As the song goes by Stevie Wonder, that’s pretty much me and my life in a nutshell – I can get uptight about the smallest of things, but generally everything’s alright.

I highly doubt Stevie wrote this one about an unhinged Mother, on the edge about the minutest detail but it’s nice there’s an upbeat tune to go with my up and down mood! I get uptight about everything – money (or the lack of), hubby doing my head in, baba developing properly, leaving the house sometimes, going to the baby groups, being too tired, baba’s routine, comparing myself to other mums and their babies, returning to work, cooking the tea, oh just everything – I could go on and on listing this stuff but I’m boring myself.

Ask anyone and they’d tell you yes before baba Eva, I was exactly the same – this isn’t a new thing. I’d always be the one stressing in our marriage, making sure we are on time for something, calculating our finances, triple checking passports when going away, everything. But what’s made me worse this year and particularly hypercritical of myself is that I was unfortunately diagnosed with puerperal psychosis just 5 days after my little baba came along. No one expects to resent their baby when they first arrive. You’re completely ready in your head for your little bundle of joy to arrive, you don’t think you will have any negative feelings, let alone walking out of your house because you can’t connect to your baby.

However with a difficult birth and a family history of the condition, it shouldn’t have been such a nasty surprise when this illness sprung itself on me. It could have been a lot worse, it was nipped in the bud quite quickly by me admitting my feelings early on and the wonderful care I received from my midwife, mental health team and supportive family, especially that aforementioned annoying hubby, he’s not all bad. I was treated with medication and visits from the mental health team, and coupled with the psychosis, was also treated for anxiety and depression. It’s been an intense year! I’m off all medication now, and I know I’m so much better but it still frightens me that the anxiety or depression could come back! And again being hypercritical of myself – being uptight is a personality trait of mine, definitely a family one I just can’t get rid of, so sometimes it’s hard to tell whether it’s just my annoying self.

Me, hubby and baba Eva live a mile outside our nearest village in Cornwall so we’re sort of in the middle of nowhere. A field with horses out of one window of our house, and a field with cows out of another.

Beautiful views, and lots of walks! But with hubby having the car most of the week for work, I worry baba isn’t doing enough. Other mums go to so many things with their babies. We venture out for the 1.5mile walk to playgroup once a week and I catch a bus to town for a baby ballet group, and that all seems like a lot of effort for what we gain out of it! I think there’s a lot of pressure on mums to do so much with the babies these days, I don’t think it was ever such a big thing when my Mum had me and my sister in the 80s/90s.

Eva is a happy baby though, maybe she isn’t doing enough or going to enough baby groups… she’s 9 months old and I worry she doesn’t have enough friends – now that is a stupid worry at her age! Even I know I’m being ridiculous. I guess all of us mums have similar worries and concerns – would we even be mums if we didn’t worry? That’s why I thought it would be a good idea to start blogging; I thought writing down my irrational fears and general uptight worries may help others.

Eva may be getting bigger and starting to learn to crawl and talk, but all in all she’s still my baba – she wants her milk, food, play time and most of all cuddles, so maybe my worries are all abit over the top, and despite being extremely uptight, Stevie was most definitely right, in Eva’s eyes everything is alright.