Being Mummy

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After 15 years of being a career girl and being married and divorced then married again. Three years into my 2nd marriage at the age of 38 I gave birth to my first child.

Now my daughter Ivy is 3 years old, we have experienced some interesting times. Since Ivy-May was born in 2017, both myself and my husband suffered from mental health issues.

My husbands had been going on since his college days after suffering a trauma of confidence issues brought on by being verbally abused by a lecturer. In the early 2000s this was not considered mental abuse but since then my hubby has had counselling and discovered this had caused ptsd.

My story

I myself had issues with my mental heath since the age of 12. My mother had become sick with bowel cancer and I was already experiencing bullying at my school that year. My confidence was badly knocked and I had become timid and very shy around other children, teachers and family members.

Bullying went on for a long time and at the age of 12 I was about to start a special school as I had been picked on for being dyslexic and my mother pushed for this so I would have less upset.

Mental

Sadly my mental health had taken a real tumble in this process but it didn't come to a head until age 14 when my mother finally died aged 53 of cancer.

I had a hard time then for the next seven years of my life, fitting it and understanding who I was as a person. I went to counciling over the years and thought by the age of 22 I was a new woman.

University started and finished and I threw myself into working full time in media. I loved my job, I faced many ups and downs in the work place and by the time I was 29 I was burnt out.

Suffering from burn out I still continued to drag myself along, studying, changing jobs, becoming a media lecturer, going through a divorce and then a wedding a few years later after meeting my now husband. Re-training in health fitness and then after many early pregency losses had my rainbow baby.

Feeling

Things should have been amazing, I was finally going to be a mother and I was going to get some well earned rest from a crazy work environment.

Feelimg

Sadly this was not the case, I had the worst pregnancy, I had gestational diabetes, depression during my 2nd trimester and was a fat greasy mess.

Stressed out, burnt out and at the end of my wits, baby arrived and to no one else's surprised, except my own, I was diagnosed with PND.

No one ever tells you or advises you on what motherhood is going to be like.

There is no hand book or even the truth is hidden from us, people don't tell you how hard it will be, with sleepless nights, constant feeding, nappy changes and losing the person you once were.

I thought it would go on forever, you can't see the future only the stench of dirty nappies, piles of milk bottles and heart ache of thinking "am I even doing this the right way?"

Feeling ashamed and panicked about life, feeling guilty as I had waited for my little baby so long, I felt lonely, frightened and unsupported by friends and family. My husband was doing great as a dad but also working long hours to keep us from being poor as now with only one income bills were piling up too.

Living

It didn't help that by now we lived hours away from my in laws but we had to make the move as there was no house affordable enough for us to have a family in Leicestershire and so we had moved to Nottinghamshire to be able to live in an affordable way.



In my second year of being a mother I went onto antidepressants, prescribed by my gp and felt even more ashamed.

On the plus side I was getting out more with our baby as I had spent months in the house worried something bad would happen to us both in the town.

Life had changed drastically for me in such a short space of time it was crazy.

Slowly but surely I started to change as a person and motherhood became a blessing, I got my career back and regained confidence but it took me a long time.

My

My little girl has also been though so much, a depressed mother and covid times, lockdown one and two. She has a sunny outlook on life so far despite these different and difficult times.

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My husband and I have even spoken about having another child.



As a mum I am not so perfect, I love my daughter and my husband, I love my work and the buzz I get from working in the media but no the challenge is to mix both these areas of my life together in this blog.

I hope you have enjoyed reading my first post, please send me your feedback if you related to my story.

Not so perfect mummy xxx

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