Muddling Through Motherhood

The BEST year of my life, so far.

One year ago, in an hour or two, my labour started, kicking off the most wonderful, emotional, exhausting, frustrating, amazing year ever.  It’s Rowan’s birthday tomorrow and suddenly all those memories start flooding back.  I think of my labour and the first hours of Rowan’s life, and how upset I am in retrospect that things didn’t go the way I now wish they had – even though really everything turned out fine in the end.  I think of how I can actually contemplate going through that again (but not yet).

I think about being so nervous of this tiny being that was depending on us.  So nervous that we asked the nursery nurse to do his first nappy change and bath.  So nervous that we spent every night for the first week convinced that he was too hot or too cold.  I think of sitting up in bed for hours desperately trying to stay awake while Rowan fed and fed and fed and how I should just have learned to feed lying down and gone to sleep (instead of falling asleep with him propped in my lap and waking to find he’d slipped his head into my armpit.

For all the mistakes I think I made, and all the things I could have done better, we still have the most amazing son.  He may be demanding at times, but he is loving and caring, funny, attentive, clever, cheeky and just wonderful.

Tomorrow we shall enjoy Rowan’s first birthday with a couple of baby groups, a trip to his favourite coffee shop and a family tea in (as is the Birthday Tradition in Bromsgrove) Wetherspoons – and a late bed!

Everyone who has sent cards and presents – thank you.  Rowan is a very lucky and loved little boy.