Since my post yesterday, S has had one lovely play session with a boy we haven't seen for a while, & one reasonable session with a couple of other kids. Also a meltdown that resolved without hitting (from him) & screaming (from me!). I therefore feel some relief, & a bit more confidence that the things we are doing to help him manage his strong emotions are actually working for the most part.
So maybe this is a good time to go back in the mists of time, all of 6 years, to the beginning; the birth of P. The mists of time is not entirely facetious; I don't think, apart perhaps from my own childhood, that I have ever lived each minute so intensely, so ... minutely, as I have with young children. It feels like a very, very long stretch.
After an uneventful pregnancy and a "textbook" labour, my new life as a mother began to unravel very quickly. I remember that my partner, Q, took 2 weeks off work when P was born, & that early in the 2nd week, as I thought about how I would manage with him gone, I started to experience a sinking feeling: things were not panning out as I had expected. I was an older mother, P was planned & very much wanted, & Q & I had been together a long time, felt we'd done a lot of things together & that we were "ready" for this new phase. I had listened carefully (I thought) to other mothers' tales of being pushed to the limits, and concluded that I simply had to be there 100% & I would be fine; no part-time employment, no worrying about housework, no stretching myself too thin in any way, & making time for myself to be replenished on the weekend; I had a dancing class timetable! We had a plan, & I thought that would do the trick.
The pain of childbirth was beyond my capacity to imagine, and yet in the early months it paled compared to the inexplicable agony in my shocked nipples, the needling misery of the blisters that followed as the pain clouded my ability to attend to P's attachment, & then the burning, throbbing ache of mastitis, again & again. Having always been prone to back pain, I discovered, despite years of yoga & diligent pilates practice during pregnancy, that carrying such a light bundle almost without break was quickly taking a toll on me too. I had expected times when he would lie on a bunny rug while I gazed down & we cooed lovingly at each other. And I would be able to leave him there for a minute or 2 while I nicked to the toilet or put the kettle on or threw together a sandwich, maybe even stretched a bit by his side. And then, as a lactation consultant suggested, I might feed him to sleep and gently snuggle down next to him & rest myself.
Six years on, I'm not ready to laugh yet at my own delusions.
And the sleep deprivation. I had thought that jet-lag was as tired as I would ever get. I was so monstrously tired. I ached, pretty much everywhere, I could barely perform my own bodily functions without the accompaniment of frantic screaming. When I did try to nap, I was without exception woken within minutes by an ear-piercing scream. And I would go to the new parent sessions with the maternal health nurse, or the private new mother sessions I attended with a midwife who was committed to natural parenting practices. At the former, I paced the back of the room while most babies slept in prams & bassinettes (that was when I could get there at all). At the latter, I bounced on an exercise ball, or got there early to nab the only beanbag so that my back could rest while P napped upright with his head on my shoulder, while the others lay their babies quietly on blankets & cushions on the floor, their mothers' hands free to do ... anything they needed to do!
I was quickly exhausted, like a marathon runner at the finish line, but I was expected every minute of every day to get up & run the whole race again ... I remember early in the midwife's group talking about hunger & breastfeeding. After the others had described their ravenousness, I offered, bemused, that I really didn't feel hungry at all.The midwife, usually keen to explore any statement offered, simply declared that I was so far from meeting my own needs that my body was suppressing its own sensations; from that, I understood that I was in survival mode.
On top of the physical depletion quickly came the debilitating doubt in my own abilities. I was failing to keep my baby calm & content. Well no, I was not failing. I was constantly working, working to calm him. But my efforts seemed so enormous; was I missing something? How were other people managing not to be so utterly spent? Obviously, there is an element here of me being harsh on myself, because logically I know that many new parents are plunged in over their heads. But somehow, it seemed that we sunk deeper, & for longer, than anyone we knew. I had been inclined before birth towards what I would loosely term principles of attachment parenting, so amongst my tactics for minimising stress, I had told myself that I wouldn't have battles about feeding, sleeping, forcing the baby into prams or other contraptions when I knew he'd probably be happier on my chest. I really couldn't have done more with my own body to comfort him. And it still didn't work.
I kept looking for help; classes, books, visits from consultants ... William & Martha Sears' Fussy Baby Book was a huge consolation. I instantly felt less incompetent. But I slowly but surely began to feel alienated from other mothers around me. Nobody seemed to be on the same page. Q & I both found ourselves staring at family scenarios when we went out, drawn despite ourselves to the contrast with our own new life. And it was hard not to find ourselves lacking.
Fast forward to P at 2. Routine checkup with the maternal nurse; she is concerned because she can't engage him at all. I tell her about how hard I find my life with him, his little obsessions, how hard I have to work to keep it all together. I know she is thinking autism, but at that stage in my life, autism was children rocking in a corner with no engagement with the world, and no emotional attachment to their caregivers, which was certainly not my boy. I deflected her concerns & left. A week later she rang & said she hadn't been able to forget about it, had consulted with colleagues, & had some names of pediatricians for me. Even if it wasn't autism, she said, I had indicated that I was struggling to meet his needs & I could do with advice anyway. That convinced me to make an appointment.
And of course, I have discovered well & truly that an autism spectrum disorder can mean a great many things. And with hindsight, it explained so much of those chaotic first 2 years.
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