Remember a while back I asked you for some help writing my first book? For those who have only just discovered my blog recently, you can read about it here :
http://feetonthegroundandheadintheclouds.blogspot.com/2011/11/brand-new-kind-of-parenting.html
To jog your memories, the book is about parenting - specifically pregnancy and birth. Babies' first year will be my next book!
I want it to be a book to be non-preachy, technicoloured, artistic and pretty. And I want it to be a realistic snapshot of pregnancy and birth for mamas and papas to be, with a good dose of nitty gritty as well as the beautiful, happy, pretty side of things. One for the ravers, goths, punks, bon-viveurs, hippies and indie types that your Miriam Stoppard type preggie book is not going to appeal to. There's already some beautiful hippy books for hippy-minded maidens like myself but not a lot going on for the wider 'alternative' audience.
I want to acknowledge the fact that a woman having a baby in this day and age is likely to have had a more colourful past than in days gone by. I want to acknowledge that a pregnant mother is not just some blank slate incubator, but a real live person with experiences! Good, bad and everything in between.
I want to acknowledge and talk about how women feel about being pregnant after
- having an abortion
- taking drugs or frequently drinking a lot of alcohol - how has this affected you positively or negatively?
- having an affair or relationship problems
- being a heavy smoker
- being declared infertile
- having an amazing job
- being adopted
- experimenting with sexuality - bisexual or lesbian experiences
- self harming or having anorexia/ bulimia
- overcoming something very traumatic
- having suffered only miscarriages so far...
I want the book to be able to talk about the stuff you wouldn't dream of discussing at antenatal classes. Stuff that you couldn't share easily with newly made mummy friends. Stuff you would feel uncomfortable discussing with your midwife.
I feel it's important to help women who find themselves pregnant to have a space where past things can be acknowledged as she navigates her way through the emotional roller coaster that is pregnancy and motherhood!
We modern women have lived much more colourful lives than most generations ever before, huh? So it's about time this was acknowledged!
If anyone has any experiences they could share with me in confidence to use in my book to comfort and reassure others who are further back on the path than you are now, I'd love to hear from you. It could be advice you wish you could go back in time and give yourself. It could be a photo that says it all. It could be a poem you wrote. An entry in your diary. A blogpost even! Anything at all would be so great.
Thank you so much in advance! If you decide to confide in me, I absolutely promise that no information will be shared with my husband, nearest and dearest, friends or family and your identity will remain absolutely and completely anonymous and confidential.
Please dearest people submit your material to me by the end of February. Even sooner would be fab!
Incidentally I have been giving a lot of thought to the charities this book will support. Whilst I think both Warchild and HOPE are very worthy, I think there are other causes which may be better suited. Watch this space!
Lots of love
Xx Motherfunker xX
Hey tHer mf. I would be happy to share my first birth story, it's not a "story" really, but several page stream of consciousness I did right after just for myself. It would have to be re-written or used just as notes for astory you could tell about my 3 1/2 day birth.
ReplyDeleteThat's right, I has labor contractions for 3 1/2 days. Starting relatively mild, like severe menstrual cramps every 11-20 minutes, and slowly building the whole time. There was nothing wrong I was just incredibly slow to open up. The midwives seemed to think it normal for a first time birth, although they did almost have to take me to the hospital just because I was so fatigued and dehydrated and they couldn't get the IV in.
I felt really pissed that no one had told me how long it can take and still be "normal" the scope of normal is just about 100 times bigger than we are led to believe. I feel so grateful to have been at home, the hospital would never have waited me out.
And then the skyrocketing bliss that followed! The happiest 10 hours of my life, by a long shot.
Wowsers. You are an Olympian, mama! Yes. Yes. Yes. I would love that! Could you do it as a zine page or pages, CJ stylee??? so we have some artwork and words too? If you say yes I will do a cartwheel.
ReplyDeleteLOVE it MF - love it so much . You are going to ROCK this project, and true that there's nothing out there like it! This is the year of YOU!
ReplyDeleteI would love to contribute but feel like I might be a bit,ummm, boring! I had rather a goody two shoes life prior to sprogging xxx
Ah thank you! the above list does make the book sound quite hardcore, but it's more like an add-on to the other stuff rather than the central theme :-) My life pre kiddlets is probably pretty boring too! But we live in a time when women have experienced a wider variety of experiences than perhaps any other generation before, so just want to cover all angles! Your sagely, calming, soulful words may be just the balm a new mama needs.... would love anything you can offer my dear wise goody two shoes friend x x x
ReplyDeleteHello,
ReplyDeleteI don't know what to say first here, but I can tell you that I was a teenage bride at 17 and a teenage mother at 19 (my son, now aged 22), and a mother again at 21 (my daughter, now ages 20). Then I suffered from untreated PND for 2 years and was referred for sterilization at 23 (the fear of repeat PND made me follow it through). Sadly my marriage ended when I was 27. Then I met my current husband at 29. We married when I was 35 and when we were married I asked for a reversal of sterilization. I had the reversal on the 15th January 2008, and my beautiful son was born on 15th Feb 2009 (yup that's 1 month to recover from the surgery and 3 months to conceive). Sadly it wasn't quite the perfect ending I thought it would be. My beloved Dad died suddenly through hospital neglect (hospital acquired infection), 3 weeks before my son was born (in the same hospital). I suffered PND/Bereavement trauma from 3 weeks post postpartum. We are fine now though, and my son is amazing (he will be 3 in 2 weeks time). Lol what a disjointed tale. If you would be interested in anything in that jumble in more detail, please let me know, I am in the process of laying it down so I can move on (we are trying for another baby before its too late, I am 42!!!).
Valerie
Hello Valerie - brave mama who has suffered so! Thank you for sharing a little of your situation with me, the path to motherhood is not as neat and tidy as a Disney movie is it? There is such a tangle of different overlapping episodes, events, joys and traumas that we face on our path. I would be deeply honoured if you will share more. When you have written it down in the way that you feel comfortable sharing it in my book, I'd love to have it in there. The act of writing things down has been incredibly cathartic for me, and reading the experiences of others, when they speak their truth, is deeply moving. Your story may help others. My email is onelittlebuffalogirl@hotmail.com I await your story and look forward to corresponding with you about it... Thank you X
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