Mother's Day for the UnMothered

March is here yet again and with it comes all sorts of wonders. The start of longer days, the odd ray of sunshine after months of cold blustery weather. The equinox. And Mother's Day. 

Mother's Day. Just another day for most people. You buy a card, maybe some flowers or chocolates. Book a restaurant or have your mother for lunch. Before you know it, it is Monday all over again and the week begins.

For a few of us however, it just doesn't work like that. For some of us as soon as Christmas is over we have to keep our guard up. We know that any day an eager card shop will pop open their displays, or a florist will start their TV campaign. Mother's Day. One of the worst days of our year. The day that we need to stay away from shops, restaurants and worst of all, social media.

I am not saying this because I am the official Scrooge of Mother's Day. On the contrary there is no Bah! Humbug! from me. I am merely representing those of us who have to watch as the world reminds us that we do not have a mother.

I read a wonderful article by Ruth Margalit once about us, the "un-mothered". A term which I feel truly describes my world. Loosing my mother in my late twenties meant missing out on so much, and so much more that I have yet to miss. Each miraculous milestone, every hideous hardship I muddle through without the one person I crave more than anything.

Mother's Day is just another horrendous day without her. One which I shunned and avoided like the plague, until now.

This year I joined a new sorority. The UnMothered Mothers.

Not only do I need to avoid crying at each tacky Mother's Day sign, now I need to embrace it so that my daughter can share this special time with her Mommy. My sister cleverly calls this the bittersweet. So much of having babies without mothers is bittersweet, but Mother's Day is the darkest of chocolate with the tangiest of lemons of it all.

So what do we do on Mothering Sunday, us the UnMothered? 

We graciously accept the amount of trouble our wonderful other halves have gone to for us. We smile and enjoy our gorgeous babies. We acknowledge that like so much in our lives, this is just something else we need to get on board with, because we cannot cry to our mommies about the injustice.

"What are you getting your mother?" the adverts cry out. "Why not treat her to something special?" I am told. "Flowers say it all" is probably one of my favourites. Flowers that remind me of all the incredible times we had together, weddings, parties, large family gatherings... And the flowers that will be flooding the cemetery next week. 

With a heavy heart and a happy soul I will wake up early on Mother's Day to see my baby smile as she presents me with a little gift that her daddy has spent much time deliberating over. Something sweet and sentimental that doesn't make me cry in sadness at the absence of my own mother. I'll venture out into the Wild West that is London on Mother's Day so that my little family can spoil me. Averting my eyes at all the generations of mothers and daughters celebrating together. Then I will return home, put my beautiful baby down for her nap and go see my mommy. Leave my gorgeous daughter with her daddy while I trudge down to the cemetery and when she wakes up she will do what I wish she would do with me but can't. She will go give her paternal grandma her little present accompanied by sloppy kisses. All the while I will be hiding out at my dad's house, wishing things were different. 

They say time heals all wounds and in many ways that is correct. Each year after her passing it does become a little easier, but every step is also riddled with difficulty. 

This year will be the first I face as the UnMothered Mother, maybe next year I will have the hang of it. In the meantime I will put on my game face and enjoy my little miracle.

To all the UnMothered, I salute you. 

The Curious Incident of the Baby in the Night

Everyone knows that old tale of schadenfreude. The minute you announce anything that is going well with your baby is the same minute your baby decides to flip that good fortune on its head and act like a little monster. With this knowledge I never once boasted about my little angel's sleeping habits. People would look over with a smirk and ask "so... How's she sleeping?" And I would nod slowly and say "well, for now. I am lucky." This would be followed by a probe "how many times does she feed at night?" To which I would reply "at the moment, she doesn't." Almost always this would be met with an annoyed look and curt response from hopeful parents who expected 3-4 night feeds from my baby, as they had years before.

So life plodded on, disappointing those after a good laugh and little G amazing us everyday with her ability to sleep through the night. She even managed to crack jet lag in just 2 days and revert back to sleeping 7-7. That was until she hit 5.5 months old.

Many a time I had been told that I would find feeding her solids would help G to sleep. I had heard this so often and with such conviction I had begun to smile and nod as if this was a problem for me. What no one ever told me was that once she was on solids she may begin to sleep badly. 

I started weaning her at 22 weeks and my little lady took to solid food like a duck to water. Like her mother before her she found solid food the missing piece of her puzzle and boy did she guzzle. She loved her carrots, pears, sweet potatoes and salmon. She ate purée and led her own weaning with cucumber sticks and toast soldiers. She delighted in banana despite it constipating her and appeared to enjoy drinking water from a sippy cup. She also stopped sleeping through the night. 

Baffled as ever by our baby, the Hubster and I did what any first time parents would do. We gave her calpol. We turned the heating up. We turned the heating down. We cuddled her. We took her temperature. We gave her teething granules. We gave her water. We fed her. We took her temperature again. We turned Euan the sodding Dream Sheep on again and again and again. 

We assumed it was teething. Then we were absolutely sure it was the start of a cold before deciding it was definitely too cold in the house. Finally we convinced ourselves that it was a growth spurt. 

What I never even considered was that poor little G may be having a couple of digestion issues. I had read the books, you see. I knew not to feed her anything adventurous too close to bedtime. I had started with lunch, progressed to breakfast and finally after seeing our health visitor, dinner. There was no way the food could be making her restless at night... Was there?

The answer is of course, who blooming knows? Until my darling little angel can tell me what's wrong I am afraid that the Hubster and I will continue to run through every possible ailment under the sun before finally attributing her night time waking to tiny elves or ghosts. 

What I am absolutely certain of however, is that she slept right through the night until those solid smelly poos started. It is either a very strange coincidence or something that someone should be telling us!

The good news? After 2 weeks of random wake ups and baby G talking to herself at all hours of the night, she finally went back to sleeping well. 

Well, until she got a frigging throat infection. But that story is definitely one for another day!