Sally, Faith and Ethan

Name: Sally

Children: Faith, 4 years 

and Ethan, 9 weeks

Location: Salford 

Expectations of Motherhood: I've worked with children for my entire adult life so I felt pretty confident about having a baby, I knew all the practicalities and thought that the emotions would come easily. Having a baby was also in no way going to change my life at all, the baby would have to come along to whatever I was doing and everything would be beautiful. 

Faith was so wanted so I was really ready to be a mum and just couldn't wait to get on with it.

Reality of Motherhood: Oh where to start! You know after the Duchess of Cambridge appeared outside the hospital hours after giving birth, looking amazing and smiley and perfect? It's nothing like that. Motherhood is fraught and scary and demanding. Don't get me wrong, it's the most amazing thing you'll ever do, but it takes you to unknown places and in ways you can only imagine. For me I had times, when Faith was a baby, of forgetting who I was. Everything was about her and making sure she was constantly happy and not crying, it was exhausting, it still is on occasion, but now I have a better balance.

Around three months after Faith was born I think post-natal depression kicked in. This wasn't part of my plan. I wasn't going to get this because I worked with children, I knew what I was doing, so I denied it. 

I lived, probably for the best part of 18 months, with an intense sense of doom, I KNEW something would happen to my child, it was always there, like I couldn't give anyone the normal version of me because I constantly felt that I lived in a tin can of despair. I also felt that the sleepless nights and the intensity of our relationship would never improve! I remember an aunt saying that her son didn't sleep through until he was 18 months and I felt devastated that it could take this long (as it happens Faith took three years to sleep through in the end!). I never spoke about this and I never had any help. So when Ethan came along I thought I'd end up down the same path, but so far so good. 

Having a four year gap is like starting again though, I'd forgotten so much in that time, fortunately (or unfortunately maybe) it doesn't take long to remember! 

Second time around and Ethan really has had to fit into family life. It helps that he's a really chilled little boy, whilst not as demanding as Faith, the sleepless nights are still no prettier!

You find yourself wishing your baby's life away, I really did with Faith and I couldn't wait for the next milestone, but with Ethan I don't feel like that. I'm enjoying him being a baby and I'm fairly sure the lack of sleep wont last forever. He's my last baby and I want to savour him.

Taking your children home for the first time: I planned a home birth with both of my children so never intended to 'go home' with either. However, neither home birth was meant to be and I was induced in hospital with both. 

I remember getting home with Faith, putting her in a Moses basket and thinking 'what am I meant to do with her?'. It felt crazy that someone had allowed me to be in charge of such a tiny thing.

With Ethan it was completely different. My first thought was, 'Have we got something in for Faith's tea?' and 'Can I have a snooze before she gets home'!
Bringing Ethan home was like completing a circle; our family is complete and he is the final piece, so it felt less overwhelming and more celebratory.

The best/worst advice: The best advice I had was no advice. Despite reading all the books and my years of experience with children, there were so many times when I felt completely clueless. I'd cry on the phone to my mum about what I should do, and she never advised me, she'd ask what I wanted to do and told me to do it. You already have a gut feeling about what you think is best and I think going with that feeling is the best advice anyone can give.

The hardest parts of being a mother: When I was 27 weeks pregnant with Ethan, my own mother passed away. She'd been diagnosed with Lymphoma for about a year and we knew it wasn't going to end well, but nobody expected it to happen at that time. Since then it's been a rough road, there have been ups and downs and I am so very sad that she never got to meet Ethan. She was the only person to say he'd be a boy because she'd had a dream about him and I take comfort from this, it's like she had a sense of him before he came. 

It's hard not having my mum here to share both Faith and Ethan's every achievement with, I still think how I must text her about something that one of them has done and then remember that I can't, so it's like an ongoing grieving cycle. Faith also had a close relationship with her so dealing with her grief has been, at times, difficult. She asked one day if Mamar (from not being able to say Grandma) had a mobile phone with the angels because she wanted to tell her that she loved her.
My mum was the type of mum I aspire to be, she was gentle, loving and strong and I hope that I will be the same.

The best parts of being a mother: Producing two amazing little people is pretty awesome! Getting to know them both, learning things about them and things about me is a lifelong journey I look forward to treading.
I cherish so many moments, from the way only I can soothe Faith after a scraped knee to the little 'in' jokes we have and how we're introducing Ethan to the ways of our family. It's no bed of roses at all, but like everything in life, you have to take the rough with the smooth.

Has becoming a mother changed you?: Without a doubt! Sometimes I look at my life now and it's unrecognisable. I never thought I'd embrace family life but I have and I wouldn't change any aspect of that. I like spending time with my children, I used to look forward to getting drunk at weekends, now I'm looking forward to going to see Disney on Ice! This isn't to say my life revolves around them, I'd still snap the hand off a babysitter and I still like a night out, it's just that they're rarer treats nowadays. 

I think Children are a great gift but they change everything you know about life as you know it; it's a celebration and a mourning all at the same time. You have to pick yourself up and put yourself back together in some ways, there's still everything there that makes you you, it's just that you're in a different order to before. 

Hopes for your family: My mum always said that being happy was one of the most important things in life and I stand by this. I don't care what they do or who they are I just want them to be happy. Life is far too short not to be.

What advice would you offer to new and expectant mums?: Basically, go with the flow, don't sweat it and it won't always be like that. It's hard to see a way out during the difficult times but one day you'll look back and laugh (or maybe cry!).

Becky, Leila and Asher

Name: Becky

Children: Leila, 3 and Asher, 9 months

Location: Manchester

Expectations of Motherhood: When I was pregnant with Leila, I had only the vaguest of expectations, as motherhood was such alien territory. None of my friends had children at that point, so I had no 'blueprint' of what to do/not do or how it would be. I did expect to love my baby intensely and for her to bring huge joy to my life. I adored being pregnant - it was a dreamy, indulgent time and I loved my bump. But towards the end I started to worry that I wouldn't love the baby after all, and I had deep, secret fears about whether I would be a good mother - not of the 'what if my organic purees are not quite the right consistency for baby's delicate digestion?' variety; more like, 'what if I am capital B Bad, like shouldn't have children at all Bad'. These fears haunted me through the last weeks of pregnancy, as I waddled to my due date and beyond, virtually housebound by the big freeze that took hold that winter.

Reality of Motherhood: Thank goodness, when she arrived Leila swept away my fears in an instant. I will always be grateful to her for that. The moment she appeared, pink and bendy and cross, my first words were gasped with amazement and relief: 'oh I DO love you, I do love you, I love you'. She totally delivered on the intense love/huge joy front. However, those first weeks were a massive shock. Not in the sense that I wasn't expecting it to be hard work - veteran parents are determined during your first pregnancy to drum into you that It Will Be Hard. But the reality of round-the-clock breastfeeding (three hours from the start of the first feed to the start of the next- the START! And the feed takes 90 minutes!), the grizzly newborn nights, and the mystery of what could possibly be wrong with the baby when she cried, proved to be very tough. More than that, the sheer weight of emotion I felt knocked me sideways and upside down. I remember one evening, listening to a CD of gentle 'baby music' a friend had made, holding Leila in front of me and just bawling onto her fat sleeping face.

When Asher came along almost three years later, the newborn phase felt like a breeze by comparison. The culture shock had already taken place, I suppose. This was charted territory now. I just revelled in his newborn squishiness and crazy ways. I wished I could go back and experience the first time again, with the hindsight of the second time, the knowledge that the madness will not last forever, and also, woman: nothing will happen to the baby if you leave it sleeping in the basket in the corner while you have a nap, drink a cup of tea or go to the loo.

Taking your children home for the first time: My labour with Leila was long, slow and slightly complicated, in the way it seems many first labours are: I was induced, had to have a syntocin drip to speed things up, lost some blood and went to theatre because of a retained placenta. I stayed in hospital for a couple of nights. By the time we were able to take her home, I felt, physically and emotionally, like I'd been hit by a train. We did the typical anxious, slow drive home, all the while feeling like we were bound to be pulled over by the Baby Police, as clearly we were not grown up enough to be left in charge of an actual human being.



The first few days were a blur. I was exhausted beyond anything I'd known before, anaemic and spaced out. Sometimes I didn't know if I was awake or asleep; I couldn't concentrate on the television, let alone a magazine or a book. I felt like a zombie, and was in bed for several days.

When Asher was born, the experience was totally different. The labour was 4.5 hours from start to finish, and he was born quickly and smoothly in the birthing pool. It was, strange as it sounds, the best experience of my life. The three of us chilled out in the birth centre for a few hours, I scoffed a family bag of jelly babies, and we were home before 5pm. I felt on top of the world, full of energy even, and ate fish and chips with the family before heading to bed for the first of many, many nights of madness.

Of course, the main difference bringing Asher home was that there was an older sibling there to meet him. Leila cradled his head in her tiny toddler's hands and smiled a pleased smile. 'Isn't he wonderful' she said. As time went on she would swing between this sentiment, fierce, slightly aggressive love, and irritation with her little brother ('I want him OFF your nipple' she said a few days later, swiping his head backwards with her hand).

The best advice: I bumped into a male colleague at the shops when I was heavily pregnant with Leila. He has a particular straightforward, deadpan way of talking. No beating around the bush. He said to me, without drama, as I glowed with excitement and optimism: 'It'll be like a bomb's gone off, love. It's brilliant. But it's like a bloody bomb's gone off'. Not so much advice, more a simple truth which I have found oddly comforting since.

The worst: Enjoy every minute. What, every minute? Every single one? Even the ones with the crying (mine) and the screaming (theirs) and the 3am whining? That's just setting yourself up for feeling like a failure.



The hardest parts of being a mother: There are plenty of parts I find hard! It can feel like you crash from one transition to the next; just when you get the hang of one phase (weaning, potty training, tantrums), another kicks in. When you have two, the logistics of managing the very different demands that each age and child presents are pretty mind-boggling. Meanwhile each new phase is so consuming that every bump in the road feels like the hardest phase you've been through. So right now, managing the behaviour of a 3 year old coupled with the physical demands of a 9 month old, feels like the hardest thing. But I'm well aware that in years to come I'll look back on these as the glory days which, really, they are. The time before life got complicated.

Toddlers are their own special brand of challenging. Hilarious, captivating, psychotic and adorable. With Leila I have found Three more demanding than Two. It can be so hard to keep my cool at times, as she pushes with all her might against every boundary. And I am so desperate to be the calm, consistent parent I think she deserves, that the effort of disciplining in the 'right' way is exhausting.

By comparison, babies can seem like a doddle. That is, until they try to finish you with the not sleeping. Asher is and has been a very easy baby on many fronts, but not when it comes to sleep. At the height of his reign of terror (between 3-6 months) I really felt at times like sleep deprivation would break me. Some nights still drive me to tears. I read threads on Mumsnet from mothers perplexed that their four month old has 'stopped' sleeping through. They've what now? STOPPED? My 9 month old never started.

The best parts of being a mother: Basically, everything apart from the hard parts is the best part.

Seeing their personalities develop is the best. I love that Leila is so different from me (fiery, loud, outgoing, a performer) yet we get on so well. She is genuinely hilarious, and not just because she does funny little-kid things like stopping in front of the mini bottles of wine in Asda and saying 'mummy! Lots of special wine for children!'. And even at nine months old, I can already see that Asher is totally different from Leila (cuddly, chilled, an explorer). Seeing them together, laughing like loons at one another, is the best. Being a family is the best. 

Holding, cuddling and stroking them is the best. There must be some mummy-catnip in those babies. I wonder if one day they'll ban me from fiddling with their hair, running my fingers up the nobbles of their spines, squeezing their cheeks between my thumb and forefinger, and curling them back up into a foetal position to crush them gently in my lap. Maybe they'll still let me do it when their work friends aren't in the room.

Every day, a handful of moments are the best, happiest moments you've ever experienced. A friend who was in throes of new motherhood emailed just after Leila was born, and said 'even the hardest days have their magic moments', and that is the wonder of having kids. Though one moment I can be driven to tears of frustration, the next I'm sitting there thinking 'yes. This is it'. The happiness can just surge up through my body and threaten to burst out of my throat at any given moment. 

Has becoming a mother changed you? I'm somebody whose mind is rarely at rest. I'm forever mulling over the past or fretting about the future. Having Leila and Asher, I can be completely in the moment. And I'm more at ease. I know that if I never achieve anything else in my life - and I do intend and fervently hope to achieve other things - I have had them, and that is enough. There's a peace about that.

Also, the body-surging happiness I described above is something I thought I wouldn't experience again when my youngest sister died, several years before Leila was born. Having the children opened my heart to the possibility, and the reality, of utter joy.

Hopes for your family: I want them to be safe, happy and well. That's what it boils down to. It seems so little, yet so much, to ask.

I hope that they (and any future sibling/s) gain as much from each other as I have from my brother and two sisters, and form as close a bond.

I don't expect them to never experience sadness, but I hope they never experience traumatic loss. 

I hope they love and are loved. The right sort of love.

I hope they like their parents as they get older. And that they outlive us.

I hope we have another child. I'm not done, as I told my partner (somewhat alarmingly, I imagine) minutes after Asher was born.

What advice would you offer to new and expectant mums: Don't be smug. You may have the magical sleeping baby, the perfect eater, the most well-adjusted sweet-natured sociable kid there is. But if you are smug about it, it WILL bite you on the bum. If not next week, then next year or when the child is a teenager, or when you have your second child. (Or at least, you can be smug - all parents are - but don't do it out loud).

Understand that babies' sleep does not progress in a linear fashion. If your baby sleeps through at 8 weeks (as Leila did), don't be disheartened when her/his sleep goes haywire later on. This will continue through at least the first year. But equally, if your baby still hasn't slept through by nine months (Asher....), know that one day, he/she - and you - will get a full night's sleep. I least I hope we will. WON'T WE? Also remember that the baby books which tell you that 'most babies' sleep through at two months, or that yours 'should' be, wouldn't be bestsellers if this was actually true.

Make 'mum friends' (and/or dad friends, of course). I found playgrounds excruciating for many months, and found the idea of approaching other parents frankly horrifying, but once I bit the bullet and started talking to people, I made friends who have been a great support and, more importantly, a good laugh. It's invaluable to spend time with people who are in the same magic, manic, sick-sodden boat. I have discovered, too, that most people feel the same - i.e. that they are a socially inept, repellant buffoon, and that all the other mums are confident and popular. 

Enjoy every minute. Ha.

Jane, Sophie and Harry

Name: Jane Lee 

Children: Sophie, 2 and Harry, 9 months 

Location: Didsbury

Expectations of Motherhood: It was a fairly long journey to motherhood for me. I had longed for children since the latter half of my twenties and then, sadly, the long term relationship that I was in floundered. I had to wait to meet the right person to marry and have children with. This happened in my early thirties and we started trying for a baby straight away. However, we had to face a couple of miscarriages before successfully conceiving our daughter. Based on the strong bond that I had with my own wonderful mother, I expected motherhood to be the most amazing thing and couldn’t wait for the experience of getting to know my baby and all the fun things we would do and the love that I knew I would have for that much wanted child. Sophie’s second name is ‘Arabella’ which means ‘much prayed for’ - and she was.

Reality of Motherhood: The birth of my first daughter was a fairly traumatic experience resulting in an emergency C-Section in which I lost rather a lot of blood. The first couple of days of being in hospital were therefore spent in a slight haze of Morphine. 

I will never forget the first night that we were together and lying awake while she slept, just staring at her and loving her with such a powerful all encompassing love and feeling so intensely happy (I am sure that this was not just the morphine!). Those feelings have not gone away and are the cornerstone of how I feel about both of my children. 

The main reality of motherhood for me is that it is a dream come true. There is nothing more amazing for me than to watch my children develop and grow, and a single smile or moment of fun instantly makes up for the constant tiredness that has become a way of life for me now. The reality is ALSO that it is hard and it is relentless – waking in the night continuously to feed, change, comfort and then to spend the day feeding, changing, playing, stimulating, and cleaning up after the children. It is physically demanding and mentally draining – but it is ALL worth it.

Taking your children home for the first time: Having been in hospital for over a week with Sophie we felt fairly institutionalised by the end of our stay. It was very strange to see normal people walking along the street while we drove (very slowly) home with our new little bundle in the back. I felt like I should be shouting out of the window – ‘look I have had my baby – isn’t it amazing’. Getting home was a lovely time – we had family there and we put the baby in her carrycot and generally just enjoyed what felt like a massive achievement. The physical pain of having an emergency C-Section with each child marred the joy a bit and meant that we needed family to stay and help so we weren’t on our own for at least a couple of weeks in each case. I think that this eased us in gently and I am grateful for that. 

The best/worst advice: The best advice for me was to sleep while the baby sleeps and this is what I did. I have always been a cat napper, and the moment the baby went off I would curl on the sofa with my red blanket and sleep until crying woke me. These power naps really helped me to get through the day. Another amazing piece of advice was a friend who said, ‘Be kind to one another’ – parenthood can bring out such strong emotions in you, particularly if you are stubborn and opinionated, as are myself and my husband, so sometimes you have to take a step back and just be kind. 

I can’t think of any bad advice really – but each baby is different and you have to get to know what works for your baby and trust your own instincts as a mother.

The hardest parts of being a mother: For me the hardest part is dealing with the anxiety that I experience daily with regard to each of my children and the responsibility of them. 

I have always been a worrier but my levels of anxiety over the last two years have really peaked. My imagination runs riot with things that could happen and in hindsight I think that my traumatic birth experiences may have not helped this. The way that I am learning to deal with this is to take each day at a time and concentrate on the moment – and to enjoy the moment for what it is. 

Another difficult part has been accepting that I have to put my own life and aspirations on hold for the moment and concentrate on ‘growing and nurturing’ my children. I was made redundant whilst on maternity leave with Harry and whilst it is a relief not to have that particular job any more I have been placed in a dilemma, as the industry that I was in (law) does not generally practice child friendly hours and I am reluctant to go back to full time work whilst my children are so young. Because of this I have had to accept that, for now, I am a full time mum and am trying to learn that I don’t need to qualify this every time I am asked what I do by stating what I used to do as a job. It’s a humbling experience, but I am getting there!

The best parts of being a mother: Where do I start? The smiles, the laughter, the feeling that now we are a real family, the love that grows stronger every day. I love that I am starting to forge a relationship with my daughter and she tells me things and we laugh together. I love watching my husband being an amazing dad and the care and love that he showers on our children.

Has becoming a mother changed you? Absolutely. It has made me less selfish and much less inclined to care about what other people think of me as I simply don’t have the time for it. My children are my world now – not my job or myself. 

Hopes for your family: My hope is that my children will grow to be confident (unlike me who has always suffered with a lack of confidence) and will feel loved and supported throughout their lives. I hope that we will retain our sense of laughter and fun as a family and always love each other and be there for each other and have adventures together.

What advice would you offer to new and expectant mums? Join an NCT group – I have found such support and friendship in mine and wouldn’t be without it for the world. Also, try and take pleasure in all the little things that everyday brings – the smiles, the cuddles and the love. They far out way the general knackeredness and the state that your body gets into after having a child!