It was supposed to be like in TV series and cereal commercials … Baby, family happiness, smiles. And it is so. There is also the other side of motherhood. Frustration, fatigue, helplessness, anger, quarrels. And, paradoxically, loneliness.
September, 2015
Only three months left. “Staś! Come on out to us now! ” – says Filip, my husband to my belly. We laugh, because as if in response to my unborn son, I get a painful punch in the rib. We are all very much looking forward to him. Firstborn. Planned. Awaited. Dreamed up.
July, 2008
Behind me and Filip, four happy years in total. During the first months, as young spouses, we travel around Poland almost every weekend. Sometimes, when we have a day off, we like to sleep until noon and then watch American series. On Saturday evenings we go to parties with friends, culminating in a nice after party in one of these elegant bars in the center. I am the first to get fed up with this lifestyle, I start to mumble about the child. The husband asks for a while, but only because he is waiting for a promotion and the corporation fills him with five working days.
December, 2008
Filip came back from work, drank a small beer with a gulp (for courage! I already know that!) And announced that he was ready to become a father! I am full of hope, optimism and enthusiasm. We will be a great family, and a child is a complement to love. I know, I know, it sounds cliche, but I really believe it.
Talk to your doctor without leaving your home Link to Partner
Iwona, my childless (at her own request) friend, asks if I am not afraid that my life will then turn upside down in an uncontrolled manner. What a crap. Of course I’m not afraid! Today, when technology has moved forward, when paternity leaves are possible, when young mothers have access to a million tips on the web, in books, on TV? There is no better time to be a parent, I believe. Besides, my husband and I both have full-time jobs, he is in a financial corporation, and I am in a real estate agency, what’s to be afraid of? As if that was not enough, both our mothers live nearby, they keep asking about their grandchildren. As I write about it, I really appreciate our situation. And Filip and I should have at least two children.
December, 2009
Even though we haven’t been protecting ourselves for a year, there has been no pregnancy … So we went to have a checkup, both of us. Doctors praised Filip’s mature approach, it is rumored that it is rare that a man without complexes undergoes infertility tests. It turns out what a relief that my cortisol concentration is too high. Relief because it’s not a big deal. I got medication, everything will be settled in a few months. Subsequent attempts to get pregnant are getting nicer, paradoxically. We don’t feel very tense, we just start to have more and more joy and hope. We are 27 years old; we both feel that we will soon be parents. Even Filip already looks into prams and talks to other fathers. I swell with pride because he will be a brilliant dad!
On weekends, instead of going to clubs, we go to Ikea and Smyk stores. We write down on a piece of paper what we will soon buy for the child. We are planning how to arrange our daughter’s room. “It will be a little princess,” says Philip, who dreams of his daughter. We do not like pink, we prefer a cool shade, pastel. We even agree that we will paint the little girl’s room with pink and gray stripes. Filip wants to hire an interior designer to arrange a dream room for his child. “I never had my room, so let my daughter have the most beautiful one,” says my husband, who grew up with two brothers.
January, 2012
It’s a sad Christmas behind us, I had a miscarriage a few weeks ago. Filip took a new cart, which we had bought prematurely, to the basement. He gave the cradle to his niece. We don’t want to look at the toys or the smiling faces of even our relatives. We ate Christmas Eve dinner with my parents only, we drove up to my in-laws on the second day of Christmas. Fortunately, they understood it. They didn’t press. On New Year’s Eve, I was sitting on the sofa with my husband, watching a concert in Krakow. We made our best wishes at midnight. “That the three of us would be there next year,” whispered Philip.
New Year’s Eve 2015/2016
His wish only came true after a few years. This is the first New Year’s Eve party for the family that we organize at home. We invited my parents-in-law, my parents, brother Philip with the family. My friend Iwona refused to come because she prefers to go crazy in the club with the company. She promised that she would come to us in the new year as soon as she healed the hangover, but with a beautiful gift for Staś.
Our son Staś is two weeks old, he makes a real sensation. “Angel!” – everyone is delighted, especially the grandmothers. Stas sleeps almost all the time. And when she wakes up, she looks straight ahead. Everyone is surprised that she has so much hair on a tiny head. He is the youngest participant in the New Year’s Eve dinner, well, it’s hard to call it a party. Before midnight, there are only the three of us.
I am happy even though everything hurts. The delivery ended with a cesarean section, although I really wanted to give birth naturally, there were complications. But I console myself that the most difficult is behind us. I feel better day by day, though I can’t lift anything and I have to be careful. I dream of going back to yoga, but I can’t bend yet. I look forward to spring, when I will be able to walk with my sweetly sleeping son in the park, in the sun, with a cup of coffee in my hand.
January, 2016
My husband returned to work, he was with us for two weeks, helping, bathing, changing. Only now do I see how much he did with the baby. Now I spend most of the day alone with my son. I feel insecure, Staś often cries and has severe colic. After a few minutes of Stasi crying on high C, I start crying myself. From helplessness, from lack of sleep. I feel lonely, Filip has been sleeping on the couch in the living room for several days, because he says that he is falling asleep over the keyboard at work. In the long run, he can’t wake up with us every two or three hours. Husband comes back only before 2 o’clock, he also goes to the gym or squash. I have a grudge against him for not giving up training yet, although he knows that I am alone all day. I also want to go to yoga, but I have nothing to dream about for now!
February, 2016
I wear my pajamas all day, I don’t want to change, since I’m about to get dirty anyway. Interestingly, for the first month after giving birth, I took care of myself to the point of exaggeration: colorful tunics, nails, jewelry. But it does not work with an infant at all, it is inconvenient and even dangerous – I realized when I hooked the bracelet on Stas’ body. I am angry with the colorful newspapers and the sloppy tv shows about motherhood. Sexy mom? What sexy mom? It seemed that I had the perfect conditions for that. And the truth is, it took a month for the sleep deficit to take its toll on me so badly that I don’t even have the strength to get dressed. I get up at night every three hours, I feed, change. I don’t feel like washing my head while the little one is asleep, I try to take a nap or cook something or clean up. I often go to internet forums and read various tips about colic, infections, etc.
The fact that I am alone most days and nights pisses me off. My mother went to a sanatorium, and my mother-in-law quickly got bored of helping. He explains that he has varicose veins, a garden plotter’s club, that caring for his grandson – yes, but closer to summer. My husband seems to be coming home later and later on purpose. I no longer see such delight in his eyes, more often impatience and weariness.
“Hey, do you have time for lunch?” So, enjoy your meal! Because I haven’t eaten anything since yesterday, the little one is screaming all the time, I’m going to go crazy! I’m alone as a finger, maybe you can let go of squash today? ”- I write a text message – to my husband. I’m as bad as a wasp, impatient. Where is the laughing guy who was choosing the furniture for the children’s room with me? He wanted a daughter, but when his son was born, he went crazy with happiness, took a million photos of him, and told his close friends about the inheritance and continuity of the family.
Spade spade. A message from Filip: “I was eating sushi, they opened a new place. And you better go for a walk, take a breath, it’ll do you good. He’s mad! – I think. It’s five o’clock, it’s already dark outside, plus minus eight degrees, wind. Walk, yes, but tomorrow, noon. I’m even more furious because I think my husband is completely disconnected from our – my reality, and he probably wrote it on his own. Once again I say to myself aloud, “This is not how it was supposed to be!” Walking with my son to his room, in the mirror I come across a neglected woman with dirty hair and bags under her eyes. It’s me? Is it really me? Miss freshman in college? Yoga and healthy lifestyle lover? A pretty and smart wife of a handsome, intelligent man?
March, 2016
Saturday, so Staś is on a walk with his dad. For joy, I don’t know what to do. A long two hours for me. I take the book, rush to the bathtub. Foam, oils as well. Upon my return, my husband notices that I have a few gray streaks and ironically suggests visiting a hairdresser. I feel sorry, but I am calling a friendly salon that I haven’t been to for several months. “There will be a place for you, finally! Feel free! ”- I hear the voice of a charming hairdresser. I rush like on wings, I haven’t had a day to myself for a long time. I am calm, my grandmother also came to Stas.
I’m sitting in an armchair, browsing newspapers, and here’s the phone. Filip: “Stasiek has a fever of almost forty degrees, come quickly!” I run out in half-wet hair, with some foil stuck to my head. I do not heed the call of the hairdresser. I rush home, actually, 39 degrees, Stasiek has convulsions. “What are you waiting for? Hospital! ”I shout to my husband helplessly standing in the doorway. It turns out that my son has bronchitis. We stay in the hospital. They prick those little hands and put a cannula on him, and I roar with him and long after that. Filip leaves us only in the evening.
April, 2016
It seems that the worst is behind us. I was in the hospital with Staś for two weeks. We came back exhausted. But the most important thing is that the little one is healthy. However, I have a lot of grudges against my mother-in-law and, above all, against my husband. He came in late at night, only after work, and she was with us only once, saying she was afraid of germs. In the hospital, every hour was an eternity. Crying children at night, waking up at six in the morning for tests, all of this did not have a positive effect on us. There were two more children in the room with their mothers. I looked at these tortured women and thought about the photos of make-up moms that the media pushes into our heads. Bullshit, it doesn’t all look like this. It may look like this, but only for a moment. The truth about motherhood is also – or perhaps most importantly – here when you change your baby’s diaper for the tenth time in three hours because he has severe diarrhea in response to an antibiotic.
Staś returns from the hospital frightened, nervous, even more tearful and oversensitive than before. He reacts by crying to the white color, so when my mother comes to our house in a cream sweater, I have to silence him for a quarter of an hour, he is so afraid of her. Due to my nerves and concern for Staś, I lost my food while still in the hospital. The nurses pressed my chest quite unceremoniously to help, but I felt as if someone was trying to molest me. My nipples, breasts hurt, my soul ached. I’ve had enough. And I still do. The situation is difficult, Filip has some mergers in the company, he is practically not at home, even on Saturdays. Mom and mother-in-law visit us several times a month. As if that wasn’t enough, I’m worried about my mom; has bad results, gets weaker, gets tired with every major move.
The mother-in-law cooks time and time again. Awful, greasy. Once I am covered, pouring the lavishly floured sauce into the toilet. He exits, slams the door. I won’t see her for a long time. An hour later, her nervous husband calls. “Why don’t you respect my mother?” He screams. I cannot talk, Stas starts crying again and I feel that I am going to go crazy.
June, 2016
“We haven’t been together anywhere since January,” I remind Filip. Shrugs. Since the mother-in-law is still offended at me (and grandson by the way?), We decide to hire a babysitter. Friends recommend a nice student who has been visiting their little daughter for a year. First exit – I’m sitting on high heels. I can’t chill out neither in the cinema nor in the Indian pub. Filip seems to be too, although he completely does not admit it. We find ourselves talking about the child for most of the evening, showing each other pictures of our laughing son on the phones, exchanging comments about the orthopedist and pediatrician. Great, we’re the cool, cool parents of a lovely boy again, but where are we in all of this? Us as a couple? Woman and man, not mother and father?
When Filip suggests I go back to yoga and maybe think about visiting a dietitian, the spell is broken. I am aware that I have gained weight while sitting at home with my baby. I often eat worries, emptiness and boredom. I know, I should learn Italian while the kid is asleep, or do some exercises with Chodakowska on DVD, but I don’t feel like it. This is the truth about me. I seem to spend a lot of time with my children and my home, but I feel lazy. I am not happy with the gadgets and accessories we bought for Staś. I secretly dream of going to a spa and drinking prosecco on Saturday morning. About a good dance party, like in the old days. When I tell my husband about it, he thinks about it and replies: “Maybe someday” … Has the fire that connected us years ago had also gone out in him?
September, 2016
“I will not help you, although I have been trying for a long time,” Iwona told me today. “You have to go to a good psychologist, okay?” She added after a moment, looking away. This is one of those rare times when I’m home alone. Stas went for a walk with his grandmother, Philip, of course, at work. Iwona came here straight from the office, because I haven’t been answering her text messages for several days. I burst into tears when I hear about a psychologist. I cry and cry and cry. She only gives me handkerchiefs, and from me, along with these tears, there is a river of sadness, frustration, disappointment, sadness, loneliness. Yes, loneliness. Mom told me that having a baby, I would never be alone again. I cannot compare my love for my son with any other, I love him more than my life, I have a husband who loves him, but now I feel terribly lonely. I just feel like a mother. The worst thing is that I have no idea what to do with it. The thought of returning to work seems distant, it has been a dozen or so weeks, because we agreed with Filip that I would sit with the little one for a year.
Motherhood is beautiful and it’s bloody hard, especially this first period. Although I don’t know, maybe it will be even more difficult afterwards? I no longer believe colorful magazines, painted celebrities, beautiful moms pushing fashionable prams, I meet on a walk. I don’t believe anyone in the myth of a beautiful, simple motherhood.
As of today: 18 kilograms forward, sparse and falling out hair, unkempt complexion and nails. Favorite piece of clothing: leggings and t-shirt. Interests: American series, but rarely. Surprisingly, I don’t want to read, I haven’t been to the cinema since June, and also not for six months before. I sleep for six hours now, thanks to Stas, but this does not cause any less fatigue. On the contrary, I have less energy. I am disappointed in my marriage. Filip is a great father, but so fucking rare. After all, most of our lives are gone. He doesn’t even text anymore – we joke, he forgets to write back. My son’s colorful, designer toys litter the ground. I hang his Zara and Benetton clothes, also beautiful, as in the catalog. And that’s the end of colorful life.
The only person who did not tell me: “you are exaggerating” is Yvonne, the childless one.