Podcast 7

Not unlike our home – at one time a reasonably orderly place of grown-up farmhouse chic, I rather fancy – the Bad Farmer’s Wife blog is quickly becoming usurped by the arrival of Baby Daisy.

I also rather fancied that I was blossoming into a considerably better Farmer’s Daughter’s Mum than Farmer’s Wife until, that is, I started preparing for round two of Daisy’s immunisations last week.

The first round had not gone well, for either of us, so the night before the appointment I Googled for tips on how to minimise the horrifying anguish that comes from presenting your daughter’s delightfully chubby thighs for those nasty, but of course necessary, injections.

I clicked on a link to a podcast by parenting doyenne Dr Miriam Stoppard (Podcast 7), who calmly reassured me that feeling anxious and guilty is perfectly natural before cautioning that I should nevertheless hide this from my child..uh-oh.

Last time, sitting in the baby clinic waiting room I became so traumatised by the screams from the adjoining immunisation room that I was on the verge of tears before Daisy and I were even called. By the time the perfectly pleasant nurses stuck my beautiful bub in each thigh while she sat happily oblivious on my lap, I was in floods.

Daisy screamed and screamed while I cried, desperately trying to comfort her. The nurses passed me a wad of tissues and ushered me back to the waiting room where poor Daisy (and I) sobbed our little hearts out; the health visitors and other Mums looked on, collectively murmuring, ‘oh dear’. Eventually, we both calmed down thanks to a warm drink and a nap – Daisy rather than me.

A month on, it was hardly surprising that the immunisation nurses remembered us, or possibly just me, only too well. But with Podcast 7 fresh in my mind, I kept smiling and talking to Daisy and when the dreaded moment came, took her over to the mirror to distract her. It worked, albeit briefly, but generally I think we both did a lot better.

Strapping a relatively calm Daisy into her car seat back in the waiting room, I heard one of the health visitors comment on the beautiful red hair of another Mum’s daughter. ‘No mother wants a ginger baby,’ the young Mum replied, completely dead-pan.

She was right, I thought. Motherhood’s not easy but at least I didn’t have a ginger baby.

Pregnant pause

When I was pregnant, friends and relatives would often relay the usual new parent platitudes: having a baby is life-changing, nothing can prepare you for parenthood, get ready for the sleepless nights etc. But before it actually happens, it’s literally impossible to comprehend the reality of these hackneyed sayings. Even if you’re a relatively seasoned Auntie and Godmother, or have spent years in the company of close friends’ offspring, this only gives credence to that other well worn expression – it’s totally different with your own.

In fact the best piece of advice I was given before the arrival of our beautiful baby girl was not to take too much notice of the first few weeks. ‘You’ll be sore and bleeding, your boobs will leak, you’ll be knackered like you’ve never known and you’ll be completely emotional,’ the frank mum-of-two told me, adding: ‘but once you’ve got those weeks under your belt, it’s blinding!’

I remember being simultaneously alarmed and grateful for her brutal honesty and certainly during the first fortnight of our little Daisy’s life, the Farmer had to keep reminding me of this candid advice as he found me in floods of tears over the sheer magnitude of love I felt for our daughter. The anxiety I felt (feel) over Daisy’s welfare was overwhelming too.

To quote Johnsons: ‘when a baby is born, so is a mother’ and before becoming a Mum I confess I was quick to judge the parenting of other mothers, swearing I’d never: have the baby in bed with me, comfort feed, be overly protective, use a dummy and so on. Then the reality kicked in and of course I do whatever makes my precious bundle of joy happy which is...co-sleeping, breastfeeding on demand and being in Mummy’s (and Daddy’s) arms, preferably to the exclusion of all others.

Thankfully as Daisy grows so does my confidence and now that she’s an astonishing 8 weeks old (actually she was 8 weeks when I started this post, now she’s almost 11), I’m a somewhat more relaxed Mum... though the Farmer may beg to differ. He says I'm like a bear with her cub, constantly alert to potential predators such as the central heating thermostat or an overzealous grandparent.

What we do both agree on is the other thing you’re often told about parenthood: that it’s amazing and the best thing you’ll ever do. But my own personal favourite, coined by another girlfriend and mum-of-two, has to be that having a baby takes falling in love to a whole new level.