I recently went to visit a friend and her new baby . Armed with gifts and the hard-earnt wisdom of my own battle scars as a mother of an 18-month-old, I knew just how disorientating and anxiety-ridden those early months can be, just how bewildering it can all feel – the stress, the worry, the exhaustion – but that’s not what I saw when I arrived. My friend’s baby was lying on her mat, all chubby legs kicking and big eyes blinking.
Her mum was on the sofa, looking tired but happy. She was laughing, at ease, and almost, it seemed to me, luxuriating in her cocoon. She wasn’t one of those new mothers whose forced smile and shrill insistence that everything was wonderful immediately revealed it was anything but.
She was honest about the tiredness, the washing, the slog, yet she had her same relaxed manner I’d always loved about her. My friend was enjoying every minute like all the old ladies in the park had said I must when they peered into the pram. Except I didn’t enjoy every minute.
I couldn’t. I was too scared. As we spent the Saturday afternoon together, watching the baby be put into her sling on her dad and drift off, drinking champagne and eating pizza, I had a painful realisation: I didn’t know it could be like this.
I wished I could go back. I wish I hadn’t been so fearful. So afraid of failing my baby, of letting him down, of doing something wrong.
I wish I hadn’t been so terrified. Terrified of not being able to get dressed or have a shower or make.