When one life ends another begins..
My first ever blog post ahh!! I have always wanted to do a blog ever since I was really young and watched the film ‘a perfect man’ featuring Hillary Duff and her character ‘Hollie’ had a blog – how sad!? Haha!
I started writing this when it was coming up to a year of my grandad passing and my baby boy turning one so it only seems right for my first blog post to be dedicated to my grandad.
16.03.19 – My grandad passed away
28.03.19 – Hugo was born
Wanting to share my story I guess for myself to realise what I went through and understanding how precious life is.
Its already such an the overwhelming feeling of your baby coming into the world, however I was also dealing with the grief of losing my grandfather. Being close to my grandad is an understatement, it’s so hard to explain how myself, my brother and cousins were bought up. We had the most wonderful childhoods, and our grandparents are/were everything to us.
Grandad had been ill for a few years before he passed, and being a part of that journey was harder than anything you can imagine. Seeing someone you love become someone who you don’t even know, and who doesn’t know you was truly heart breaking. However I still feel like he knew his ‘Georgie’ and he knew I had a little human growing inside of me.
And this little human came sooner than any of us thought!
4 weeks early, my waters broke whilst I was cooking my grandma dinner in her kitchen! The shock and nerves just caused me to giggle about it, couldn’t believe he was coming and was so unsure what was happening.
My birth story is for another blog post, however it was LONG and traumatic, which is how I felt pretty much my entire pregnancy.
Hugo arrived on 28.03.19 and I can’t say how I even felt. I guess relief he was healthy and perfect, heartache of losing grandad, EXHAUSTION from a long labour and just over all a whole load of emotions.
I remember laying there in the recovery ward from my emergency c-section just not knowing how to take it all in and having this precious little new born in my arms thinking what happens now! I was exhausted, I could hardly talk or come to terms with it all.
The next week wasn’t much better, we were in and out of hospital with jaundice, attending my grandads funeral when Hugo was just 5 days old. I was recovering emotionally, physically and mentally and It was so overwhelming.
I felt like the only way my body was dealing with any of it was to cry, from memories of grandad to just being asked if I was ok – which is all people seem to ask you after birth, would set me off. My emotions were all over the place, and looking back I am pretty sure I had a form of post-natal depression.
To be honest I didn’t deal with it well. I would always say I’m fine and put a smile on for visitors and act like everything was perfect. In reality I was crying myself to sleep. I didn’t want anyone to think I was being over dramatic. EVERYONE told me things would get better in time, back then I didn’t believe it. But turns out they were right – time is a healer.
If you ever feel like this after birth or dealing with grief please please please talk to someone. Don’t bottle up your feelings as it will only make everything harder and you don’t deserve to go through it on your own. Now I am coming out the other side I wish I spoke to someone sooner as I feel I didn’t deserve to go through this with a new born and I honestly can’t believe I got through it mainly on my own. Of course I told my close friends and family I wasn’t 100% but I bottled up how I truly felt.
I guess now with time coming to a year, I couldn’t be more relieved that a year is nearly passed. Hugo is a gorgeous, cheeky little boy who I love more than anything in this world. Grandad is in my thoughts every day and I never thought I’d get past that feeling of losing him and to say that’s got easier isn’t true but dealing with it is, to know he is rested and looking over us helps.
Something I would tell my then self is to journal, write everything down about how you feel at that moment. No one needs to read it, and you don’t even need to re-read it, but getting out your emotions is so important. Second thing is to talk. Talk to either someone close to you (sometimes that is really hard) or your health visitor or councillor. I promise you speaking about it helps, don’t be ashamed or ever doubt yourself – these feelings are real and you deserve to be happy. I promise you, you are not the only one feeling this way.
Things I wish I knew then :
1. It gets easier
2. Do not wish time away as it goes so quickly
3. You’re not the only mama going through what you’re going through
4. Talk more about how you feel
5. Your baby loves you unconditionally
Motherhood is a rollercoaster but enjoy and be grateful for every second as life is so precious – here is to the next chapter and the next year ♥️
