I love being a mum, and I don’t mean the act of being a mum (although of course I love that too) but the title ‘mum’.
I have always wanted to be a mum and although I would have become one years ago had the situation arisen, I’m glad that it happened when it did. I was ready to put someone else first, I had got all my partying days out of my system and I was more than happy to spend my Friday nights changing nappies instead of changing an empty vodka and soda for a full one.
The experience has changed me – for the better. From the moment that I laid eyes on Iyla, I stopped putting myself first. My life became less about me and more about caring for her, and when you stop putting yourself first to care for someone else, you become more caring in general. I have a lot more empathy for people now, as if I can feel their pain – I am more tuned into other peoples feeling instead of just my own. I am a lot more emotional too, I can shed a tear at pretty much anything, books, adverts, Neighbours, anything to do with babies – especially adoption, and I haven’t watched an episode of the new X Factor without crying yet. There was a teenage boy this week who sang really well and he started crying when the crowd were cheering – it is bringing tears to my eyes now just thinking about it.
But one of the most positive outcomes for me is that I have let go of my past. I grew up in a small town and I have mentioned before about my ex-boyfriend. I’m not going into details but let’s just say he pretty much slept with half of the town behind my back, including people who knew full well that he was going out with me. Finding out that partner has cheated on you is awful, your whole world comes crashing down around you and the emotions that you feel inside make you full of hate and anger (it did for me anyway). And then to find out that people knew about it makes it even worse.
You feel like a complete idiot – there you were thinking you were in a happy relationship and yet everyone else knows that your boyfriend has been sleeping with anyone who will look in his direction. I started to become full of horrible emotions – jealousy, anger, resentment and hate. Jealousy is one of the ugliest emotions – it infects your brain, there is nothing nice about a mind that is full of jealousy.
Being cheated on destroys your self-confidence, if the girls he slept with were pretty then it affected me for obvious reasons but sometimes the girls or ‘women’ who he slept with were shocking. One woman was an old hippy with hairy armpits – which was worse, to know that he chose to go home with her that night over me is something that I will never understand. But I don’t need to anymore, I had got over it years ago (with the help of Dad2babyinsomniac) but I still had grudges against a long list of people, having Iyla finally made me lose these. Having a baby puts things in perspective, I know what’s important now and disliking people for mistakes they made over a decade ago isn’t.
Having Iyla has made me realise what life is all about, material things don’t matter, of course it is nice to have them but if that’s all you have in life then you will never be truly happy – having your little girl come up to you and rest her head down on your chest, call you mama and give you a kiss is priceless.
I am proud of being a ‘mum’, I like the fact that I have only ever spent about 10 hours away from her, I like what she represents – a new me. She has given me a confidence that I have never had before. My head is free of the negative emotions from my past – they have been replaced with the annoying songs from childrens TV programmes, but that is fine with me. As The Hoobs would say – it’s hoobacious!
