WRITER HELEN MARTIN ON MOTHERHOOD AND
BIRTH
I’ve spent most of my life looking at babies with a mixture of fear and nonchalance. They looked (and were) like aliens to me for a very long time. Working in a department store and a Tu- dor castle in Cornwall during university, only served to intensify these feelings. No, I don’t want to be attacked with boomerangs and you have to stop eating those tasters or you will... oh yeh... you’ve been sick.
However, a ‘change came about me’, about a year ago. I was face painting a mini kid for halloween at the castle. He wanted to be batman, but his face was too small to accommodate the design. He was pretty dribbly and snotty but he was also very cute and unlike 99% of the parents, his parents were (genuinely) smiley and didn’t seem to possess a video camera to thrust in mine and their sugar dumpling’s face. They also didn’t raise their tone at the end of every sentence when conversing with the child.
I reasoned with the kid: “You can have a bat with its wings out, spread over your nose. Yeh?” He replied: “Wahooo, yeh!” Very endearing. Ultimately, he looked extremely sweet and was im- mensely proud of his bat face. From that moment on (I don’t know exactly what happened), I started occasionally broaching the subject of babies with the girlfriends. This unexpectedly began waterfalls of expressive desires for tots. And has only hugely increased in the last year. Even the boys have started to like the idea of being a ‘young Dad’, (with a job and ability to travel and do action sports with said kids, of course). Blimey.
Especially blimey when you find out what actually happens in pregnancy and childbirth. I’m not going into details, but OW. As in seriously, OW. I spoke to my friend’s mum about it after seeing a terrifying birth on TV and she started doing some exercises that are recommended to keep your uterus in. Yes. I know. She has had four children and is thoroughly no nonsense... (she says) she didn’t even need to push. This is astounding. However, she did make me feel better - now I don’t want to go into free love territory here BUT - what is obvious and incredible, is the love
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within her family. Yes birthing hurts and hideous things happen to your body, but aha, they are natural. Like the birth of anything, it’s always going to be a slog, but ultimately after lots of belly nurturing (and eating ice cubes apparently), you will have some- thing you can be insanely proud of, because it’s pure and true - and a part of you.
Knowing what you want to do with your life can be an enormous effort, and often is much, much longer than a pregnancy. It’s very easy to mince along and not look inwardly at what could ulti- mately make you and everyone else happy by doing what you want. I have spent forever in angst, deciding what I really want- ed to ‘do with my life!’ Oh the distress! Nights out full of fun, infiltrated with moments of vile, but imperative self reflection. What should I do, what should I do?! But eventually after a ter- rible moment behind a till in a shop on a saturday, BAM! I had my second ever panic attack (not recommended). My god, this was like a weird kind of hell birth. I had been working temping, ap- plying for jobs and in retail and now my body screamed. RARGH!
I had to get out.
I did, and now I am in what it must be like to have a newborn (mi- nus any maternity pay). Sleepless nights, a huge amount of work and full of love. And I do truly love being a writer. I’ve never been more skint, but everyday I am using words to spindle sto- ries and talking and observing people with talents and passions admirable. I hope people enjoy my scribes, and one day I hope to earn some form of actual money from it. The real life screaming baby will have to wait, but when I do ‘become a mother’ I will be one that is following something she loves and will try and inspire her babies to do the same. And if they want to be little Batkids, they definitely can, and I hope there is no question in
their mind that they absolutely can as well. HELEN MARTIN
feathersandbricks.blogspot.com
ILLUSTRATION BY MEERA LEE -
cargocollective.com/meeralee
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