Emma and Evelyn

Name: Emma

Child: Evelyn, 12 months

Location: Penwortham

Expectations of Motherhood: I spent my whole pregnancy terrified that I was going to lose my baby. We'd had a little girl who was stillborn at 22 weeks a couple of years earlier and even with regular scans I couldn't bring myself to look past being pregnant. It was only when I was in labour that the reality of impending motherhood suddenly hit me. 

Reality of Motherhood: It took a few weeks for it to really sink in, and at least a couple of months for me to find my feet and enjoy motherhood. I spent too long feeling bored and trapped and wishing I was at work. I wish I had appreciated that time a lot more.

Taking your child home for the first time: Seeing Evelyn sitting in her car seat in the middle of the living room, she looked so tiny and vulnerable and we had a real "oh shit!" moment as we realised we had to look after her by ourselves!



The best/worst advice: I read everything I could get my hands on when I was pregnant so as to be fully prepared for every situation. In reality it meant that I'd read so much conflicting advice that I spent the first couple of months constantly second guessing myself and getting stressed when Evelyn didn't follow textbook baby rules. The best advice is definitely to trust your instinct. 

The hardest parts of being a mother: The worry that I might fail her in some way.

The best parts of being a mother: Every night we sit in Evelyn's room and have a sleepy cuddle before she goes to bed. I look at her beautiful face and smell her hair. It's only now that I really understand what my mum meant when she told me she loved me - that all encompassing overwhelming love.

Has becoming a mother changed you? I hope it's made me a better wife. Having a baby has strengthened our marriage by exposing the cracks and forcing us to work on them. I'm much less selfish and self-centred and my priorities have completely changed. 

Hopes for your (growing) family: I want Evelyn to feel happy, safe and confident in herself. I also want us to stay a close, supportive family. I'd hate for her to feel as though there was anything she couldn't confide in me.

What advice would you offer to new and expectant mums: I know it's been said a hundred times before and it's not even advice that I listened to, but try and take time to enjoy that first year. I cried a bit on Evelyn's first birthday because I don't have a baby any more. I have a stroppy hilarious strong willed intelligent toddler and she's changing and developing so much every day that I'm already forgetting what she was like as a baby.

Jane, Wilf, Bertie and Iris

Name: Jane 

Children: Wilf, 7, Bertie, 4, Iris, 11 weeks, 
and Baby Zee, 
Stillborn at 40 + 4 in September 2013

Location: Chorlton 

Expectations of Motherhood: I had wanted to be a mum for as long as I could remember, having a pretty good one myself I was lured into a false sense of security that motherhood was a bit of a breeze. I envisaged long, rosy days of cuddles, coos and calm; I dreamed I would be brilliant at it. 

Reality of Motherhood: It isn't easy, it isn't a bit of a breeze and my days are certainly not the utopia of cuddles/coos/calm that I imagined. It is, hands down, the hardest job I've ever done - and I deal with hundreds of challenging teenagers for a living. That said, it is without a doubt the most rewarding, amazing and fulfilling role I have ever played. In any given day I can be a hundred different people - cook, cleaner, butler, teacher, doctor, nurse, dentist, spy, superheroine, playdoh modeller extraordinaire - the list goes on - and I love that about motherhood, the variety of it, the unpredictability of it. 

There is also, still, the unbelievability that I made them! I love that picture of Wonderwoman with the caption, ‘I grow humans, what’s your super power?’, sums it up just perfectly.

The growing humans element is amazing but in very rare cases things don't work out with this little person you have been growing inside you for 9 months and often dreaming of for even longer. The reality of being a bereaved parent is shockingly awful, something that you can never be prepared for and something you should never have to be. Losing our daughter at full-term has taught me a lot of things, most significantly to make the most of every single minute I have with my babies; I have come face to face with many women who would give anything to be a mother for the first time, and even for the second and third time, and I think of them often these days as I cuddle my three crazies and remember the one in the sky who didn't quite make it but left a huge imprint on all of our hearts. 


Taking your children home for the first time: aaaargh! It felt like we'd drawn a lot of money out of the bank and everyone knew we had it on us; driving home from the hospital I was convinced that we were somehow more at risk than before, that someone would definitely crash into us, that the whole world knew we had this precious bundle in the car and were all out to get him. And there it began, the worry of being a parent, the innate mechanism you have to protect your child against any harm. Once home, we set him down on the living room floor and looked at each other - both terrified even at the prospect of getting him out of his car seat. Eventually we got him out and showed him around his new home; even to this day I can hear my husband's little speech for the different Mr Men and Little Miss characters in his bedroom, it was something he did from that moment on almost every night with Wilf before bath time/bedtime. I also remember that feeling that he might break, he seemed so small and fragile and I was convinced I was going to trip and drop him. It took a lovely midwife to show me that, actually, they were pretty hardy things these babies and it needn't take me half an hour to get him out of his vest! 

With Iris I felt such a sense of relief to be walking out of the hosptial with a baby who was alive and well, the trauma of the pregnancy and the difficult process of her birth seemed to drop away from me with each step I took towards the hospital exit and I remember sitting in the car with her screaming at the top of her lungs in the back with her two brothers covering their ears and giggling and having a secret smile to myself thinking 'I've done it.'

Best advice: I heard somewhere to remember that your voice becomes their inner voice, to speak to them how you want them to talk to you, how you want them to talk to themselves. I remember telling my eldest off last summer for growling when he became frustrated with something, then only a day or so later I was disgruntled at some minor misdemeanour and I heard myself growl in temper. You are their teacher, their role model - be the best one you can be. 

My second bit of good advice was to listen to your heart, as a mum you know (or can work out) what's best for your child. You don't need to follow the crowd – with Wilf everyone seemed to be doing baby-led weaning, but it all seemed like a bit of a faff to me and my boys were hungry babies, chewing on a bits of food was not going to fill them up so I decided to go 'old school' and wean them as my mum had done with me...baby rice, mush, chunky mush etc. It worked for us and I don't think my boys are at any disadvantage for not leading their own weaning programme! 

Worst advice: The worst came from a midwife who told me to eat like it was the 1970s when I was breastfeeding. It turns out that wasn't true and all that cream, butter, full-fat milk and cake I took great delight in eating not only stuck to my thighs (and I am sure is still there now) but seemed to create a rather podge-some baby who tipped off the end of the centile charts, resembled a small Buddha and was an absolute nightmare to lift up to the sky in our baby yoga classes!

Also the whole 'sleep whilst your baby sleeps mantra' that was uttered, it seemed, from every angle never seemed to materialise. If I ever managed to get my babies to sleep during the day in the house, it was nothing short of a small miracle, so after the initial few minutes of congratulating myself on my major achievement I spent the rest of their slumber (anything from 5 minutes upwards) running round like a crazy horse doing laundry, tidying, making the tea. This time round I am trying to do more relaxing as I know only too well that return to work will be here before I know it. 

The hardest parts of being a mother: definitely the guilt and the worry. The guilt comes from whether you are doing enough with and for your baby/children. When the return to work happens, if it has to, there's a sense that you are not doing any of your roles (mum, wife, friend, sister, employee etc) as well as you possibly could be. Coming to realise that you can't be perfect in every role is a tough thing to accept. 

The worry of parenthood has shocked me, I was a worrier before but my hubby has (probably rightly) recently diagnosed me as a 'catastrophic thinker,' particularly in terms of the children’s health. It takes all my self-control to stop myself from self-diagnosing a rash as meningitis or worse. This has definitely been compounded by losing our first daughter at full-term without any warning at all; that's made me feel that the rug can be ripped out from under us in the click of a finger. I speak to many mums who identify with this worry of motherhood, who worry and panic over any symptom of illness their child presents with and they haven't experienced a stillbirth. I think for some of us, it goes with the territory these babies are your most precious things and I know my mum still worries about me now; finding strategies to help with the worry and help to calm concerns definitely helps - Doctor Google is most certainly not your friend.

The best parts of being a mother: the love! The unconditional love and foreverness that comes with them all. The fact that they love you madly and absolutely, even though you might make them eat just one more carrot or tidy away their box of stones that have been thoughtfully tipped all over the floor or clean their dirty knees or brush their hair, they still utterly think you are the bees’ knees. I love the sloppiness of their love too; the fact that they will just kiss you for no reason, bundle you over in a hug that has no limits, kiss you for so long you almost can't breathe. I love that they need me, I think we all like to be needed. Whether it's the primal need of the newborn who needs nappies changing or boobs for feeding or the toddler who needs you to help them master the art of walking or the 7 year old who wants to know what the word 'internationally' means or why you can't surf on the lava from a volcano. Being a mum is amazing. 

Has becoming a mother changed you? it's made me a little less frenetic, a little more anxious and a little better at baking and playing at being a superhero. It has made me feel incredibly fortunate and more proud than I ever though possible of these people we have made. 

Losing Baby Zee has made me more aware of the silent mothers who walk amongst us, mothers without babies here on earth but still mothers none-the-less; there are times when I catch one of these mums watching me in the street, looking at me and my three children. She doesn't say anything but she doesn't need to, her look is one I know all too well as it's a look that I used myself to look upon so many mums in the days and weeks that followed our loss. Mums with girls, mums with three children, mums with two boys and a girl, mums with newborns. I don't say anything back to her, I don't even catch her eye but in my heart I send her a hug because being that mum is so, so tough. Before our loss, I wouldn't even have seen her. 

Hopes for your family: that we always love each other, laugh with each other, support each other and be the best team we can be. It sounds cliched but I truly hope that my children will be happy, that they will dream big and that they will utterly love their lives. 

What advice would you offer to new and expectant mums?

1. Follow your heart not the crowd.

2. Capture memories because they will be gone in the blink of an eye - whether it's a letter you write every year on their birthday, a yearly family photo album you make with all your amazing photographs of everything you have done in that year or a memory box filled with momentos.

3. Make as much time as you can for them now, for it won't be long before they don't want to bundle you over with a hug or give you kisses that have no end. 

There’s a beautiful poem called The Last Time, the poet is anonymous but it has the lovely lines of:

"You will read a final bedtime story and wipe your last dirty face

The thing is, you won’t know it’s the last time. 

Until there are no more times, and even then, it will take you a while to realise. 

So while you are living in these times, 

remember there are only so many of them and when they are gone, 

you will yearn for just one more day of them.”

4. As they grow give them a variety of experiences which encourage them to be individuals and enable them to experience the wonder of the world. Whether it's experiencing a range of different types of holiday or trying different baby groups or something as simple as playing with a range of different toys - it's always amazed me that even though the boys have been raised with the same moral compass, their likes and dislikes are so different.

5. Try and get some baby friends before baby number 1 arrives, my NCT group and the mums I met at antenatal yoga were a huge source of support for me in those early days of not knowing what the heck was going on, and even now, 7 years on, some of them are my closest friends – bonded by our shared start in this thing we call motherhood. 

Extra Info: Jane is a deputy headteacher in East Manchester.

Claire, Grace and Faye

 Name: Claire

Children: Grace (18yrs), Faye (12yrs) and Sam (died aged 6 months)

Location: Manchester

Expectations of motherhood: I suppose I just always assumed I would be a mum. I am one of four and I reckon I always had a very traditional view of how my life would pan out – career, marriage, children, in that order. I also always dreamt I would have three children. Four seemed too many; can’t fit in a standard car, need more bedrooms, costs too much to go on holiday etc.

I don’t think I had any firm ideas of what sort of a mother I wanted to be. My mum never worked when we were children and dad worked long hours and was often away from home. Although it was good to have her there every day after school and home-made meals were a bonus, I remember her being quite stressed caring for four children and probably frustrated with her dependence on my dad. Consequently I think it was important to me that I could have a balance between career and family life and therefore part-time work has been the solution.

I never considered not having children and I never thought they would be anything other than perfect and healthy.
Reality of motherhood: When I became pregnant with Grace I was delighted. I remember telling my family and feeling really special. I thoroughly enjoyed being pregnant and had no sickness or back pain – it was a text-book pregnancy culminating in a really quick, easy birth. When I became pregnant for the second time I just assumed all would be the same. The pregnancy progressed in much the same way as the first. 

This all came to a crashing halt when we went to the clinic for my routine anomaly scan at 20 weeks. The sonographer explained what she was looking at and we nodded vague agreement. Suddenly she stopped talking and it was immediately obvious that she was concerned. She asked if she could get her supervisor to come and have a look and together they discussed our unborn baby. Finally they told us that they were unable to see all four chambers of the heart and although this might be due to the baby’s position they would like us to attend the specialist cardiology clinic at another hospital the following day.

The next day the cardiologist delivered the devastating news that our baby had the life-threatening heart defect Hypoplastic Left Heart and could die within 72 hours of birth if not operated on. What followed was 4 months of anxiety, tears and prayers for a miracle. I was scanned fortnightly just to have the terrible prognosis re-affirmed again and again. The option of a termination was offered but we desperately wanted to give him the chance to fight. My first pregnancy had ended in excited anticipation and a yearning to see my baby. This pregnancy, my mothering instinct was to protect him and I dreaded going into labour. I knew that whilst my baby was inside me he was safe and protected. To give birth would mean handing him over to the medical profession and would start a journey that I really did not want to go on and life would never be the same again.




Sam was born at the specialist maternity unit and within minutes of delivery he was taken from us to the Intensive Care Unit where he had a barrage of blood tests, scans and examinations. I felt out of control and numb, I wanted to tell them to stop but knew that they had to do it. I wanted to pick him up, walk out and take him home like I had with Grace. We were asked to make decisions about operations that offered no guarantee of cure, versus no treatment, which would inevitable result in death within days. Eventually we agreed to the surgery which would be just the first operation in a series of three that he would need. We were transferred by ambulance to Alder Hey Hospital within hours of delivery and the operation was scheduled for 48hours time. During that time Sam was christened by the hospital chaplain and family and friends came to visit us in Liverpool.

The operation took 8 hours and Sam spent 3 weeks on the Intensive Care Unit where we had several scary moments of being called to his bedside in the middle of the night because he was so poorly. However he was a strong little boy and he made it to the ward where he spent a further 3 weeks getting stronger and preparing for home. Home for the past 6 weeks had been the family accommodation at the hospital and the other families we met became close friends and support to us. Grace stayed with us the whole time with just the occasional day trip back to Manchester with friends and family. However I hated her going and wanted to keep her with me – I felt out of control at times and needed the comfort of those who loved me close to me.

Sam died suddenly during a routine operation aged 6 months. Our world came crashing in. He had fought so hard and endured so much during his little life that I couldn’t believe he was gone. I had spent every day totally absorbed in his care, expressing breast milk because he had difficulty latching on to the breast, administering medication every 4 hours and lovely activities like lavender massages and singing songs to him which would make him giggle with delight. Grace had been the perfect big sister, never jealous of the attention Sam needed and would be my little helper at nappy times. During these dark days I had chance to reflect and I took some comfort in the fact that we had had opportunity to know and love our little boy. He gave us so much, he galvanised our relationship and the family unit and he made us realise that all the money in the world, big house, nice cars, career are just not as important as your family and keeping them safe and healthy.

When I discovered I was pregnant with Faye I was apprehensive and scared. The upset and anger of ‘why me’ when I discovered Sam’s condition was replaced with the realisation of ‘why not me’. We knew the probability with Sam had been 1:5000 and the odds of it happening again was the same but we now knew we couldn’t take it for granted that our baby would be born healthy. I had a fantastic midwife and GP who supported me through the pregnancy and it was with their backing that I made the decision to have only one anomaly scan (we had become experts on analysing the heart chambers on scans!). I then went on to request a home delivery, which shocked many of the hospital staff but it was important to me that I was in control and had minimal medical intervention.

Faye was born at home with just 2 midwives present while Grace played in the other room …it was perfect and so was she! For us, she made our family complete, we had had our three children and she was the image of her brother, same big brown eyes and loved the lavender massages.

Taking your children home for the first time: Well, for us all three were different! Bringing Grace home was very special, it was Christmas Day and we were scared but excited at the prospect of discovering what sort of parents we would be. We knew our lives would never be the same again and this tiny baby became our world. There were tears of exhaustion and thoughts of, ‘how are we ever going to get through these early weeks?’ But we did and we soon settled into the routines around Grace.

Bringing Sam home for the first time when he was 6 weeks old was amazing! We couldn’t believe we had finally got him to ourselves and so many times we didn’t dare allow ourselves to imagine this day ever coming. We had lived day by day or even hour by hour when we were on ITU but now it was our turn to simply be mummy, daddy and big sister. The machines, hospital beds, uniforms and noise was over and we could start doing all the normal things like shared baths, walks in the park and Grace lying on the carpet chatting away to him!

Faye being born at home makes the house very special to us and I can’t imagine ever moving. The normality and comfort of Faye’s birth was such a stark contrast to Sam’s and I so appreciate the midwives, GP and my husband for supporting me in my decision. I’m sure they were all a little scared but they didn’t show it!
The best and worst advice: I can’t remember! I think over time you realise that you are the expert on your own children. It’s important to speak to the health visitor, family, friends, read the books and trawl the internet but after listening to everyone, take on board the bits that fit and forget the rest. Remember advice is just that – you don’t have to follow it to the letter.




The hardest part of being a mother: Having been a mother for 18yrs now I’d say there are no hard parts. Being a mother is me, it’s what I am, so it’s not hard. There are times when you feel stressed when children have tantrums, don’t eat, won’t go to sleep but this is more about my coping strategies and how I’m feeling. At every stage as they grow up there are new challenges and you realise that you grow together and every child is different. The hard part for me now is coping with Grace going to University this month. The time passes so quickly and although I am going to miss seeing her every day we are immensely proud of her and all that she has achieved. Consequently we are proud of ourselves that as parents we have assisted her along the way and she is embarking on a new independent chapter in her life as a sociable, confident and hard-working young woman – who wouldn’t be proud!
The best part of being a mum: All of it! As a mum you experience the full range of emotions. You worry when they’re poorly, won’t eat, when they start school, leave school, go out with friends and when they’re coming home from a night out in Manchester at 4am! You get angry when they won’t share, fight with their siblings, answer you back and lie on the sofa all day watching TV. You cry when you’re tired and they won’t sleep, when the breastfeeding hurts, when they start school, leave school, when their relationships break-up, when they cry!! But you laugh lots and lots, when they giggle for the first time, when they sing and dance for you, when they say the funniest things (write them down because you forget!), when you find the same things funny on TV and realise that you love their company and personalities. But probably the best part is simply being there for them. Giving them your time when they need to talk, listening to their worries and sharing their joy.

Hopes for your family:
That both my girls will stay healthy, happy and close as sisters.
That they will have loving relationships and fulfilling careers.
That they will know that we are always there for them andThat they will come and visit us in our old age!



What advice would you offer to new and expectant mums: Enjoy it, but be prepared to be questioned about decisions you make and have the humility to admit if you’re wrong. Parenting is a massive learning curve and every stage in your children’s lives brings new challenges but also joy and pride that you will never experience in any other aspect of your life. Make time for your children, be available physically and emotionally so they know they can talk to you about anything. But also make time for yourself and for your relationship. Eat well, exercise and be a role model for your children and when the time comes for them to move on, share in their excitement knowing that you have done your best as a mother and believe it when everyone tells you they are going to be just fine……

Claire runs http://www.pramactive.co.uk an outdoor postnatal fitness programme for mums (and their babies!) catering for all fitness levels and fitness needs.