I'm Bestmum, and I'm Addicted to Parenting (Being a Parent)

Member Name: BestMum

Product:	Being a Parent
Date:	19/07/02 (228 review reads)
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I know, I know...I've written about this already, but that was a poem in honour of Jill Murphy's four-year anniversary of being cancer-free. Obviously, being Bestmum, I had to write a proper opinion on this topic! So forgive me. Oh, and it's a long-un I'm afraid! You can't sum up being a parent in 75 words for Pete's sake! I hope you stay with me all the way and not find it too boring!

As I read around the site I am saddened by some reactions I see on the subject of having children. Everybody has their reasons for not wanting children, and I am sure they are valid ones. These are my thoughts and understand not everyone will agree. As some of you will know, I am a mother of one, Rachel, who is 18mths old, and I want as many children as nature will allow. I know that there are all those potential children of ours just waiting to be given the gift of life. And I want to be able to give all the love I have to as many of them as I possibly can.

No, I'm not mad! I come from a family of four and so I suppose it's only natural for me to want a big family too.

The road to Rachel hasn't been an easy one, trust me! Four years ago I fell pregnant, and eight weeks into the pregnancy, whilst I was at work, I began to bleed. There are people who bleed naturally during pregnancy, there are even some who continue to have periods as such. But I knew this wasn't normal. I called Steve (hubby) from a side room in the office in tears, and I eventually managed to get myself to the GP.

I was sent to the hospital for a check-up. They performed a test to make sure I was definitely pregnant, which I was, so they sent me for an ultrasound scan. It was then I was told the earth-shattering news that they couldn't find any signs of the pregnancy on the ultrasound. What they had found instead was a cyst on my left ovary the size of a grapefruit, and they would have to perform emergency surgery to r
emove it.

I'm sure you all know what an ovary is - I don't want to insult your intelligence! But just in case, us women have two ovaries connected to the fallopian tubes. The ovaries store the eggs, of which one egg matures from alternate ovaries each month, and travels down the fallopian tube to be fertilized by sperm.

I was warned before surgery the next day, that they might have to remove the ovary also, depending on what the cyst was connected to. After the operation I was told they still couldn't find any signs of pregnancy. They had removed the cyst (which thankfully was non-cancerous) but it had taken over the ovary too, so that was gone also. The pregnancy was probably somewhere amidst the ovary and the cyst.

Further to this, I was told afterwards that because I only have one ovary, which will make up for the loss of the other one by releasing an egg each month on it's own, it will wear down sooner than normal. This means I have a limited time in which to have children. Although nobody can shed any light into how long that may be, I hope and pray that I can at least have another one.

And then after a couple of months I found I was producing milk even though I wasn't pregnant. An MRI scan at the hospital confirmed that I had what is called a microprolactinoma, which is a tumour on the master gland - the pituitary gland - which is located behind the optic nerve in the brain. This was causing an increase in prolactin levels (which is the hormone that stimulates milk production), and was making me infertile.

The good news was that it could be treated with horrible drugs, but would shrink the tumour and return my periods back to normal. Six months later, and I fell pregnant with Rachel. All was well with the world. Until it reared it's ugly head again recently. So I am now back on the horrid, horrid drugs in order to become fertile again. All this with time ticking away, and th
e prospect of an early menopause hanging over me. I'm only 28!

The above experiences have taught me that you can't take anything for granted. We are truly blessed with Rachel and thank God every single day that she has been brought into our world, safe and healthy, to complete us. I can't even begin to imagine how it must feel to be told that you can't have children for one reason or another. The feeling of being incomplete and inadequate must be totally overwhelming and impossible to accept.

The miracle of life is beyond comprehension. To give the gift of life to your children is one which comes with pain (emotionally and physically), heartache, and constant worry, but it's like somebody turns on the light switch and you open your eyes and suddenly realise what life is all about, and why we are on this earth in the first place. Everything else pales into insignificance, and your priorities change dramatically.

Your heart aches with the love and joy that you feel for them. You would kill for them, you would die for them, and the emotion is all consuming and completely overwhelming. Sometimes it's so powerful it's scary.

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M - Making The Miracle

This is the fun part! Find out when your fertile time is (which is usually 14 days before your next period; there is lots of information on the internet) and be advised that you can have intercourse up to five days before your fertile time and still become pregnant, this is how long sperm can live, but you only have up to 72 hours to fertilise the egg, before it disappears. And you thought it was easy!

Allegedly, the female sperm tend to be the slower swimmers, taking their time, but they last the longest and so chances are if you did have intercourse five days before, your child could be a girl. The male sperm are the quickies, they rush to the egg as fast as they can but die the quickest, expending all th
eir energy! So, chances are if you have intercourse on the day you ovulate (release the egg), you could be in for a baby boy as they usually reach the egg quicker than the girls.

I - Inconvenience

Some people see having children as an inconvenience to their lives. They're quite happy as they are with their partner. A baby might upset the balance or rock the boat, or they just won't be able to cope, or they can't afford it.

Here's an example of this: A friend of mine put off having children because she and her husband were so blissfully happy as they were and didn't want anything to spoil it. But eventually, after a fair few years, they decided to take the plunge and a beautiful little girl was born. He doted on her completely, she was the best thing that had ever happened to the two of them and they couldn't understand how they could have been so selfish. They said if they had known, they would have done it much sooner.

On mothers day morning this year, just before baby's 1st birthday, baby's daddy died of a brain haemorrhage, in their bedroom. He was 49. She is her daddy's double, and of the same personality too, so his memory lives on within her. But, it brings home to you what life is all about. Nobody could have foreseen what would happen, indeed doctors said that it was a timebomb waiting to go off, it was always going to happen at some point and they were surprised it hadn't been sooner. You just don't know what's waiting around the corner.

R - Responsibility

Being a parent is a huge responsibility. Are you putting them into the right clothes, are you feeding them the right things, are they getting enough vitamins, enough exercise, are they healthy, are you teaching them in the right way at the right speed? The list goes on and on. Are you earning enough money to provide for them, are you setting a good example for them to follow...constan
tly questioning yourself, unsure about what it is exactly that you're doing.

A - Advice

The world and his mother offer advice to you, especially when you're a new parent. This can be a good thing, and a bad one too. When you're bombarded with "That isn't how we did it in my day" or "You shouldn't be doing it like that", it's easy to get frustrated and angry but put yourself in their shoes; you would say exactly the same to your son/daughter. We just smile sweetly and agree mostly to what is said, and sometimes it's sound advice coming from a lifetime of experience, but times change and what was good back then isn't necessarily the done-thing now.

Our health visitor is great. We've asked her some really dumb questions but she doesn't care. She always puts our mind at rest and offers to come visit if necessary.

C - Closeness

Rachel walks over to us, and looks us in the eye and I swear it's like she's reading our soul. This brings a sense of closeness to yourself and your partner too, knowing that, together, you've created something so beautiful and spellbinding. Reading her a story at night with the lamp on in her bedroom. She'll snuggle into your arms to listen to the story she loves most, laughing with anticipation of what's to come. Every day brings an even deeper bond, it gets stronger and stronger until you can't possibly imagine it could increase any more, but it does.

Closeness with your partner will not come from having children, if your relationship is in dire straits anyway. If your relationship is in any way unstable, chances are bringing a child into the world will make things worse. Certainly from what I've seen and heard anyway.

Any problems are multiplied by 1000. A baby demands 100% commitment and we tend to neglect eachother in the early days. Can your relationship survive without regul
ar sex from being too sore from the delivery, and so tired all the time for example? Will you be angry and frustrated feeling that you're bringing up baby alone while hubby's out drinking or too busy watching TV?

L - Laughter

When things seem bleak and you're at the end of your tether, they can always be relied upon to make you laugh. When they put their newborn hand into their poopy nappy and wipe it all over their face, without you realising. Whether they're trying to walk and falling over from failed attempts, or pulling funny faces at you in the vain hope it'll get a reaction. Rachel now tries to copy us when we laugh which is very amusing!

E - Experience

There are no hard and fast rules to parenting as such. You learn from experience, as you go from day to day. It's impossible to get it right first time, no matter how many books and magazines you read on the subject. I must have spent close to £200 on these items alone, trying to arm myself with as much information as possible before Rachels birth, but nothing prepares you for what is to come. Instinct tells you what is best, and if it doesn't feel right, you can rely on friends, family and the support of your health visitor to help guide you in the right direction.

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A huge hug and a big well done if you've stayed with me all the way throughout this journey of mine! I tried to cut it down, but couldn't! This is what parenthood is to me - a miracle; to love and to cherish, to watch grow into a toddler, a teenager, an adult. To be there for them when they need you, whether it's to wipe their snotty nose, or to cool them down if they've a temperature, or they just need a cuddle and to be reassured that everything's okay, or just for a mad hour crawling on the floor pretending to be a tiger! Rachel's still young so I can't give any insight into the later years just yet!


I won't lie and say there aren't any bad points. There's the sleepless nights we endured for twelve months - waking at least four times a night. Then there's the frustrated tantrums because they don't know how to communicate in any other way. There's not being able to go out without the whole contents of the house, including the kitchen sink - no more going out at the drop of a hat. The expense of having a baby is huge, but one that you can usually adjust to within a few months, once you've established a routine and given up buying ten varieties of milk just in case one didn't agree with them!

But what you get in return is pure unconditional love, and I for one wouldn't have my life any other way. Don't put it off because it's not the 'right time' - it's never the right time, and it's amazing how, when baby appears, it suddenly is the right time, and nothing else in the world matters.

All aboard the fastest and scariest crazy-mother of a rollercoaster, are you brave enough to ride?

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