13 Month Blues

I feel like half a mum and a shadow of a wife at the moment. I don’t always feel like this mind you. I guess it’s the same, in a lesser version, for all stay-at-home mums: Dad is at work all day, misses baby like mad. But being immersed in work life, although hard, gives him an energy to bring home from work. He comes home and all that energy and longing gets lavished on baby and baby is delighted. Mum feels like the boring one, the one whose energy is spent doing the chores all day, whose imagination for new games has run dry.

Only for me it’s multiplied by ten. Because I feel if only I had the strength and energy I could provide excitement and entertainment for Sofia during the day while her Daddy is at work – we could go to music groups, sing together, meet other mums and babies together. We could go to toddler’sgyms, we could go and see the animals, we could go out for some fresh air and feel the wind on our faces together. We could spot dogs in the park, we could race in the pushchair, we could see the world together. Or at least I could chase her round the flat a bit and throw her up in the air. I could pretend to be a funny animal, do a dance. Instead I spend so much of the day immobilised on the sofa. Struggling to maintain a dialogue. Commenting on her trials and tribulations with the stacking rings or the rocking horse. Trying desperately to keep my voice interesting, or my face animated, since it’s the only way I can give her love and attention. The only way I can reach her. Sometimes I’m too exhausted even to keep up the monologue and I drift off for a while. But I try to quickly come back, to reach out with some little word or exclamation to let her know I’m here and I love her. It’s agonising, my daily struggle to reach out and give love to Sofia. I just hope she gets it. I have to believe that she does. That her experience of her mum is whole for her because she doesn’t know any different.

Sometimes when we read a book together and cuddle at bedtime our relationship does feel complete. Or on the rare occasions when we’ve been out with other mums and babies and I realise that Sofia clings to me just like any other baby with their mum and that in the eyes of all the other mums who can’t see my disability we look normal. And it gives me such a huge surge of joy and confidence.

But mostly I feel relief when her daddy walks through the door and her little face lights up. Relief on her behalf that she can at last have some stimulation and normal interaction. Relief that I can finally rest without those terrible pangs of guilt and inadequacy. And I retreat into nothingness where nothing is required of me - as a mother or as a wife.

April 2006