Sorry, not sorry.

Cool cup aye!

All the midwives reading will relate to it 😉. It was a lovely gift I received today from a client at her discharge visit (and no gifts are not required or expected for midwifery care!).

During this particular first time mum’s labour - which I thought she was rocking - she continually apologised. Despite all my reassurances she just couldn’t stop. I even gave her a dose of homeopathic pulsatilla that is the perfect remedy for an ‘apologiser’ or a ‘cryer’. Not very PC to label people I know, but a lot of homeopathic remedies are based on personality or presentation. She was a definite ‘pulsatilla person’.

Anyway she couldn’t stop and by the end of it even apologised for all the apologising 🤣! Of course that made me laugh.

Why do we do that? Why do we feel bad for the yelling, the swearing, the sweat, the farts, the blood, the tears? What is it that makes women apologise in labour? They should all be owning it. It’s their time to shine and feel loved and supported. And no, your midwife won’t remember what your vagina looked like.

Regardless of how they are acting during the birth all birthing people are just doing their best. No one goes into labour thinking meh, I’m not going to try. Now admittedly a few haven’t thought about how they will deal with the pain and the guts of it all, but hey, they still do their best on the day. They are still digging into their mental and physical reserves to get through. They are still overwhelmed and having to learn their limits the hard way.

I honestly feel that for most of us, giving birth for the first time is a right of passage. You can’t be a mum without thinking at some stage that you can’t do this anymore. When really we can and we all do. It’s the ultimate morphing from a girl to a woman, that doubt or feeling of being completely spent is part of the process. It’s starting on the path to becoming a matriarch. If it was easy where would that sense of achievement be? Too many things are easy today. Whether your baby comes out your vagina or your puku, both are hard, both events earn you a medal in my book.

And if your baby came another way via someone else, that’s still frigging awesome too. Don’t apologise for it whatever you do.

Honestly the highlight of being with a woman at her baby’s birth is getting her through that hard part, using every skill I have. Then helping her lift up her baby and watching her face change. That ‘I’m so proud of myself, look what I did, OMG look at my baby’ face.

No other event gives that face. No matter how exhausted a new mum is, that moment is still the best. It’s very fleeting for me as I have so many things to do at that time, but I always ensure I make eye contact and welcome her to the ‘other side’.

It’s just a look - but she gets it.

So to all those mums out there this Christmas, be proud of you. It doesn’t matter if you don’t always love your new role. It doesn’t make you a bad mum if you would rather someone else would just hold the baby for a while and you could transport yourself to the beach - ALONE. The instagram pics of the perfect families and babies aren’t real, they are having their issues too. Life’s not like that.

Your own mum should get how you feel. She didn’t always think you were perfect either! And if for some reason she doesn’t, there are plenty that will. Sometimes you just have to be the first one to say that you are finding things hard.

And you know what? Those damn kids will sometimes love the wrapping and the box more than the gift. But they will always remember the feeling of love and the cuddles more than the washing not done and the dirt on the floor. They won’t even remember the ham was dry - they probably won’t eat it anyway.

So if the stress of Christmas and all the jobs you have to do is getting you down, then maybe lower your standards. Just be.

I know that’s easy for me to say when I’ve come out the other side with teenagers now 😉. But I’ll never forget staying up into the wee hours of Christmas morning building a huge fort by torchlight. No doubt involving the odd barny with the hubby because his apprentice was a bit crap and tired. Then all bleary eyed the next morning, pulling the curtains open for the dramatic reveal - and the kids just glancing at it and returning to their cheap Santa gifts on the floor.

I think we went and sat on it on our own. It was peaceful out there. There’s always a bright side.

So merry Christmas to you all. Whatever way you became a mum, or dad, or care for others, you are all rockstars. Give yourself a break and stop apologising.

Kimba x