation, chest to chest skin to skin hormone hits - rise me high. With the feeding, watermelon of a uterus began to contract, and with the love infested eye to eye contact, I’m sure some other mental health benefits for us both kicked on in.
Look, is this luxury the whole story for my birth? No! But it is indeed one.
Rub my feet, pls.
Then when it comes to conception and pregnancy, despite my endless (and very warranted) complaints to the deep lack of support provided to women and gender-diverse people during this period, the recommendations to lose the stress and nurture the hell out of your mind and body is big.
If that’s the recommendation for conception, gestation, birth and feeding - damn it I’ve listened and I’ve heard loud and clear - why would I dump that self-nurture now? Just because a foetus isn’t there anymore? My role as a birthing vessel complete? Please.
Every time I breathed the babe in, this time round, I thought geez I’ve worked far too hard at this not to enjoy this hella good bit now. And every time, I thought I’d skip the post-natal pilates to keep the fam a’float, I thought geez, if the docs prescribed it for nine months, why stop it now.
So for this mothering experience, I’m going to paint my nails. Replay my favourite endorphin hitting movies, and controversially, merely continue what was prescribed to pregnant Em.
And if that means ordering steak and eating before my family, so be it.
Emma 💋