Stop trying to do it all and prioritise yourself instead

Bit of a wake up call for me lately which I feel is important to share.

As I’m sure every one of you knows I am an enthusiastic feminist and am often telling the women in my life to value their worth and share the load of household management and childcare etc. with others – it takes a village, innit. Due to my personal circumstances of my lovely and infinitely helpful husband often being hundreds of miles away, this is actually fairly tricky for me in practice.

Over the last few years I had developed an outlook that has been both really helpful and really unhelpful. I made it my thing to be that person who powers through, trying to keep up my rather exacting standards in many parts of my life by just not stopping. Of course I have had the occasional and incredibly valued support of family and pals when stuff just wasn’t possible by myself, but by and large I have just taken whatever has been thrown at me and kept going. This was helpful when husband was under the sea and I was the only responsible adult around.

Unfortunately just powering through and keeping going turned into prioritising the house and the kids and my job and tasks for others over my own happiness and health. This has recently culminated in no less than six hospital procedures and counting because of stomach ulcers, gut issues, bronchitis and asthma, amongst loads more minor complaints that I’m dealing with myself like back and neck pain, my mental health etc.

I was really shocked and upset. My diary was suddenly full of hospital appointments. I was falling apart. It didn’t feel good, not only physically but more generally – I wondered if this was my life now, lurching from one issue to the next.

I did a bit of reading which has led me to the view that a lot of my health issues are almost definitely made worse, if not actually caused by stress, and are at least partly the result of consistently deprioritising caring for myself properly.

It is an insidious and hugely harmful expectation that society puts on women for us to be selfless, caring matriarchs who make running a household on top of a full time job look like a piece of cake. It is not a piece of cake, it is bloomin’ hard work, and trying to keep all the plates spinning at top speed has made me fairly ill.

I would prioritise cleaning my house til 8pm after waking up at 5am, doing a full day’s work and putting the children to bed (only parents know what a gargantuan task this is in itself), because of the weird subconscious belief that the house being tidy was way more important than me having listening to my body and having a rest. And I’ve been doing that for a long time.

I’ve also recently finished seeing a counsellor regularly, and have also had a few sessions with a career coach which has enabled me to do some really good reflecting on what I want from my life.

They both encouraged me to think about my life goals, and where my expectations come from.

• What do I actually want from my life?
• How do all the things I do in a day contribute to those goals?
• Do they even contribute to those goals? (spoiler, nope)
• Are my expectations realistic?
• What is at the root of the expectations I place on myself? (Fear of social rejection and a desire for external validation as proof of social acceptance if you were wondering)

I realised I wanted to be healthy – but had not been prioritising eating healthily, or exercise, or yoga, or drinking water. Instead, I was a dried up husk surviving on quorn nuggets and wine with a myriad of things in my body packing up or screaming at me.

I realised I wanted to be a thoughtful and compassionate parent who would raise emotionally literate and kind kids – but had ignored an amazing online parenting course that cost a fair bit of cash  to purchase. Instead, I was getting really frustrated and angry at the kids on the reg, whilst simultaneously beating myself up for doing so.

I wanted to be a good manager, but was firefighting a load of random stuff that was landing in my inbox instead of thinking strategically and getting my vision for my teams sorted out.

Why was I deprioritising this stuff?

It seemed too hard to focus on. I cared what other people thought of me too much. I was too busy getting caught up in tonnes of smaller stuff pretending to be important like cleaning the oven, or working late, or just exhaustedly melting into the sofa and “relaxing” by doom scrolling Instagram because I was absolutely done in. Doom scrolling social media doesn’t even make me feel more relaxed! I hate it!

I am finally getting a handle on some stuff that wasn’t helping my physical and mental health like eating more veg, drinking more water, more gentle exercise and more me-time to relax but – and this is the most important bit – I have finally accepted that this means I HAVE TO DEPRIORITISE OTHER STUFF.

I have to stop trying to do it all.

I am ultra organised, but I cannot find time that doesn’t exist, and that’s ok.

My house will be less tidy. My kids will not have cute handmade costumes for nursery. I will be buying way more packets of ready made stir fries even though they cost a bomb. I won’t be volunteering my time to any charities for a while (argh sorry), or working past 5pm. I will be leaving my husband to it at weekends so I can go swimming. I will be sat in the garden, watching the chickens pootle about instead of cooking a roast on Sundays. I’ve hired a cleaner. I’ve blocked social media on my phone in the evenings.

I do not have to adhere to the weirdly specific and unrealistic expectations I put on myself of what a good mother or wife should be. Trying is good enough (this was a biggie for me).

I am going to try my best to OWN these decisions on what I’m prioritising, ready to say a super polite no to other things, safe in the knowledge that I am concentrating on the good stuff.

Please stop trying to do it all.

Birth “choices”

I had my consultant appointment today. I was referred by my midwife because baby#1 was a very hefty 5.1kg (11lbs 4).

To those that don’t know much about sizes of babies, that is friendly-cashier-at-the-supermarket’s-eyes-popping-out-when-you-answer-their-question large. It is midwives-wincing large, it is random-grannies-exclaiming-bloody-hell-you-poor-woman large.

I have a twisted pride about it, I puff out my chest and say “he was 11lbs 4” when people ask, like a warrior back from battle, wounded and scarred, but alive.

It was a bit of a battle to be frank, and after trying to get baby out the usual route and seriously messing up my back, I had to have an emergency caesarean. If you want to know how bad it was, check out the slightly haunted look in my husband’s eyes when you ask him to remember it.

My community midwife told me in hindsight I probably had gestational (pregnancy) diabetes, which tends to produce big puffy babies amongst other symptoms. Thanks for the info, only about 9 months too late there, babes. It was never picked up on, unfortunately, as there was no sugar in my wee samples which is how they test for it routinely. It’s a marker, but not always present for those with GD.

All of this back story means I am ‘high risk’ for this current pregnancy, and therefore need a bit more medical attention paid to me and baby#2, just to make sure we’re good.

So birth choices.

I am traumatised from the birth of my lovely angel baby#1. I want an elective C-section this time, which means no faffing about with labour and going straight to the bright lights and the abdominal surgery.

It’s not a decision I took lightly but for my mental health and my physical health, it’s what I want. If I did have GD, it’s likely I’ll have it again. Even if I don’t and I just cook ‘em big, that didn’t exactly end well last time round. My post-natal depression was brutal too, and the birth was a big factor.

Paperwork and policy wise, the NICE guidelines back me up, as they say it is my choice how I birth my baby.

Shame my consultant had other ideas.

He hadn’t read my notes when I got in the room. He got me on the bed. He made slightly inappropriate small talk about my tattoos and how my husband was a lucky guy.

He asked me how I wanted to birth the baby. I said c-section and he acted all surprised.

He joked that my first baby was large because I ate too many Snickers bars. Hilarious (and also absolutely not how it works btw, if you eat loads, you get fatter. Your baby does not).

He then seriously told me my next baby wouldn’t be so large if QUOTE “you don’t eat so much this time”.

Floored. What on earth. I’m tall. I am not overweight. BEING OVERWEIGHT DOESN’T EVEN MAKE A DIFFERENCE ANYWAY.

He said he didn’t want me to decide until he got the GD test results back. He asked me why I ‘felt’ my last birth was traumatic. I told him, but stopped when I got all snotty because I didn’t want to do the crying thing.

I explained I wanted a C-section because I wanted a calm labour. He stopped me mid-sentence and said “not a labour of course”, which was patronising as hell because obviously I meant delivery but I was a nervous wreck and I’m also not a medical professional so gimme a break here.

The more patronised I felt, the more I clammed up and felt I couldn’t say what I wanted to say. I wasn’t expecting anything other than ‘ok sure’ as I had been told by at least three midwives that a C-section, if I wanted one, would be fine because of my history. So for it to be pretty obviously implied that I was making a big deal out of it and that it would be fine to try the normal route just made my jaw hit the floor and my brain turn to mush.

He made another appointment for late November and said we’d talk more about it then (I’m due late December). I left the room and cried. I walked back to my car and cried a bit on the way. I cried in Aldi car park as I passive-aggressively ate two calorie-laden chocolate eclairs, just a bit of a two fingers up to Mr Consultant.

So now I am in C-section limbo. Do you know what is most likely? That I work myself up loads, end up writing a load of stuff to take in with me that states the guidelines that say I can have a section if I want to and they’ll go “oh go on then”.

So all of this will be for nothing, just a part of the process for them and a box tick to say they tried to save the NHS some dosh. Part of the day job for him. Never mind the mental health of the women this happens to, who have fairly serious reasons for mindfully choosing an elective C-section in the first place.

Yes, I am cynical. No, this doesn’t discount the wonderful care I’ve had from the NHS from quite a few people. But I have also personally experienced and heard of so many experiences of women who have been ignored and not treated with respect during pregnancy, birth and postnatally.

Chief Executive of Birthrights, Rebecca Schiller said: “Maternal request caesareans are the the number one reason women contact the Birthrights advice service. The women we support have endured previously traumatic births, mental ill-health, childhood sexual abuse or have carefully examined the evidence available and made informed decisions that planned caesareans will give them and their baby the best chance of an emotionally and physically healthy start. It is clear that women requesting caesareans meet judgement, barriers and disrespect more often than they find compassion and support. We are concerned that this lack of respect for patient dignity could have profound negative consequences for the emotional and physical safety of women.”

Please check out BirthRights UK for more info on dignity in childbirth.

The marketisation of pregnancy and infancy has gone too far

I like going on facebook. Facebook ads are annoying at the best of times, but there’s this one advert I keep ‘hiding’ which keeps popping back up.

It’s for a cover of a sleep positioner for a small baby. A sleep positioner, I might add, that costs over £100. The cover itself is £75. It’s partially my fault. I clicked on the ad once, because the cover is patterned with a load of ferns and it’s pretty. It is not, however, £175 pretty – especially when I can create my own sleep positioner with a rolled-up towel and a fitted sheet…

But there is definitely something sinister about the way items for pregnancy and your kid are marketed at you, that preys on the vulnerability you feel embarking on a position of such hideous responsibility of keeping a baby alive, and hopefully happy.

A lot of women (and men) get sucked into ‘only wanting the best’ for their kid, which usually equates to some spangly item that is grossly overpriced. It helps the parents feel prepared, maybe feeling like they are proving to certain people or to wider society that they can do it, and they will do it well.

Or it’s used as a cure-all. I can’t tell you the amount of things that mothers ‘SWEAR BY’. It’s like those people on the internet who just suggest coconut oil for everything. Dry skin? Bad tummy? Born with 6 toes? Cancer? Coconut oil! I swear by it!

If your baby won’t sleep through the night it is definitely not because IT IS A BABY and that’s one of the things they’re not too hot on, no. It is most definitely because you don’t have a £100 sleep positioner, a sheep that sings harp music and heartbeat sounds and a cot that attaches to your bed and is made of organic hemp.

How the species ever survived without that bloody sheep I don’t know. (Disclaimer: yes, I have one… yes I am thinking about getting the updated one with a motion sensor for the new baby, stop judging me, ok?)

This is not to say that there haven’t been fantastic inventions, made by parents for parents to make everyone’s lives easier. Some of them are honestly ingenious! Like the breast pump which is just a silicone thing you stick on you and it pulls your milk out through suction alone. That was awesome, and about 20 quid.

But it’s the pushiness and the underhand tactics that get to me. You go to a ‘parents information evening’ at a store and come out with a bunch of stuff full price you could have got for TUPPENCE second hand.

The promise of loads of wonderful info and free things (looking at you Emma’s Diary and Bounty) when actually all that happens is your details are sold willy nilly for a lifetime of spam emails and leaflets. All for a 10 pack tester of Pamper’s wipes that gave your baby a bum rash anyway. Damn.

I think the most invasive and gross of everything is the Bounty ladies that come round after you’ve had your baby. Yes, that’s right, SALES REPS come into post-natal wards trying to sell you shit. I kid you not. This is not some dystopian nightmare.

No worries that a watermelon has just come out of your vagina, or through a hole cut into your tum. No worries that your hormones are going absolutely batshit as you try and navigate the first few hours or days of parenthood, and breastfeeding, and being responsible for something. No worries if you’re on antibiotics, need a blood transfusion or still have your catheter in.

Here they come, pressurising you to have photos of your newborn taken. What package would you like? Will daddy want a key ring? Do you want a bounty pack? There’s 10 free wipes in it, don’t you know!

Seriously, what on earth.

Mumsnet (before it became a hideous hive of transphobia) did some fantastic research and campaigning in 2012/13 on the issue, and of over 1000 women who gave birth, there were the following results:

• Over half (56%) of new mothers felt a Bounty rep invaded their privacy
• 60% were not specifically told their personal details would be passed on to other companies
• 82% don’t think hospitals should allow sales reps access to wards at all

In 17% of cases, Bounty reps implied that parents could only fill in child benefit forms that were supplied in the packs. This actually happened to me.

When the Bounty lady came round the ward I told her I was not interested (my adrenalin was through the roof as I knew I would have to tell them to bugger off at some point and had been anxious and tense about it all day).

She seemed truly baffled that I didn’t want the pack, and asked me if I was sure. I said I was and she replied that if I wanted to claim child benefit, the forms were in the pack. Couldn’t believe it, honestly, and I swiftly replied that I would do it online (I did as well, easy peasy).

She seem affronted and genuinely confused that I didn’t want her useless goodies or a bunch of seriously overpriced pictures of my newborn who was so puffy his mouth didn’t fit properly on his face.

But I suppose as they work on commission, you can’t really blame them… I can however blame Bounty, who are evil.

After Mumsnet’s campaign, some trusts did terminate their contracts with Bounty, and Bounty tightened up some of it’s rules (but obviously not well enough as I had bub in 2017).

If you, like me, are suitably incensed on the issue still, there is currently a petition you can sign. And if you’re pregnant, feel free to #boycottbounty on the ward. I will be again this December.

You need to care more about the NHS, starting right now

The NHS is 70 years old today. Only after an atrocity such as World War II would any politician be able to push through an absolutely fabulous, radical policy such as a collective, free at the point of access health system. It would never happen now – not a chance in hell.

The NHS saved my life and that of my son… or at least kept us from being totally bankrupted for life after a quick succession of interventions to get baby delivered safely and to stop me from bleeding out.

We had loads of antibiotics, I had an epidural, a spinal tap, a C Section, a lot of oramorph (which is maybe my fave painkiller, at least top 3 anyway). We also stayed for 5 nights due to both of us coming out of it feverish and generally bashed about, so I also had delicious school dinner style puddings and bothered the midwives about 1567 times a day using my buzzer cos I’d pushed my back out and kept dropping my phone off the bed (sorry).

I can’t even comprehend how much that would cost privately. I don’t even want to know because I think my eyes would bleed and my blood-pressure rage would be dangerous.

But the fact that I am not dead isn’t even the best bit about the NHS, even though I am pretty great. The best part is that thousands – no MILLIONS – of people I have never met are also not dead.

By saying YES PLEASE to the NHS you are pointing to that person who just walked past you saying ‘hey dude, I don’t want you to die. I want you to be healthy’. That is so powerful! And it makes you a great person. So kind, so benevolent.

I am gonna spend today silently telling people with my eyes that I am super happy they are alive.

By paying our taxes we are collectively pooling our resources to make sure no one is left behind, that no one who is skint (for whatever reason, it doesn’t matter) has to choose between feeding their kids and getting better. Or going without food themselves so their kids can get better. Or enter 100 other harrowing situations here.

Because like it or not, that’s the reality of upfront health care. I have absolutely ZERO time for anyone who presents any sort of hybrid system where we pay a bit here or there. NO.

If you have no money, £30 to see the doctor or anything like that is a massive barrier to access. £10 sick notes are already a massive issue to people living in poverty, who are more likely to get sick and stay sick too, because *newsflash* living in poverty is totally shit.

What if you don’t go to get that niggling cough checked out because £30 just seems a lot for no real reason and you’re busy, and you’re prioritising everyone else in the great juggle of making ends meet? What if it turns out to be horribly serious and you could have caught it in time but you didn’t? So there you go, that’s you in big old trouble.

Upfront payment is a slippery, slippery slope. Occasionally I hear the complaints about the NHS which are fair enough – impossible to get an appointment, waiting for ages to be seen, lack of beds etc. I almost made a private appointment once because I was so done waiting after being bounced back and forth to incorrect departments for a specialist.

But every time we line the pockets of a Bupa, or a Nuffield Health, or tell people you wouldn’t mind paying extra to be seen quicker or anything like that, we are seriously undermining the most amazing thing about the NHS. You can’t pay to get to the front of the queue. Do you know why? BECAUSE THAT ISN’T FAIR. If you have more money it doesn’t mean you deserve to be healthier than poor people. “Illest people to the front” should be the new tagline, I will email the big boss and give them that one for free.

So I promise I’m not ignoring the problems, but we are at a crunch point now. It’s being seriously dismantled from the inside out and the Tories only give a fuck when public opinion gets so upset that it could affect their votes.

So please, give the NHS the best birthday present ever.

Start talking about how you love it. Tell tired, weary health workers you think they are AWESOME (and aaahhhh please don’t leave your jobs ).

Take some ACTION! Look up your local action group, give a few quid to a hospital charity.

Please do something. Save our beloved NHS.