Baby Blues & Me

Written by Gulshah Yilmaz for her blog, From Prada 2 Pa mpers.

Name – Gulshah (but really pushing to be known as Gigi)
Age – 27
Occupation – Currently on Mat leave was a HR Coordinator (did you actually think I was going to write Full time Mummy…sick!)
Children – 1 (a beautiful boy named Mason)
Location – Physically – London/ Spiritually – Beverly Hills
Spirit Animal – Kim Kardashian

Since becoming a mum I’ve realised it’s like there’s a big cover up, some kind of weird conspiracy going on where the truth of motherhood and having a baby is kept a secret.

Online there’s a huge amount of parents who love being sleep deprived, surviving off Kenco filter coffee, having greasy hair and basically lying about having a shit time when their baby won’t settle. I’ll be honest reading all of it made me feel pretty crap, due to being in a High Dependency unit after my labour I didn’t have that first connection and amazing bond I had read about for 9 months. For me it was physically impossible and mentally as I had really bad anxiety after contracting Sepsis. Of course I loved my baby and my love for him grows everyday but it wasn’t how they made it sound for me at first. So I turned to my good friend Dr Google to find out ‘what was wrong with me’.

I found that every website and mummy blog I came across claimed it was postnatal depression. After reading this I felt like shit, like I was a complete failure at life and being a mum. It had been 2 weeks since he was born and I’d already fucked it up. I felt so upset and I was constantly crying, my hormones were out of control and I had this awful feeling of guilt whenever someone helped me with the baby.

For months I listened to my two close friends who had just had their babies, speak of how amazing it was and to me they made it seem so fun and easy but for me it was so hard! I found it hard to be sleep deprived, to not have anxiety whenever he cried, I felt jealous of my partner having time for himself when he went to work and omg that awful feeling of having no idea of what I was supposed to be doing would often eat me alive.

But once I plucked up the courage and spoke to my other mum friends about my feelings they also felt comfortable in telling me about the struggles they had.

I had a Hallelujah moment, I wasn’t a failure, I wasn’t depressed, I was normal! Which is when it hit me – being a mum is so bloody hard! It’s a full time job you don’t go home from, it’s 24-7 and comes with a load of judgement and unwanted opinions. It’s scary and beautiful all at the same time.

But our biggest obstacle in this is ourselves, society has made us too scared to say ‘THIS IS SHIT‘.

It’s shit when my baby has colic and won’t stop crying every day for 4 months.

It’s shit when I’ve had 2 hours sleep and my husband is snoring his head off next door.

It’s shit when I have to sterilise 10 bottles at 11pm when I’m already so exhausted.

It’s shit that it takes me 3 hours to leave the house and I have to pack everything but the kitchen sink and still guarantee to leave something at home.

We love our babies but we are human and we are allowed to say that we miss having a moment to ourselves, to enjoy a glass of wine and a real housewives marathon, without people telling us we have postnatal depression or that we should love being with our babies no matter what.

That’s why I created this blog post, for self help and to help other Mothers that feel like there’s something wrong if it doesn’t come naturally to them. At the moment my son is 4 weeks old so as I continue my journey into motherhood I’ll document the good the bad and the ugly.

The poo explosions, to the baby clubs to the failed attempts at date night.

Enjoy and if you have any questions/comments please feel free to drop me a message – the link to my blog is at the top of the page!

Gigi x