This morning I woke on one of those rare days where my smallest boy was still asleep. I got into bed with him and wrapped him in my arms. “He’s still so small,” I think as I breathe in his warmth and feel his silken hair against my face. My mind drifts to the day I fell in Love with him, because, you know, not all mothers fall in love with their children the day they are born.

Here is a story of my arrival into motherhood. A complete indulgence on my part.  A celebration of my twins 7th birthday. A detour from blogs on Kenya.  A moment to reflect on giving birth.

My first child was a natural birth. I was induced, and it was a long and painful labour, but as my newborn son was handed to me I was flooded with motherly love and maternal feelings. It doesn’t really matter whether my first few months were hard or easy (it was). Or whether he was well or sick (he was). As a mother, my life was completed by this child.  When he was in the hospital for 10 days or when I had to get up at 3am to feed him or when I was covered in faeces in the shopping mall, nothing could touch me or my love for this baby. Nothing mattered because it was love and love is a wonder and a glory and forgives all.

My pregnancy with the twins was arduous. Rupert was 8 months old when I fell pregnant and we had emigrated to Cape Town where I had no family and very few friends. Not at any point in the whirlwind of doubts and worries that emigrating to Africa raised did I ever doubt myself as a mother or as a person capable of giving unconditional love. If one thing was certain it was that I would be a good mother and I would love these Babies.

The twins came at 34 weeks. A routine check turned into an emergency caesarean. The gap between the heart monitor being placed on my stomach and landing on the operating table was 30 minutes. My husband barely made it in time. I hadn’t given any thought to a caesarean and in the blink of an eye, I'm on my back with 6 nurses about to cut me open. It happened so quickly. I barely had time register the change in my circumstances before a tiny (so tiny) bundle was handed to me…. and then 2 minutes later another. Before I knew it they were gone…I didn't see my newborn babies again for nearly two days.  The twins were so premature that they were immediately taken to intensive care, where they remained for a month.  That night I lay in a hospital bed unable to walk, to take myself to the toilet, to stumble to ICU to see my babies. That night I lay in a hospital bed and questioned my sanity. ‘How could I have given birth and yet not have touched my children. I'd not had a chance to hold them, to kiss them. Why wasn't I with them?  I felt violated. The big event I had been building up to had been ripped away from me. The children I had looked forward to holding and nourishing were completely absent. For 24 hours afterwards the closest I got to them was a picture on my husband’s iPhone.

A full day and a half later I was wheeled into intensive care.  There lay two doll-like figures. Their heads were smaller than the dummy that lay next to them. They didn’t look like anything that came from me. They barely looked human. Stick legs and alien eyes. I wasn’t allowed to touch them and I was secretly relieved –how would you hold something so small anyway.

Forward a week and I was allowed to hold then. A nurse gently handed me my son and daughter. I looked into their faces and felt nothing but fear. They were too small. Too small even to nurse, they needed to be tube-fed. How could I care for a baby like this? How could I possibly care for two? All the concerns about having 3 children under 15 months that I should have had during pregnancy hit me. I was stricken, petrified. I’d made a mistake, what had I done? Where could I go? This couldn’t be my life! I was so full of fear and remorse that love never had a chance. Those motherly feelings were smothered.

As time progressed it became a vicious circle.  I hated myself for my indifference towards these helpless children.  I hated myself for my angst, for my misery and the more I hated myself the harder it felt to care for these babies. Of course, I didn’t tell anyone, not a soul. I carried on and looked after my children to the best of my abilities. They came home at four weeks and despite just two hours sleep a day I managed to smile and laugh and play. I was a good mother. That at least I had right, but inside I carried this secret shame. The babies still didn't feel like mine, I was still scared and still convinced I had made a terrible mistake by having more children.  

My three children now are the complete loves of my lives. I spend whole days in awe of their beauty, their charisma, their talents and our deep love for each other.  Did my love for them grow slowly? No, it came as a tidal wave, out the blue.

I remember the day as though it were yesterday.

Rafferty must have been 4 months old. He cried a lot –both twins were very ill and difficult the first few months of their lives. It was the middle of the day. Polly for once was asleep but Rafferty wouldn’t stop wailing. Exhausted I carried him to the bed and lay down with him, he instantly fell asleep. I hugged my sweet little boy close to me and breathed his baby smell and love came. It enveloped me so completely that I can remember every detail of that day, that room, that moment.  I suppose it had been there all along, buried deep under a traumatic birth, a sense of alienation when my babies were taken, and the stress of three kids. When it came it was all the more magical for having felt the pain of its absence. I cried that day in my bed. I cried and cried but for once they were happy tears. Then I walked to my daughters and held her too…. And all was well in the world.

It’s painful writing this. I have a lump in my throat. People often ask me what it was like when the kids were babies and I flippantly state that it was all a blur, but in truth, I remember a lot. I remember the shame, the isolation and the fear that I would never be a complete mother to my children.

I’m sure I’m not alone.  It’s been 7 years since I had little babies; so long I’ve almost forgotten how to change a nappy or what it is to be awake all night feeding three kids in a row. But I think it’s an important story. So much is made of motherhood and that perfect indefinable love, that we sometimes forget it isn’t all a fairy tale. As I look back at the pictures of those first horrible few months life looks amazing, but things aren't always as they seem. The twins were 18 months old by the time I was diagnosed with Post Natal Depression. So if there's a mum out there that seems to be struggling. Or even if there is a mum that's smiling and laughing and looking like she's ok – check in on her, because maybe she isn't.

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