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My daughter is 7 weeks old. She is our third and final child, the final piece of our little family’s puzzle, and although much of it has been so familiar, my experience of new motherhood this time around has been so different this time around.
The pressure of trying to remember every moment is intense. When they’re all grown up will I be able to recall the smell of his hair, how his fingers felt wrapped around mine, the rush of love as she was placed into my arms for the first time? No matter how much I think I can recall from when the boys were
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tiny, as I experience those feelings again with our girl only now can I truly remember. And I never want to forget any if it, not a single moment.
As I sat feeding my girl overnight I was struck with an overwhelming and somewhat bizarre feeling of disappointment. I am disappointed because my baby girl is, in my family’s terms, a great sleeper – she wakes twice in the night and sleeps for several hours in her own bed between feeds. Both of my sons had a total aversion to their own beds, instead preferring to sleep solely on me or their dad, so much so
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that for months we’d take shifts overnight, just holding and cuddling them, soaking up their wonderful newborn-ness, feeling their little warm bodies curled against us for comfort. These times were hard. Draining, exhausting and steel-testing times as we wondered whether we’d ever feel rested enough to properly function again, me worrying every morning as my partner drove off to work that he was behind the wheel basically running on empty. We expected the same again. So now, as I realise that I’ll never again spend those nights cuddling my brand new
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baby, noticing as limbs uncurl, stretch out, feeling my eyelids heavy but my heart even heavier with love as that perfect weight presses on my chest, I feel cheated. Cheated of extra time with my perfect little person who, this time around, I know will grow up oh so quickly.
So this is it, I’m a last-time mum. Every first is also final – the last pregnancy is done, those soaring pains of labour will never be felt in my stomach again. I am already starting to count her little life in months, not weeks. Packing away the tiniest clothes and the memories
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that they hold, digging out bigger ones. I’m trying hard not to put on my rose-coloured specs, to remember what a rollercoaster it has been and why so many times over the last few months I’ve thought ’never again’, but it’s hard when this all feels so damn good….
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Becky Winton - 11 Jul 18
My daughter is 7 weeks old. She is our third and final child, the final piece of our little family’s puzzle, and although much of it has been so familiar, my experience of new motherhood this time around has been so different this time around.
The pressure of trying to remember every moment is intense. When they’re all grown up will I be able to recall the smell of his hair, how his fingers felt wrapped around mine, the rush of love as she was placed into my arms for the first time? No matter how much I think I can recall from when the boys were tiny, as I experience those feelings again with our girl only now can I truly remember. And I never want to forget any if it, not a single moment.
As I sat feeding my girl overnight I was struck with an overwhelming and somewhat bizarre feeling of disappointment. I am disappointed because my baby girl is, in my family’s terms, a great sleeper – she wakes twice in the night and sleeps for several hours in her own bed between feeds. Both of my sons had a total aversion to their own beds, instead preferring to sleep solely on me or their dad, so much so that for months we’d take shifts overnight, just holding and cuddling them, soaking up their wonderful newborn-ness, feeling their little warm bodies curled against us for comfort. These times were hard. Draining, exhausting and steel-testing times as we wondered whether we’d ever feel rested enough to properly function again, me worrying every morning as my partner drove off to work that he was behind the wheel basically running on empty. We expected the same again. So now, as I realise that I’ll never again spend those nights cuddling my brand new baby, noticing as limbs uncurl, stretch out, feeling my eyelids heavy but my heart even heavier with love as that perfect weight presses on my chest, I feel cheated. Cheated of extra time with my perfect little person who, this time around, I know will grow up oh so quickly.
So this is it, I’m a last-time mum. Every first is also final – the last pregnancy is done, those soaring pains of labour will never be felt in my stomach again. I am already starting to count her little life in months, not weeks. Packing away the tiniest clothes and the memories that they hold, digging out bigger ones. I’m trying hard not to put on my rose-coloured specs, to remember what a rollercoaster it has been and why so many times over the last few months I’ve thought ‘never again’, but it’s hard when this all feels so damn good….
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A mum of 2 brilliant boys, originally from Wales and now living in Wellington, New Zealand. An ex-accountant now working in in-home preschool childcare!
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