Apologies in advance if this post seems to be somewhat of a rant! In all honesty it kind of is!
Maternity leave has brought about being awake at times of the day when there are few people to chat to, such as 4am. Or when you have a couple of minutes to yourself (admittedly I try to use this time to go to the toilet, or pretending to go to the toilet for a bit of peace). I have found that at these times I don’t have enough time to read a novel, or my eyes just wont stay open enough to concentrate on anything serious. Instead I find myself on Twitter or the Daily Mail TV and showbiz section reading trash. It is here that I find myself feeling frustrated. Frustrated seeing all the celebrity new mums. The most refreshing story I could read would be a celebrity mum admitting that motherhood is not easy.
Reading articles about mum’s doing press tours with a two-week old, theatre runs with a six-month old and public engagements with a young baby does not do justice to how much work goes in to being a new mum. Unless I had a completely different experience to every other mum. I personally think Amelia is a pretty easy-going baby and we have it good. But if I look at all these women looking glamorous, dressed-up and looking as though they never had a baby I start to think perhaps I’m making a meal out of motherhood! Seeing photos of a celebrity on holiday just weeks after the birth of their baby with a flat tummy, no stretch marks and perfectly toned bum and thighs leaves me feeling inadequate. Admittedly I never had a flat stomach or super toned body as my baseline, but I wasn’t overweight. I couldn’t fit into my old clothes for the first 3-4 months after she was born. But then I didn’t want to get glammed up. Honestly, you’d be lucky to have seen me out of my pyjamas before noon. I also had to think about the practicalities of what I would wear because I might have to breastfeed at any moment.
This brings me to my next question – how many celebrity mothers genuinely breastfeed exclusively or at all? I couldn’t be away from Amelia for much time at all for the first three months or so. She was feeding so frequently, and if she took expressed milk then I needed to be expressing at regular intervals in order to not have breasts that felt as if they were ready to explode and so that I could produce enough milk to keep her fed. Again, maybe I just made more of breastfeeding than I needed to. Perhaps that’s why I’m in a state of anxiety wondering if she will be ok in nursery since she rarely accepts milk from a bottle any more.
I guess we don’t see what’s going on behind the scenes, and who they have helping – relatives, nannies, and personal trainers – and perhaps this makes life a little easier. We also don’t see whether they have been forced to undertake such work commitments via contracts, etc. Plus I don’t need abs of steel to make a living. I don’t know whether celebrities claim statutory maternity pay. I guess not in most cases. Perhaps I also need to consider how they really feel about their situations. Maybe they’d like to be at home spending every minute with their little one and not worrying about how they look. But in order to keep the jobs coming in they must work hard to get back to their pre-pregnancy appearance. Plus, in some cases they probably have more opportunity to take their children with them to work. Once I return to work it wont be possible for me to have Amelia waiting on the sidelines whilst I am carrying out surgeries.
All I can hope is that all the new mother’s, or mothers-to-be, out there appreciate that being a new mum is not a breeze. It is not about looking fresh-faced and perfect, or having the perfect figure within weeks. It’s about learning how to look after your little one and making the most of this period of time. It’s about sitting in your pyjamas as much or as little as you’d like. It’s about eating whatever you need to get you through the day (or whatever’s in the house), feeding your baby in whatever manner suits you and them best and doing the best you can. Whatever you’re doing, it’s most likely the right thing!
New mummy diary 