All 7 of us.

April 2017….

We are strolling through the car park next to a mariner, marvelling at the luxurious yachts and the expensive cars driven by the owners. He points to a large, family SUV and says, “That one would be perfect, it would fit all 7 of us”.

I almost miss a step, I have to force myself not to respond. Did he misspeak? Miscount? Or is he being deliberate. I know him well enough to know that it likely wasn’t an accident. I also know him well enough to know that I need to contain my reaction to this inconspicuously huge revelation.

Because, right now, there is only six of us. There’s me and my two girls, and him and his two boys. An almost Brady Bunch.

The seventh, a potential baby of our own, has been a hotly contended subject. It’s been the dealbreaker that wasn’t. It’s taken me a long time to find peace with not getting my way in the situation. To bury the piece of my heart that was desperate for another baby.

And now he says “seven of us”?

Before we had gotten together, properly, I asked if he was done having kids. His youngest is about a year older than my eldest. Honestly, I suspected that he had had a vasectomy. He’s older then me, and his ex-wife even older then him, in her forties. I assumed they had discussed it long ago, but I wasn’t sure if it was decision he had made for himself. He told me that he thought he was, but that with me, he really loved the idea, and that if we wanted to, yes it was possible. A vasectomy had been suggested, but he’d never felt right doing it, he wasn’t sure that he wouldn’t someday want more kids. With someone else. And then, here I was. Wanting a baby with him.

But then, when we became an official, public couple, and his ex wife found out, ran off with his kids, kickstarting a long, expensive and emotionally excruciating family court battle, and his answer turned to a hard, immovable, adamant NO.

It was devastating. We had walked through so many fires to be together, and now we weren’t just on separate pages, we were reading different books. My littlest girl was two and a half, and I was ready to either have another baby, or go back to work full time. I also have difficulties falling pregnant, and didn’t want to keep waiting to start trying, being that it could take many months. For me, it was now or never. For him, it was absolutely not now. We were still new, and although we were both certain of the relationship, there was so much other turmoil in his life, that he just could not entertain the idea of bringing in another child to complicate things further.

Knowing now as I do how things worked out, he was absolutely right. But for me, at the time, I felt betrayed. We had spoken about it. He has said yes. We’d talked baby names and who it would look like. I was ready. And now he’d taken it back. I was so angry at him. I’d put so much of my life aside to be with him, and now it wasn’t going to move forward how I thought we’d agreed. Looking back, I’m a little surprised he stayed with me through all the pressure I put on him in those early days. He hates being made to do things. He hates, as anyone would, being pushed into things. And he hates confrontation, and confront him I did. A lot.

I remember the final fight we had about it. We’d sent some heated texts, before giving each other the silent treatment for a few days, which neither of us coped with well. Finally we met at the beach to talk it through.

“If you want a baby, you need to be with someone else.” He said, hopeless tears in his eyes. He was exhausted from the same fight, over and over, and I knew that he couldn’t do it anymore.

“It’s not that I want any baby, it’s that I want YOUR baby.” I explained.

“And it’s not that I wouldn’t want a baby with you, it’s that I don’t want another child at all right now. Of course it would be with you if I did want one”.

I taking it all as a reflection of how he felt about me. I was jealous he’d had children with his ex-wife, that he’d told me he wasn’t ready when she was, but he’d done it for her, but now wouldn’t for me. It infuriated me because he would constantly tell me what an amazing mother he thought I was, but, he didn’t want a baby. To me, those couldn’t be mutually exclusive things. And I couldn’t see that he had learnt having a child you weren’t ready for, was a terrible idea.

To him, it wasn’t that he didn’t adore me, or value me as a parent, it’s that his plate was so full, and he was already drowning. I was heaping on with expectations he couldn’t manage, and it was hurting him that he just couldn’t agree with me. He wanted to make me happy, but this was one thing he couldn’t budge on. I was asking far too much, and we were both miserable.

So. I agreed to stop asking.

I told him that I wanted him, more than I wanted a baby to someone else. I would rather choose him, and no baby, than no him. But we also agreed that I would stop taking birth control. It was ruining my body, my cycles were awful and more hormones horrendous (and possibly/almost definitely responsible, for some of the big fights we’d been having, which were almost exactly every 4 weeks). We agreed that he didn’t want a baby, he needed to be responsible for preventing it. I told him that I wouldn’t deliberately try to get pregnant, I had absolutely no desire to have a child the father didn’t want.

We closer the door on the argument. We bought condoms. He was quite nonchalant about protection though, which I found confusing, given he was the one not wanting a pregnancy, and we didn’t use them often, and instead relied on a very lazy combination of family planning and the withdrawal method- risky, given both are notoriously unreliable, but given I rarely ovulate, nothing eventuated.

I started working more. I applied to transfer my university degree, was accepted and the following year, I quit work to study full time. I’d have my degree finished in 2.5 years, and then I’d start my career. My little one grew, and as she got older, and our independence as a family grew too, it was easier to imagine life without another baby. I’d agreed “no”, so I pushed my life in a direction away from the homemaker role, and started to see a life laying out for myself with the children we had between us, and a career I’d dreamt of for a long time.

And then, barely 6 months into my degree. Only a little over a year since we decided not to fight about it anymore, just as my heart is healing from the “no more babies” grief that seemingly only mums experience. Then, THEN, he casually drops a:

“All 7 of us”.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Now?! Now he’s bloody ready? What. A. Prick.

It made sense. The worst of the court proceedings were over. He had stable time with his kids. His job was going well. Our relationship is so happy, we were travelling and having regular date nights, my study was going well, everything was quite settled. Obviously it was a much, much better time.

But uni? My degree? My career? What if now, I’m the one not ready? I don’t want to postpone all that again. I did that after my first and it took me 6 years to go back. I was looking forward to the new plan I had made. The one without a baby.

Later, I ask him.

“Did you mean to say 7?”.

I think I sound more annoyed than I intended. He looks quite abashed. “Yes.”

He tells me that he started thinking about it a few months ago. That he is quite excited at the idea of having a child together. That he wants to parent with me, not just the children we have, but one we share only with each other.

I ask if he’s happy to wait until I’ve finished studying. He tells me that the timing is up to me. But we stop being careful at all pretty quickly. I stop checking the calendar, and we give up on the withdrawal method almost all together. I start getting little twinges of hope and excitement every time my period is late. Disappointment when it arrives. We pick baby names. He changes jobs. I take extra courses to fast track my study program. It’s subtle. But it’s there. It’s not an “if” anymore, it’s a “when”.

* * *

18 months later, the test is positive. And I laugh, because I have exactly 9 months of my degree to go…

Here you are…

For Tilly, Day 5.

And here you are.

This whole, extraordinary, exquisite little person. A head full of dark, silk soft hair, a moon round face with so much of daddy and only flickers of me.

Here you are. Tiny fingers with soft nails, and long feet with long, straight toes. One ear slightly more folded on the upper edge than the other.

Here you are. Rosebud lips, the lower one you draw in and gently suck as you sleep. A dimple below your nose, and the markings of what will be dark eyebrows. Here you are, midnight blue eyes, I see my reflection in them and know the world has changed again.

And here we are, a mummy and daddy for the first time together, basking in you. Overwhelmed by your tininess and the instant, powerful urge to be your protectors, on edge with anxiousness of keeping you safe.

Here we are, wrapped in the bliss of your contentment, focussed on you as the centre of the world, while there’s nothing more we can do but wait. Wait for you to grow and change and settle into this busy, wild, beautiful family of ours. Wait for some resemblance of routine to come, some predictability to our days. Here we are in this newborn galaxy where time ebbs and flows, and the universe settles around your existence. Here we are, falling in love with you.

These are the magical, soft, fleeting, exhausting, twilight days of your newness. Where you change between each sleep, and grow into your newborn wrinkles, soft in my arms. These brief days where I can see in your movements the sensations I felt in my womb. How the way you tip your head is the gentle stretch I felt in my pelvis, how the way you push your legs straight is what I felt under my ribs, and how you suck your hands, like we saw in your scans, that I could feel as little nudges on my lower right belly.

These are the days where you sleep soundly on our chests, rendering us immobile but adoring. These are the days where my breasts are the wonder cure of every slight frown, or discomfort. Where they are your pillow, your security, your second known home.

And, Here we are, you and I, because you don’t yet know that you’re a separate entity to me. Here we are in the soft glow of the nightlight, as we lie together while the world sleeps silently around us. You eat and we snuggle and we melt together as we drift back to sleep.

Here we are, as I’m woken by your snuffles as you search again for food, and I willingly, always willingly, oblige and my body blends into yours, and we fall float quietly back to sleep- milky, warm, safe.

Here we are, you and I.

Here you are. At last. Here you are.

Back…

A few years ago, almost 5 exactly, as it goes, I quite naively inextricably linked my life to someone else’s. That person then found this blog, and all anonymity that I had in writing here was lost, and lost to someone who really shouldn’t be reading my stories, even if just for their own well being.

It’s complicated. And for a long time I think I was waiting for it to not be anymore. But it’s not going to change. I was a key player in the break up of two marriages, two people were devastatingly hurt by something I willingly did. I can’t change it now. I’ve never tried to not own it, and not writing it doesn’t make it disappear.

In short, I fell in love with my best friend. And he fell straight back. While we were both married. With kids. Things fell together, then apart, then back together again. It was a long, messy, complicated, funny, sad, delirious, lusty, heartbreaking season.

In the years that have passed, I’ve considered posting on other platforms to regain my anonymity, especially because I enjoy writing as a process of self discovery and reflection, but every time I come here, and I see my archives, cataloguing my grief, my stories of healing and my children’s growth, I know that it’s not something I want to leave, or separate into two different sites.

And now there’s a whole new reason to start writing again. A brand new little person who’s stories I want to tell, our dreams for her need recording, given she’s our dream come true.

You see, it worked out.

Against all odds. Despite all the pain and mistakes, and things we’d do differently if we had the time again, my best friend and I? We’re still together. Still best friends, still infatuated with each other, and now we are together besotted with our child. Our daughter. The most amazing thing that has come from all the winding roads that have led us here…

11 Months

Well my sweet little Rainbow Princess, your very first year is drawing to an end. This was the month your babyhood ended, and your toddlerhood began. Seemingly over night, my quiet, placid baby has been replaced by an exploring, adventurous, walking, talking, noisy toddler. But you are still every bit as wonderful and I love watching you as the person you are going to be emerges.

It didn’t take long after you first steps at the very end of your 9th month for you to be well and truly off and toddling. By 10.5 months you could move from sitting or crawling to standing up by yourself without needing to use a toy or furniture to pull yourself up on, and you could not just walk across the room, but from one end of the house to the other. It’s strange, and unbelievably cute that someone as small as you is walking, and I’ve been fielding compliments from strangers all month, at the park, the play centre, the shopping centre, so many that I feel I should hang a little sign on you shirt that says,
“Yes I am cute, yes I am tiny, and yes I walked at only 10.5 months”.

Part of me is super proud of you, I didn’t expect you to become a toddler so soon, when you have taken longer to master most things than your biggest sister, who walked at 12.5 months, but part of me is sad to see your babyhood over so early , and the kindergym teacher in me is wishing you crawled longer, it has so many amazing benefits for your coordination skills. So instead we have been playing crawling games with you, you like to crawl behind the curtains, you love to chase The Sunshine Princess if she crawls with you, and I think I might get you a tunnel to crawl through too.

I had you pegged as my late bloomer, which I was quite content with, but this month you’ve not just come out of your shell, you’ve smashed out. I am amazed by how much you have learnt and changed this month and how differently you interact with me, your sister and others, and how you manage and play with your toys. This month you’ve realised that you are completely separate to me and you have absolute autonomy over the control of your body (which is why you hate having your nappy changed and getting dressed so much). But you also know that I am the same as you, you use your hairbrush to brush my hair, like I do to yours, and put your food in my mouth. You pick up my socks and try to put them on your feet, and touch your shoes to my feet (if only I could wear shoes so ridiculously cute). You’re still obsessed with in and out, putting toys in and out of boxes, pulling things out of the draw and putting them back in, and you’re understanding how to make the toys work. You hit your xylophone with the stick now, instead of just bashing it with your hand. You pick up toys and use them as phones, babbling away as you hold them to your ear. You copy the “twinkle twinkle” part of the song when I sing to you, waving your hands above your head. You can now turn the pages of a book individually, with purpose, rather than just several at a time with an arbitrary grab.

You’re choosing favourite songs now, lighting up and dancing when your song of choice is played. At the moment you are enjoying the Frozen soundtrack, although that could just be self preservation, as you hear it at least several hundred times a week, The Sunshine Princess knows how to play them on my phone. Yes, the joys of having a four year old big sister.

You are a fabulous eater, a little pro at feeding yourself because you’ve always done it, and when I try to think of a food you don’t like I come up blank. Favourites include muesli based cereal, and raisin toast with cinnamon. Something you do have in common with your biggest sister is the ability to eat ungodly amounts of food, and remain tiny.

Your babbling has gained momentum this month too, suddenly you are talking non stop, your favourite words are mum, dad, yeh and bum. That’s right. Bum. Another advantage of having a big sister who has just hit the potty humour phase. Oh my darling children, you make me so proud.

This month has had some really hard moments, for a little while your sleep was hugely disrupted as your little brain adjusted to your new walking skills. My normal affirmations of “this too shall pass” and “she’s just a baby” didn’t help much this month as I sat with you, awake for hours in the middle of the night, relentlessly, for nights on end. What did help was the support of my amazing mothers group, a group of very kind and understanding ladies, who are quick to offer help and empathy without judgement. Your sleep has never been much of a problem for me, I’ve been content waiting for you to grow into longer stretches of sleep, and learning to settle without assistance, but it was definitely hard this month, with you resisting my efforts to help you settle, but screaming if left alone. As the month went on, things calmed down, and now, have improved so much that I can look back on this month and find it validating, for my attempts to parent you gently. “Don’t babywear so much” they said, “she’ll never walk!” As I watch you toddle across the play centre, I’m so glad I didn’t listen. “Don’t rock her to sleep, she’ll never fall asleep alone” they said, but this month you learnt to do just that. At times it wasn’t easy, and this month has been emotionally hard for me to let go, as you rebuked my efforts to be comforted to sleep, but now, at 11 months old you are falling asleep on your own at bedtime, and most nights waking just twice, once for a cuddle and once for a breast feed. Such a big step in such a short amount of time, you’ve been cuddled, rocked, bounced or fed to sleep your whole life, and you’ve adjusted well and quickly to falling asleep in your cot, at first with me beside you, and now on your own. I wasn’t expecting you to be ready for that so soon, and it’s a little bit sad in some ways. Some nights you need me to help you, and I enjoy the extra cuddles.

At the end of this month was another huge milestone, mummy left you with a friend for the very first time. I’ve spent time apart from you before, when your daddy is home he often watches you and your sister while I sleep, but this was the first time I actually left the building, that you were far enough away from me that I couldn’t immediately comfort you if you got distressed. Mummy needed to go to the dentist, and one of the beautiful mothers in our mothers group, who you adore, offered to watch you. You waved goodbye to me as I left and happily played for the 1.5 hours I was gone without crying once. I’m so proud of you baby girl, you are growing up way too fast.

Next month will be your first birthday, and we are celebrating with a party, rainbow themed of course. I love you so much my Rainbow Princess, here’s to a wonderful toddlerhood- it’s unbelievable to me how quickly you are growing up.

You Are My Lullaby

29-11-13

My little Rainbow Princess, my sweet, precious little girl, you make my heart sing. Every time I look at you I melt. I am so in love with you, in all your glorious sweet baby smell, with your deliciously soft skin and chubby little legs. I could sit and cuddle you all day long. I am infatuated. I want you near me constantly. Holding you comforts me. I think I need you more than you need me. I miss you when I am busy with your sister and you are on your play mat. I miss you when you sleep long periods at night. I miss holding you when daddy or friends hold you. I lay awake at night and listen to you breathe, you gift gently breaths coaxing me into my own dreams, you are my lullaby.

You are my healing. Not from the Angel’s death, like some may assume, but from the Sunshine’s babyhood.

The birth of the Sunshine Princess was scary, traumatic, painful, terrifying. It left me emotionally hurt, anxious, sad. The screaming baby in my arms felt like a stranger. I was completely and utterly frightened of her, what to do with her, how to love her. It wasn’t a good start to motherhood, and the months that followed didn’t get much better. Your biggest sister was a tough baby. I love her with every inch of my being, but she was hard work. I felt like I couldn’t do anything right by her. She cried near constantly and was hard to soothe. I felt I couldn’t console her, like she didn’t want me, as if I wasn’t good enough. She has grown into the most spectacular child, but her babyhood left me with scars I didn’t really know I had, until you came and healed them.

You birth was the most beautiful experience of my life. I was the first and only to touch you as you birthed, I felt your soft black hair as you crowned, I scooped you up under your shoulders and pulled you from inside me to on top of me. You didn’t cry, just looked calmly around. It was only because I needed you to cry, to believe you were real, that we rubbed you with a towel, and I begged you to wail, that you did. I was the first to see you were a girl. I felt an instant connection with you, like we’ve known each other far longer than physically possible. You adore me nearly as much as I cherish you. Your face lights up for me, when you cry you only want me, and when you have me, you stop instantly. You let me rock you to sleep, or wear you in the carrier and you are content to be with me. While the Sunshine needed space and quiet alone time, you need me. You prefer being on me to being in your cradle or pram, your sister needed me to respect her need for space, to respect that she became easily overwhelmed by my efforts of soothing. I wish I could have rocked her more, held her more, been less worried about her sleep habits, but it wasn’t that I didn’t want to rock her, hold her, comfort her, it was that she needed me not to. Sleep came easily for her when left alone, it comes easily for you when with me. You and her couldn’t be more different and I love that. I love you each so much, in all your uniqueness.

I love that your babyhood is going by so simply. The Sunshine felt like a challenge, almost an obstacle to overcome, her babyhood was quite plainly, difficult. I couldn’t wait for it to end, for her to grow into a crawler, a toddler, something, anything, other than a crying infant. Your babyhood, my sweet Rainbow, is bittersweet. This time is so divine, and so precious, that with each day that passes, with each new milestone you reach, I feel a little sad that our infant days are ending, our crawler days are approaching, and far too soon, you will be a toddler, much more reluctant to snuggle with me, far too busy to sit with me, quietly, while I breathe you in and momentarily feel whole again. I will be your home base when you are ready to explore, I will be here, always, eagerly waiting for you to return to me, to need my comfort, just like I need yours.

You are my lullaby.

Bringing Home the Rainbow Princess

10-11-13.

Bringing Home The Rainbow Princess.

A year ago today I peed on a stick. The two lines showed up instantly and I raced downstairs to tell my best friend. I was superstitious. She had been with me when i discovered my first pregnancy, the one that brought us The Sunshine Princess. She hadn’t been with me when I discovered The Angel’s. There was no way I was doing it without her. She knew hours before The Husband. When I picked him up from work that afternoon, having already bought some baby clothes and a card to make a gift for him, I told him I had a surprise for him. “You’re pregnant aren’t you?!” He said gleefully, ruining my efforts of a cute announcement. 9 long, long months followed. But then, miraculously, I had a baby. And it was a girl. She was a surprise sex baby, we refused to find out. But I was convinced I was carrying a boy. I wasn’t. And I wouldn’t change her for the world.

My little Rainbow Princess, what a sweet sweet baby she is. A head full of dark hair, bright blue almond shape eyes and the most delicious amount of chubbiness, with soft baby skin I can’t keep my lips off. This is the baby I’ve been waiting for, for so very long, finally here in my arms. And in my arms she certainly is for I can barely bring myself to put her down. When she’s awake she’s in my arms, when she’s asleep she’s in the carrier on my front with her forehead on my chest in perfect kissing distance. At night she was in my bed, all night every night until at 9 weeks she decided she preferred her bed, and would wiggle uncomfortably and grizzle until tucked into her Moses basket. Some nights I coax her into a deep sleep and snuggle her under my chin for a few hours of dreamy cuddles.
This is this baby I still can’t believe is mine. Every time I look at her my heart still skips a beat. Mine. Here. Safe. Beautiful.

This is the baby who I silently begged not to die. Who I longed for. And yet, this is the baby I sometimes felt I didn’t love. This is the baby who I wanted to be her sister instead. The baby I thought I shouldn’t be having because I should have given birth to her sister the same day I conceived her. How very very strange it all is.

The Rainbow’s pregnancy, was long, agonisingly anxious. How often I was sure something was wrong, that the midwife wouldn’t find a heartbeat, that I’d wake up one morning to find my rounded belly eerily still. That I’d go into labour, and birth a baby who didn’t take a breath. I imagined every possible thing that could go wrong. I mentally walked myself through every scenario, coaching myself on how I would survive it, again. But never once did I dare let myself imagine walking out of the hospital, with a teeny, tiny bundle of baby, putting it in the car and taking it home. The walk from the birthing suite to the car is the proudest moment of my life. Even prouder than when I did it with my first baby. Because I simply expected that moment with my first, I had no doubt at all it would happen. But with The Rainbow, my third princess, I knew I had nothing to take for granted. That keeping her would be the miracle. So proudly I strolled through the hospital, midwife on one side, wonderful girlfriend and birth partner on the other, with The Rainbow tightly clutched to my chest, my mind very aware of just how different the last time I did this was. The people in the waiting room smiled at me. They were older, perhaps they’d already had babies, and they knew the joy in this moment, perhaps it was a moment they never had but wished for. I wanted to yell at the top of my lungs, “LOOK!!! I did it!! I had a baby!!!!” I can only describe it as pure exhilaration. I had just birthed. Naturally. Peacefully. Easily. Exactly how I had hoped. And now, just 4 hours later I was going home. I felt such a woman. Strong. Empowered. Complete. I wished I could go back in and do it all over again. But I didn’t need to because my Rainbow was here. A Rainbow Princess. My third daughter. And I was in love.

At home in bed that very first night, The Rainbow just 5.5 hours old, who had already met her grandmother, my mother, who burst into tears as I walked through the door, as if she didn’t expect that moment either, slept 6 hrs straight, recovering from her birth journey, waking only to take the breast. I was exhausted from the long labour, but sleep didn’t come, I was scared if I went to sleep I’d wake to find that it had all been a dream and that The Rainbow would be gone. But sunlight broke, and she was still here. Safe. Safe. Safe.

“Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue, and dreams that you dare to dream, really do come true”. The Wizard of Oz.

Being Mumma

9-10-13

Being Mumma

I hate when people say, “don’t let kids change your life”. How could you have children and expect them not to change your world, how could you not want them to?
I am a mumma. And I am a mumma first. My kids ARE my world. My kids have defined everything I am and I am proud of that.
I don’t have time for trendy haircuts, or endless coffee dates at funky cafes, I don’t spend hours at the gym or post pictures of myself to social media to show off how wonderful I am.
Most days my hair is in a pony tail and I go without makeup. Because its more important to me to be with my children than in the bathroom getting ready. My days are spent at preschooler activities, feeding my baby and playing princesses. And I love it.

I didn’t always though. It took me a long time after my first baby was born to let go of my old life. I had a fussy baby who I couldn’t just take with me anywhere, and I struggled with my new little dependent being so, well, dependent! I had no time for me and I hated it. I had given up a lot to have my baby, my university degree, 2 jobs I loved, and an active social life, and it was nowhere near as rewarding as I thought it would be. There was an awful lot of crying, a baby that wouldn’t be held by anyone but me, who wouldn’t accept a bottle or a dummy and who screamed if I put her down and went out of sight to the bathroom. It was a huge adjustment.

But there was also an awful lot of pressure to not lose myself to my baby. Rather than being told to just enjoy what would only be a short period of neediness, to cuddle my bub while she was still tiny and soak up the breastfeeding snuggles, I was told that she should have been able to schedule feed and i must have had low supply, that she absolutely had to learn to self settle or she’d still be sleeping in my bed at age 20 and that if I didn’t want to lose my mind my best option was to let her cry herself to sleep. And I wasn’t just told these things by family and friends, but also by health professionals who I trusted to give me accurate advice.

I went back to work for a few hours each week when bub was 7 months old, and by the time she was 2 I was working over 25hrs a week between 2 jobs. I was exhausted and miserable and missed my baby. But at least I wasn’t “just a mum”.

And then. Then I gave birth to my second daughter. Who was born still. I left the hospital with empty arms and a broken heart. And at that moment i stopped fighting motherhood. I let it become me. I embraced it and found that I actually, completely, love it. I rocked my then 2 year old to sleep every night for months until she wanted me to stop. I sat with her asleep in my arms, with tears running down my cheeks and forgave myself for not enjoying it when she was a baby. I brought her to my bed for cuddles when she woke scared or sad, and chastised myself for letting people convince me that loving and comforting my child would create bad habits. She is a strong, funny, happy, smart, independent little girl and that probably would have happened regardless of whether or not she learnt to sleep by herself at 6 months. At the time I did the best I could, I did what I thought was right and I was comfortable with. I can’t even say that if I could go back I would do things differently, because I learnt so much, my baby taught me how to be the mother I am, and I am proud of that. It was hard and we survived.

And now my third baby is here, sound asleep in my arms as I write this, my favourite place for her to be. When people give me strange looks when I tell them we co sleep, or that she rarely naps in her bed and spends most of her day in my arms, I silently dare them to challenge me. This time I am ready for the criticism. I almost embrace it. Because I know it is ludicrous. Because I know I am right. Because I have researched every single decision I have made about these “controversial” things I do. I haven’t wasted my time trying to give this baby a bottle or a dummy. I have no need. She’s never been put down if she didn’t want to be. She’s never been left with anyone except her daddy. And I know that doing, or not doing these things will not make her any less independent or any more needy as time passes. This time I know exactly how fleeting this time of babyhood will be. I know that in just 3 short years she will be much like her biggest sister, who no longer wants to sleep in my arms, who doesn’t need me to hold her hand at soccer lessons and who can, I’m told, at least 487 times a day, do everything by herself.

I am me when I am mumma. And when I do it my way, I absolutely love it.