Starting over again

It's now been a week since we moved back to Copenhagen. We loved living here when we were younger, and are now overjoyed to be back. I think Anna will thrive there, and in the long-term it's the best way for our family to progress and grow. 

It's sad, of course, to think of leaving behind family and friends, and that we won't see them every other week as we do now. But the reality is that sometimes hard choices have to be made to move forwards. The cost of living in Ireland for people in our position (with young children) is prohibitively high and you're either cash-poor or time-poor, no inbetween.

So for now, are the foreseeable future, we are back. We're now in that awkward in-between stage of setting up bank accounts, getting a bike, setting up social security numbers and registering Anna for kindergarten (!) and all of it.

I know blogs are mostly dead, but I'm going to keep writing, like I always have.

Not very typically Danish, but omg they have Dunkin' Donuts in the Central Station!
I love donuts. Anna loves donuts. We're donut people. 

On valuing our own contributions as parents and carers.

I've been reflecting a lot this year on two things - firstly, just how hard it is to be the main carer for a smaller child. Their physical, emotional, creative needs are vast. They grow and change a mile a minute and there's no way of keeping up. You're just along for the ride. And I say this as the parent of an incredibly independent little kid. It's just such an exhausting, never-ending job. Anna is also still breastfed, which puts quite a bit of physical and emotional pressure on me to 'be there for her' in a lot of ways. 

Secondly, I've been thinking a lot about my own biases about what constitutes 'value'. It took me all this time, 9 months, to accept that the work I do taking care of Anna is valuable and that I do not need to qualify my 'so, what do you do?' responses with justifications. I really thought I needed to. I thought people who think badly of me for not being in paid work because, I suppose, I thought badly of me. But enough time has passed that I've accepted that the work Anna and I do every day (playing, mostly) is genuinely important. 

What's more, I've been doing my own empirical work on the topic. I've spoken to dozens and dozens of parents, grandparents, people from all walks of life and cultures (that's the joy of seeking out difference rather than staying stuck in your bubble, I suppose). Do you know what not one of these people has said to me? That I should go back to work. Not a one. All of them expressed very clear opinions about how wonderful and precious a time the early years is in a child's life, how much of an honour it is to be there with them to go through it alongside them, and how quickly this time ends.

So for now, I've made my choice. I do believe we should all contribute to the betterment of others in whatever way possible, and my way, for the next few years, is to be with my small people and be their greatest helper. If that isn't adding value, I don't know what is.

On My Little Daughter, Who is Practically a Woman Now

 My daughter, Anna, is 20 months young. All through her early months I wrote little blog posts as a sort of catharsis. In those days she was still small enough and immobile enough that, balanced on a breastfeeding pillow on my lap, or nestle in the crook of my arm, I could wield a laptop or a phone well enough to jot down some thoughts. Which I did, hunched over in the dark, right from about Day Three. I've never been keen on sitting still and I don't think that's an admirable quality.  

There was a lot of breastfeeding in those days, weeks, months, sitting and waiting and holding her while she slept, and thinking about all the other things I might be doing, used to be doing, could be doing. I found it incredibly frustrating at times. I spent a lot of time thinking about what it would feel like when I wasn't bothered by it anymore. But by and by she changed, because eventually everything changes. 

One of my most cherished discoveries in recent years is the singer/composer Tom Rosenthal. He has two particular songs that just feel so much like my early thoughts of being a mother. In the first one he laments 'just as I thought you could not sleep, you slept', in the second he asks 'a lifetime of trouble, but how could I not love you?'.

How perfect are those sentiments, for a parent wonder if their baby will ever sleep out of their arms,  who comes crashing into their world and turns everything upside down? And how perfectly they encapsulate a memory you can hold onto when those experiences are long gone.

Life update as we enter the closing phase of 2019

It's been a minute. It's been several minutes. If I'm being totally honest, taking care of a toddler in a full-time capacity while doing all the other bits and pieces I do has left me with no time. I've been with Anna at home full time since January, since I quit my job, which ended up being an utter disappointment. 

It was meant to be my gateway to academia in Ireland, but it quickly became evident that the job wasn't going to provide me with any networking opportunities and probably no tangible outputs I could put my name to either. I was crushed. I was isolated in my work, stressed out dealing with constantly shifting childcare arrangements, and the emotional aspect of leaving my child with other people all day was just more than I could handle at that point. It just wasn't worth it, so I quit. 

In January I had a miscarriage and that was tremendously emotional, so I was grateful to not have to worry about getting up early, packing lunches and taking passive-aggressive phone calls. A few months passed in a haze of...lots and lots of crying and lying there, if I'm being totally honest. Cognitively, I understood that what happened was not a huge deal - a first trimester miscarriage just isn't that uncommon. But my hormones went crazy afterwards and that caused me to struggle. Plus, we're allowed to grieve and perceive what our bodies go through separately from what we understand to be true about health in a general sense. 

But a lot of good things came out of the year. I worked on my friend's campaign in the local elections, and helped support female candidates in my role as Secretary of Labour Women. I helped to successfully set up our local Comhaltas Ceoltóirí Éireann branch. I started teaching tin whistle and acted as Treasurer. We did a few musical performances  The book we wrote as a culmination of the project I worked on for my PhD was published (it's open access, have a read!). I did some research for a Union and we published a report on the state of the childcare sector for its' workers in Ireland. It was picked up by all the major media outlets, I spoke on the radio and in the Dáil. We didn't get the concession we were asking for, so the fight continues. 

So now we're entering the final few months of 2019. There's a lot of life-changing things coming up, and I can genuinely say in retrospect that everything at the start of the year has helped prepare me for the new and exciting challenges that await. Also, on a completely superficial note, I am incredibly excited to start the Christmas music and scented candles (I've promised myself I can begin as soon as the pumpkin has to be thrown out. Any day now).

Amy xo

It's Been a While - Miscarriage, Time, Good Things and Bad Things

 Greetings dear readers,

Up until about two weeks ago I was sure I’d never write anything again, so bummed out with my life was I. The start of 2019 was hard, and that’s why I wrote nothing. Just functioning was difficult enough. I had a miscarriage that started on the very first day of the new year, and it made me sad beyond belief.

During that journey I learned that hormones are incredibly powerful and, resilient as I might try to be, sometimes you can't control how you feel by just willing yourself better. Surprising, eh. I also learned how woefully inadequate the maternity services in Ireland are. I obviously already academically knew this, but to feel it on a visceral level is something else entirely. I now know we desperately need e-health  records and in the meantime much better and consistent paper record keeping. We need a way to link up GPs and midwives, ER and outpatients and community care. I had midwives both congratulate or commiserate when I was in the in-between portion of time, and neither was the right thing to do.

One good thing came out this experience. I talked about my miscarriage to everyone I came across, because I was going through something that felt totally surreal and unexpected (foolishly, yes). I couldn't accept that I had to keep something so sad completely secret. I discovered that so many women I know and care about have had one, two, or even three miscarriages in their reproductive journeys. We shared and bonded and it was cathartic. I never would have learned that otherwise.

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I intended to write a newsletter to combine my academic interest in 'feminist political economy', an abstract way of thinking about the structural causes of women's inequality, with my own experiences as a woman and as a mother. This year I've been confronted with the reality of that, and it feels far from good. It has been bearing down heavily on me, and honestly it's been demoralising. In my PhD thesis I wrote about 'invisible inequalities' and how multiple intersecting factors combine to make women's lives difficult, how these factors are often masked and for all intensive purposes invisible. Their impact is often felt privately.

Let me delve a little deeper into this for one brief moment before I leave you for now (I have a pressing project I must get back to - I'm cataloging every trad tune I got from my flute teacher from 2000 - 2006). I just finished studying, and so I'm hoping to actualise my potential and get some sort of nice job that allows me to use my skills and earn some money. But I can only apply for part-time jobs because it would be too much to have Anna in childcare for 50 hours a week. Plus there are no creche spaces available in my area anyway (I rang at least 8), and I can't put Anna's name down until I have a job because I can't afford to pay without a salary. They won't hold places and it's first come first served. 

I had a casual child minder for Anna but I had to stop her going because I couldn't afford it. So now any academic writing, and job applications, anything for me, has to be squeezed into next to no time at all. And that weighs on me. It's also incredibly hard to even find part-time, flexible jobs to apply for. On the job site I look at, about 10% of the jobs are part-time.

It's a ridiculous situation to be in, really. Childcare is utterly unaffordable for most Irish families but they're forced into it anyway because the cost of living is so high. Women are still the primary carers of children. We still do the bulk of the housework. And we also have to work. But if we want to choose flexible, part-time work, it's very difficult to find, and it exacerbates the gender pay gap anyway. Women are delaying the age at which they have their first child, they're having fewer children, and the cost of living is creeping ever higher.

None of these issues are specific to me. And all of this comes with the caveat that I'm in such an unbelievably lucky position to be able to afford to stay at home with my child at all. These are issues of systemic maldistribution, a symptom of an individualistic society that pushes everyone to bend to the will of the market, devalues reproductive labour, informal work and all forms of care. I do believe we can change it, by getting involved in politics and challenging injustices we see in our everyday lives and teaching our small people to be very kind.

On a more positive note, my little human turned 2 and is as kind and happy a child as I have ever known. Her favourite songs are John Denver's Country Roads and Tears for Fear's Shout, which is fab. 
                                                                                                                            

Amy xo

Two Years!

Does anyone use blogs anymore? It feels like as time goes on we use more and more instantaneous and hastily gratifying means of communicating online. It seems like the dominant model of social media communication is more-now-fast-sell. I've decided to start posting here a little more frequently about the things I get up to in my daily life and not just my experiences of postpartum life which obviously dominated my mental skyline for the last year and a half. 

My life of late has been as lovely as ever - I handed in my PhD and, pending a successful Viva in a month, should be able to change the title on all my household bills to 'Dr' in January. Anna continues to be the brightest star that shines in my day, Leo is forever my best friend and the one I bounce all of my entrepreneurial ideas off (and share all my most illogical worries with, sorry about that). We live in a lovely home, in a lovely village beside two beaches, and all is, quite frankly very well.

Here's to the future, to being well, and to new things.

Starting over

When Anna was three weeks old Leo went back to work and I was at home, very tired and quite unsure of myself, with this little nugget to look after. I also had a PhD to finish. Determined as ever, I tried to cultivate some sort of positive practice around it. Anna didn't nap anywhere but on me in those days, so, armed with a breastfeeding pillow I could strategically lie her on, she alternated between feeds and sleeps on the pillow that lay on my lap. I sat, blind and confused, trying to start writing a chapter. I was tired beyond words and still feeling wounded and worse for ware from the delivery. 

When she woke every twenty minutes or so I took a break from the chaos on the screen and just scrolled through the internet, or wrote blog posts that were so cathartic. I ate a lot of bread and biscuits because my body was depleted and I craved sugar and carbs all the time. We developed a nice rhythm in those days, and I managed to do my best written work on an uncomfortable IKEA foldable chair with the baby on me.

In those first few weeks I didn't know how I was going to do it, and honestly I probably shouldn't have. I should have slept and rested and sat quietly. Next baby, I will. As a new mother, my motivation and drive to challenge myself were quite intense, we travelled to so many countries in those first few months, I spoke at conferences and wrote and visited people and I managed to do it all with a pelvic prolapse (don't underestimate your pelvic floor health, folks) and a baby that puked and boobed around the clock. I don't think it's the smart thing to do, to push yourself so hard, but reflecting on it now I am proud of myself. 

Here I am, 14 months later. Same chair, same coffee, same laptop (although Anna broke the hinge on it sometime between then and now). I've finally managed to complete that damn thesis and handed it in, and while I wait for my Viva in September I'm back in the uncertain, muddy time of in-between. Anna isn't here now, she's gone to a minders because that little girl doesn't even want to sit on a lap anymore, let alone sleep there. She's grown into this spirited and rowdy little one, and I've managed to finish something that I'm quite proud of, and help a little girl grow out of her newborn self into a wonderful rambunctious toddler. 

Sitting here feels like starting over all over again but also familiar and sort-of heartbreaking at the same time. It's time to begin my job-hunting spreadsheet. Thanks for reading, lovely people xo. 

January, 2018

For almost ten months, my dear, wonderful, excited and enthusiastic little baby would nap in one of three places. In a sling, walking around, in a buggy, or on me. 

Do you know what it does to a person, not having a baby-free minute in a day (because she wakes to nurse a gazillion times a night too, so no breaks there)? It means you have to rush up and down stairs a lot to make cups of tea and eat lunch while the baby plays upstairs and screams at you to get back up here as soon as she realises you're gone. It means you rush quick showers while the baby blows raspberries against the glass and laughs at you, wondering what you're hurrying for. It means that all that time to meal prep, or clean, or take care of yourself, or read a book, becomes time that is only to facilitate the baby in her sleeping. 

Sitting on the bed, with a sleeping baba in your arms, scrolling Instagram. It's kind of really a wonderful thing. It's cosy and warm and comfortable. But it also takes it's toll. I really started to question myself. Had I created this situation? Was it a 'habit'? Would I ever be free? I'll admit that it had a negative effect on my mental health. Around month 8 and 9, I just wanted her to nap, on the bed, on her own, like all the other babies I imagined did. I blamed myself for my failure to make this happen. I couldn't get anything done and I was stressed out because of that. When I had visitors over it was a disaster, because I couldn't disappear for an hour at a time but she wouldn't nap otherwise, so she'd be cranky and then teary. People would give advice, but honestly, well-meaning advice from people who don't live your life is at best useless and at worst upsetting.

The end of this particular tale is that she worked it out. Call it whatever you like, cognitive development, a 'leap', growing up, maturing, becoming more comfortable in herself. Whatever. She worked it out. It didn't make a damn bit of difference what I did, the different silly little tricks I tried. When she was ready, she let me lay her down on the mattress and curled up and stayed contentedly asleep. I can go downstairs, make my tea, read a book. I don't have as much time as I would like because we never have as much time as we would like, but I have some time, and that's more than I had a month or two ago. 

I don't write as many blog posts as I did in the first few months. As time goes on, it becomes easier. It's more hectic than ever, but it makes sense, you know? Anna communicates her needs and wants quite clearly, without words (unless 'mamamama' or 'babababa' count), and I don't feel the need to  write these meaning-making posts to work it out. It's nice to have a written log, but it's also nice to know that I can just live it, and not think about it too much. 

Cheers to that.

'Oh why can't we start old and get younger?'

The experience of real butter will always remind me of my granddad.
Sitting at the table with the waxed tablecloth as old as time,
in their kitchen that always smelt faintly of gas.
There was always butter - Connaught Gold. Salty, creamy.
Just at the right temperature for spreading on fresh, seeded wholemeal bread.
I remember the taste, a layer of butter, a layer of tart blackerry jam.
I remember sitting there, savouring it, never wanting it to end.

I have the memory of it now, and it's as clear and real to me today as it was when I was 7, 8, 9.
Sitting in the kitchen, eating bread and jam.

The far side of the postpartum experience: mourning, loss and recovery

It’s a really weird experience, going through pregnancy and having a baby. You foster that life that grows inside you and then it emerges into the world and continues growing. But for a long time it’s not independent of you – it relies on you for food, to keep it warm, to lull it off to the sleepy-world. Your baby is an extension of you, and you are an extension of your baby. And then, it begins to shift. Baby can move, baby begins to realise they are independent of you. Then baby begins to eat food. Real, solid, human food that anyone can feed her. She relishes this new set of experiences. Baby can crawl. Baby is growing up.

Somewhere along the way this story stops being about you as a pregnant body, you as a new mother. The bleeding stops, your stomach slowly and steadily decreases in size with each passing week. You can walk farther than a mile without needing a rest, you get to sleep. You aren’t craving sugar and carbohydrate all the time, your body has replenished the iron and zinc that it donated to the placenta. There are newer babies that replace your baby as the ‘new thing’ and that is beautiful too.

Somewhere along the way this story starts being about you again. You, and this other little human, this baby that is now independent of you, that can be cared for by a loving and well-meaning relative or a minder. She needs you, of course, but it’s not in that primal, biological ‘basic needs’ sort of way, more of an emotional support and a care-giver like anyone else could be.

And then, what are you? It’s been eight months of breastfeeding and naps-in-arms. On the outside, little has changed. It’s still breastfeeding and naps-in-arms. But a subtle shift has been tip-tip-tipping away the last few weeks. Fewer feeds, sometimes napping in the bed. More solid food. Trying to stand. The change now is taking place in your own body. A niggling change, as your body shifts once again.

Bodies are funny. Nothing happens suddenly, it’s all subtle thief in the night type stuff. You feel a little cramp here and there and feel the hormonal shift that you can’t really explain to anyone else. Your body is changing, again. You’re beginning to phase out of being a postpartum body, and back to being a regular (what does that even mean?) woman who has the capacity and the potential to do it all over again.

Matter has this impatient, eternal desire to perpetuate its own existence and to reproduce itself. It just wants to keep on keeping on. And you realise that your body is just a part of that bigger picture. It’s a funny thing, adjusting to all these changing roles. It’s a funny, emotional time. A time for grieving a loss, anticipating the return of an old friend, expectation and waiting. It’s a time for crying and not being able to say why. Of incomprehensible rage and a void of sadness welling up. A huge part of being a breathing, feeling body is the huge amount of feeling that it entails.

We don’t talk enough about the feelings. The feelings matter a lot.