It took quite a while for me to make peace with the fact that not only does having a baby change your life, but that it also changes the way non baby people treat you, no matter how much you insist you are still the same person.
I always said—in that grant sweeping statement manner that only non parents can master- that having a baby would not change my life and that Baby would have to fit in with us. I had all these ideas that I would carry on as before, with my full fabulous life and that the Big Elf (who was “Elvis in the Pelvis” at the time) would just rock along with me, being a cool cruisy kind of kid that everybody adored. And then I actually HAD a baby.
Starting off with the small fact that we did our antenatal classes elsewhere, so didn’t really have a coffee group, I just carried on as usual and carried the Big Elf along with me. I was the first of all my friends to have a baby, so it was a bit of a novelty and most people didn’t mind. After all, he was small and cute and his hair spiked up naturally in a “faux hawk” that matched his cute bandanna bib, teeny tiny baby Nikes and sweet little pumpkin patch overalls. This strategy worked well for the first month or two, then the trouble started. Once he got out of that new born stage where they sleep all the time, things got a bit more difficult and I soon realised that it would be less stressful for all parties involved if I stopped trying to “make” The Baby Elf “fit in” with me, and went with his flow for a change. I noticed Saturday morning “coffee dates” soon dried up and invites out at the weekend slowed down to a trickle as well. I didn’t understand! I was still fabulous! Even better than that, I was now skinny! (thanks breastfeeding!) I still liked to gossip! I was still me! I had only had a baby! Nothing life changing or anything! To my complete and utter horror, I realised that my non baby friends had closed ranks and I was now the outsider. Despite my protests that I was still the same Annie, “you’ve changed” seemed to resonate really loudly everywhere I turned. I know they didn’t mean it in a bad way, but how else can you word that phrase without it sounding bad?! Yeah, I guess I had changed. I had become a little less self centred, I had discovered that my single friends revolving bedroom door stories had me heading off to dreamland, and two beers sent me doolaly, but apart from that, I was STILL ME!
The turning point for me came, when an invite to a dinner party was issued by a good friend and work colleague. I hummed and ha-ed about accepting it, but when my friend promised we would eat early so we could get the baby elf to bed before midnight, I decided that it was my ticket back into civilised society. The less said about that night the better, really, but driving home, in tears, starving, with a starving teenager , a snoring man of the house in the passenger seat, and an over tired baby, I had an epiphany of sorts. Yes, I had “changed”. I no longer thought that 10pm was a reasonable time to begin cooking a meal. Wine wasn’t a good appetiser to this après 10pm meal. Babies find it hard to sleep in dark rooms not of their own when drunken shrieks pierce the air with alarming regularity and I wasn’t the same girl I thought I was.
I was upset about this night for weeks, possibly months later. Not because of what happened, but because it signified to me that that part of my life was, if not over, definitely different to before, and that was something that I wasn’t sure I was ready to let go of! I didn’t want to become “Elf's Mum”, wearing a uniform of tight ponytail and a polar fleece ‘n’ crocs combo, who spoke of nothing but her offspring's toilet habits, updating facebook with every nap and fart, however it seemed that I had been lumped into that group regardless of how cool I still thought I was.
I eventually made my peace with the fact that some people treat you like you have had a lobotomy once you give birth. Sometimes it still bites me in the butt and I have to fight the urge to issue a slap upside the head to someone who slows down their speech and over simplifies their conversation once they find out I am “domestically disabled”. I know a lot of you will have to do this too, at some stage, so take comfort knowing that you are not alone and you are not domestically disabled, you are in fact a domestic diva and still FABULOUS!
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