Five years of Mothership!

Somehow, my baby Mothership Writers is five years old. I count it from April 2019, the very first session of the pilot programme, held at St Werburghs Community Centre here in Bristol, but the project was really born in 2018 when I pitched the idea to the Arts Council and got a grant to see it through. I remember coming up with the name Mothership Writers on the bus to UWE, while working as a Fellow for the Royal Literary Fund. It was a time of uncertainty for me, I was out of contract with my publisher and while I was working on a new novel I knew there no guarantees (and I was right! I had a six year gap between publications …). Mothership proved to be such an anchor point, and the initial grant a real validation and encouragement. I've got such happy memories of those first sessions, feeling the magical energy in the room, the surprising hush of the babies (honestly!) as the mums wrote. I remember telling another writer about my plans and he (yup, he ....) thought babies in the room was a crazy, even terrible, idea. Even then, with no evidence to the contrary, I scoffed at his cynicism. So nice to prove yourself right, right?

In the five years since its inception I’ve run well over 200 workshops with new mums – the majority now on Zoom – launched Born in Lockdown, published our Dispatches from New Motherhood anthology and the Mothership Notebook with Esther Curtis, raising funds for Project Mama and Sands. Mothership has continued to be such an important part of my creative life, and I'm always humbled by the love, strength and courage of our writing mamas. Showing up through the haze of sleep deprivation, though mental health struggles, through the everyday-extraordinary intensity of those early months and years of motherhood. It's always inspiring. And often very moving too. I love our sessions together.

When I launched Mothership Writers I couldn't find anything quite like it, so it's been great to see the growth in this area and increased opportunities for mums to explore their creativity as PART of their maternity experience, rather than apart from it. While I haven’t run as many courses as I’d like in the last couple of years - hectic novel schedule, ahoy! - I'm really excited about the one in September – and welcoming a whole new crew. It’s all sold out but I do always keep open two spots for those who couldn't otherwise afford to take part - these fully-funded places are awarded on trust, (no need to prove financial circumstances) and are so important to the spirit of Mothership. If you want to know more, get in touch.

I'm so grateful to everyone who's helped with Mothership along the way, and the very many amazing people who've joined us over the years. THANK YOU. Roll on the September sessions. And the next five years!

Introducing ... THE MOTHERSHIP NOTEBOOK

Tomorrow we open for pre-orders of the Mothership Notebook! A big day at Mothership HQ. It's been a proper labour of love, this book, something I had the idea for several years ago but only decided to go ahead with this Spring. Sitting here now, I’m so incredibly glad I went for it. It’s no small thing, making a book without arts funding or publisher backing, but I kept coming back to the fact that I wanted to hold Mothership - put its spirit between two covers, and celebrate the relationship between creativity and maternity. A passion project through and through.

Since launching in 2019 I've run over 200 Mothership workshops and seen first-hand how becoming a mother awakens an urgent need to put pen to paper, to express the intensity of motherhood, untangle the knotted emotions, and capture the wonder of it all (… and the rest!). Every single session has been a joy and a privilege, and I've been constantly humbled by the things that people endure; the resilience and the love, the feelings and experiences that are profound, transformative. No matter where someone is on their motherhood journey - with a babe in arms, or children who’ve long since flown the nest – every mother has a story to tell. Every mother is creative. And, while every mother has words that deserve to be written, sometimes we just need that extra encouragement, and space, to do so. That’s where our Notebook comes in.

We've made books before - an anthology of writing from our first year of workshops (my first role as an editor and one I loved), and Born in Lockdown (an incredible collaborative writing project with over 277 mums contributing prose fragments that I then wove into a narrative whole) but both were only available as keepsake copies and on a really small scale for those who took part. I wanted the Notebook to be different.

Esther Curtis was game from the get-go, and I knew she'd make it look cool and beautiful: she's been our Mothership artist from day one and I'm so grateful to her for bringing all my writing-mama dreams to illustrated life. Over the summer we did a number of test copies to get the perfect paper stock, binding, and all-in ‘I really want to write in this’ vibes. We couldn’t be happier with how it’s come together.

Our Notebook is full of tips, advice, inspiring words, and beautiful illustrations. It’s 112 pages, with 40 clear double page spreads that use song title writing prompts (AKA, the Mothership Jukebox) to get your thoughts moving, your pen grooving, and tell your story of motherhood. It costs £11, plus postage. And it's made with LOVE: it’s printed on good quality recycled paper, using vegetable-based inks; we’ll include a free set of Mothership postcards with every order; and we’re raising money for charity too …

Through Mothership projects we've so far raised money for Baby Bank Network and Sands UK and for this new venture we’ve chosen Project MAMA as our charity partner: for every copy sold, we'll be donating £2 towards their amazing work with migrant mamas. And thanks to a fundraising campaign with The Big Give, any donation Project MAMA receives before Mon 26th Sept will be matched - so in the case of our Notebook, that effectively doubles every contribution from £2 to £4. The perfect motivation to get in there early with a pre-order! While the official release day is 20th October, pre-orders will help us know how many books to produce. And raise that extra money for charity too!

Here’s the back cover …

So on this Pre-Order Day Eve we’re raising our mugs of coffee to maternity & creativity. And writing as a force for good. We hope you join us!

Emylia x

BORN IN LOCKDOWN - one year on

A little over a year ago, we launched our collaborative eBook BORN IN LOCKDOWN. With 277 authors, this is a story like no other, capturing a moment in history with a chorus of diverse voices. We raised nearly £7,000 for Sands, and the book has been downloaded more than 5,000 times. We made the BBC News homepage and were the lead story on Positive News. For me, it was a privilege of a project, from start to finish.

One of the really wonderful – and unexpected – things to come out of the project was a collaboration with Open Collab. Seeing Mothership featured on BBC Points West, Bristol-based musicians Charlie & Jake (aka Open Collab) got in touch with a proposal: they wanted to set our Born in Lockdown words to live, improvised music, creating a unique sonic landscape. We jumped at it! We decided they’d work with the last two chapters of our book, with 15 of our contributors recording readings to feature in the piece. The result was stunning. I re-watched this collaboration today, and it had me in tears all over again (HERE it is, if you haven’t seen it yet). Wow. The rawness of emotion, the intensity of feeling, and the hopeful spirit. I think it’s amazing. A record of a time, like no other.

The ‘post-pandemic’ landscape that we now find ourselves in is understandably hard to navigate for so many people; the months when we were fully locked down feel at once so recent, and so long ago. Losses continue to be felt. Those lockdown babies, written about so tenderly by our Born in Lockdown crew, are now toddlers. And as strange times for our world continue, with new stresses and pressures, the need for us to write, to process, to document, is there more than ever.

Several people have asked if Mothership courses will return to being face-to-face now, but the truth is, we’ve found our home on Zoom. Our connection is no less diminished for being on screen. I love the fact that mothers anywhere and everywhere can join us. That we can beam inspiration and creative vibes and solidarity into living rooms, nurseries, and bedrooms, where babes and tots are nestled in slings, or napping in adjacent spaces, or watching telly in the background (or howling! We’re all good with howling too, thanks to ‘mute’), while all the while, mothers write. I’ve now run over 200 Mothership workshops, and honestly? Every single one has been a joy.  

Our programme of summer courses has just launched and is open for booking – you can find out more HERE. As always, we have four spaces set aside for anyone who couldn’t otherwise afford to take part; these are awarded on trust – no need to prove financial circumstances – and by lottery/draw; get in touch to find out more.

Creativity and maternity forever!

THE LAST TO GO by Lowri Scourfield

This week’s post marks the last entry in the Dispatches from New Motherhood series. Over the last year we’ve shared all 50 pieces from the book we made as part of the Arts Council funded pilot programme, building an online library of what it means to be a new mum. You can read more about Dispatches from New Motherhood here. These 50 mother-writers are where Mothership began, and I’ll always be grateful to our original crew for their enthusiasm and commitment – without it, we wouldn’t still be going today.

We’re delighted to share here THE LAST TO GO by Lowri Scourfield, an incredibly moving and tender poem, beautifully expressed. Writing from the point of view of her grandmother, the poet reflects on the generations, the bonds of family, and the power of love.

Lowri says, ‘The Mothership Writers sessions gifted me a little haven of creative space in those eye-wateringly exhausting days of early motherhood. My daughter was about 6 months old when we started, I’d spend Friday morning whizzing about parks and playgroups to try and get a decent nap time for the sessions. I have sweet memories of that first exhale after parking my sleeping baby next to me and opening my notebook to start each session. ‘

Lowri goes on to say, ‘Much of my writing about motherhood became woven with writing about the death of my grandparents. My grandmother died a fortnight after my grandfather’s death. She had dementia. ‘Losing’ her was a long process that started long before her death. This piece was inspired by imagining her voice in those final days, knowing what she might say if she could as a mother, grandmother, great-grandmother. Without Mothership Writers, I wouldn’t  have dreamed of putting these words down on paper… but now  here they are! Thank you Mothership Writers for showing me the power in writing.’ 

Enjoy Lowri’s beautiful poem here. And thank you for reading our Dispatches from New Motherhood.

***

The Last to Go

Lowri Scourfield

In memory of Tydfil Wood

I wake,
but my eyes don’t open.
This now familiar darkness
has stolen any sense of night,
or day.

The click of the opening door is
shortly followed by a gentle kiss on my forehead.
It must be morning.
'Hiya, Mami,' Ann says, stroking my hair.
A baby cries.
A fractious, hungry wail.
It makes my body plead to bundle her up,
to press my nose to her honey hair,
to curl her body into mine.
They give us dolls here, at the home,
but nothing’s as intoxicating
as the real thing.

'It’s Ann, Mami. Your daughter.
Lowri’s here too. And baby Gwen.
That’s your daughter,
granddaughter
and great-granddaughter
all together!'
They do this now.
Tell me their names,
what relation they are to me.
They know I forget.
Probably helps them too,
to have something to say.
Especially now I can’t respond.

'Can you believe
you’re a great-grandmother?'
Lowri says as she holds my hand.
I picture the way her other
is wrapped around her feeding baby,
holding her in place.
Gwen. It was my mother’s name.

I will my eyes to open,
to let me be a part of this.
A chair is dragged
from the other side of the room
wrenching any peace from the moment.
That poor baby;
tiny paper-thin eardrums. 
Hot panic rises and I imagine sitting,
swinging my legs over the bed,
hurling myself onto the chair.
Anything to stop it.
I almost laugh at the image.

'She told me once
that your hearing is the last to go.'
Ann’s voice is almost a whisper,
'So I just talk when I’m here.
Nonsense mostly …'

Baby Gwen sleeps now,
her breathing changed.
Deeper, rhythmic,
a slight snore at the end of each breath.
I picture her little eyes,
willingly closed
in the haven of her mother.

Is this it?
Or is there something,
a somewhere else?
Somewhere my mother has been waiting for me?
To pull me to the curve of her neck
and hold my heart against hers.
I picture my husband there too,
waiting in his armchair,
smelling of shaving foam and Sugar Puffs.
Ice clinks around his whisky glass
as he smiles contentedly.
So much to tell them both
about this world I’m leaving.
I feel them pull me closer.

Not just yet.
Foggy tendrils reach
into the corners of my skull.
Again.
Probably my next dose.
Maybe.
I hang on,
breathe in their perfume,
soak up the warmth of a hand on mine.
Inhale their vibrance
as deeply as my wilting lungs will allow.
They’re singing now,
the song of my childhood,
my home, my family.
My mind roars the familiar chorus
until it can roar no more.
Until I can no longer hear their soft singing.

I want to tell them that I was wrong;
hearing isn’t the last to go.
There’s something left here now, right at the end.
It’s love.
Love is what’s left.

***

The Last to Go by Lowri Scourfield appears in the Mothership Writers anthology Dispatches from New Motherhood. All 50 pieces from the book will be published here over the year to come, creating an online library of what it really means – right here, right now – to be a new mother.

WE THREW YOUR PLACENTA TO THE SEA by Aly Vernon

This week’s Dispatches from New Motherhood treat is the extraordinary WE THREW YOUR PLACENTA TO THE SEA by Aly Vernon. It’s a gorgeously lyrical and visceral poem, full of pin-sharp articulation and a pervasive sense of wonder.

Aly says, ‘I wrote the piece to reflect a sense of mourning for pregnancy that I sometimes felt; the time my baby was closest to me and the realities of motherhood lay ahead. After childbirth I also wanted to capture some of the utter awe I felt for the human body and what we’re capable of as women. Writing was so hugely cathartic for me throughout that first year and made me feel so connected to other women, around the world and throughout time.’

Enjoy Aly’s poem here.

***

We Threw Your Placenta to the Sea

Aly Vernon

We threw your placenta to the sea.
Our placenta,
Ours shared.
The physical representation of our joined beings,
When you were me and there was no space between us,
When my blood flowed into you and yours into mine,
The air I breathed sustained you and the food I ate nourished you,
When I lived with two heartbeats inside of me.
And all through this bloody mass which we are now setting free.

I see now for the first time our umbilical cord,
Only at this point of letting go do I look at it,
Too gruesome before,
Too loudly sung the memories of its entrance to the world,
But now it holds both disgust and awesome wonder,
It is our lifeline,
A rope from me to you,
Cut when our journey of separation began,
When we became untangled as two.
When you stopped being a mystery and started to be you.

Our life together now sits in an old curry takeaway box,
Tucked amongst our picnic things,
It looks up at me; pink, viscous, gruesome and raw,
Taken from its home in the freezer next to the postpartum emergency ready meals,
Demoted from lifeline to a forgotten box under the frozen peas,
It has waited to be set free.
To give new life, to continue the cycle out at sea,
Free to float, to swim, to wander,
To crash against the rocks,
Until the time comes to be consumed by creatures of the deep.
Our life would feed other lives,
My nourishment to you, nourishing again.

It was by this very sea that you were made.
You and your lifeline,
Starting your journey of growth together to the resonance of the roaring waves,
You heard the gulls calling, the sea wishing and the longing for you in the air.
The sun shone that week you were conceived,
Crisp, blue November days that held the seeds of your existence.
By this water you came to me,
So to this water part of us shall return,
To the boisterous beast of creation.

And so we stand by that sea.
The two of us who have now become three.
You lie with your warm cheek against my chest,
Your shoulders rising and falling in innocent slumber,
Leaning on my heartbeat for comfort,
But breathing your own air, pumping your own blood this time.
No longer nested inside of me, curled so peacefully.

I silently throw our placenta up, up and out,
To the crashing waves and the almighty wind,
It submerges deeply into the water down by the rocks,
Disappears from view,
Our shared lifeline is gone.
I stand and mourn for the time we were closer,
The two of us entwined as one,
Then turn and walk away,
Holding you,
My perfectly completed being.

***

We Threw Your Placenta to the Sea by Aly Vernon appears in the Mothership Writers anthology Dispatches from New Motherhood. All 50 pieces from the book will be published here over the year to come, creating an online library of what it really means – right here, right now – to be a new mother.

ANOTHER WOMAN by Kat Sanders-Smith

This week we’re sharing ANOTHER WOMAN from Dispatches from New Motherhood, a great piece from Kat-Sanders Smith in praise of her Doula and the strength of women. The author reflects on a day when she was struck down by flu, but carried on regardless, in that way that mothers do. As she stumbles through the house, Kat remembers the resilience she showed in her home birth, and the wise and encouraging words of her Doula who was there for her, helping to bring focus and rest to the present. It’s a tender and heartfelt piece of writing, and an ode to women supporting women.

***

Another Woman

Kat Sanders-Smith

The bathroom floor sends cold through my feet and it seeps straight into my bones. I shiver. A peculiar dark shape in the bath catches my eye. I peer closer, my limbs leaden, my head heavy with flu. There is baby poo clustered around the plughole. My cheeks are burning. My eyes are sore. Why hasn’t my husband dealt with this? Bathtime had been his job tonight. He’s now downstairs, trying to get the baby to sleep. Pacing with her. Rocking her. I muster the strength and in a zombie-like trance I dispense the poo in the toilet and pour cleaner into the bath. My head spins. I clutch the side of the tub. Bittersweet memories bubble up. Twelve months ago, I had another woman in my life. While I laboured in this bath, she was here for me. Our Doula.

I shuffle downstairs and into the kitchen, my husband sits phone in hand and I note the hard-won silence. I glance over at the pram where our baby has finally given in to sleeping. Her delicate toes peek out of the cover and everything is still. I tap the switch on our kettle and it hisses to life, breaking the silence. The baby’s toes twitch. A hot tea would always find my hands whenever our Doula was here. I pour a cup, the brew already stronger than I’m feeling. I check the pram for signs of movement. Stillness. The pram happens to be positioned on a sacred spot of floor. It is where I birthed our baby. Where my husband and our Doula held me and I was enveloped in their love. In that moment I felt like a warrior. Then came fourth trimester limbo. I overflowed with joy and pain, devotion and heartache. I imagined myself lost to a sea of overwhelm, battling against tides of untouched household chores, despairing at my isolation, sinking under waves in my exhaustion. Then our Doula would visit. In she would dive and pull me up to the surface, so I could breathe for a while. She washed, sorted and folded. She held our baby. She coloured pictures with our eldest child. She even gave a gentle fuss to the neglected cat.

A cry from the pram pulls me back to now. I feel a pang of guilt – the kettle had made so much noise. My husband looks at me, he tells me to go and sit down and that I should be resting. His words echo our Doula’s; she too would tell me rest first. I concede and follow him to the lounge as he carries our daughter in one arm and my tea in the other. Our sofa offers up a familiar embrace as I slump down. I have a sip of tea, but it’s already gone tepid. Even warriors want to drink their tea hot.

 ***

Another Woman by Kat Sanders-Smith appears in the Mothership Writers anthology Dispatches from New Motherhood. All 50 pieces from the book will be published here over the year to come, creating an online library of what it really means – right here, right now – to be a new mother.

'IT IS FOR THE BEST' by Siobhan McDaid

This week’s Dispatches from New Motherhood piece is Siobhan McDaid’s ‘IT IS FOR THE BEST’, a powerful account of another form of mothering: the canine kind. Siobhan explains that she wanted to explore ‘how mothering comes in so many forms, caring for human babies and dogs, and their varying needs, and the painful reality of having to confront it when they cannot co-habit peacefully.’ In her affecting and evocatively-expressed poem, Siobhan reflects on rehoming her beloved dog, and the impact on her and the rest of the family. As a postscript, Siobhan adds, ‘Luna dog is absolutely living her best life now out in the country and is even training for a marathon with her Dad! So even though it was a horrible decision to make, it turned out to be the best and happiest one, and I'm so relieved Luna is being mothered by a family that meets (and far exceeds) her needs. Meanwhile we were able to foster a disabled dog from Egypt, who is still with us now.’

Here’s to mothering in all its forms!

***

‘It is for the Best’

Siobhan McDaid

I lock onto your eyes as the car moves,
The back window you are framed in
Will be my last picture of you.
I stay still.
You stay still.
But we move evermore away.

There is silence except for the car engine.
I would wave but it feels silly,
And you wouldn't understand anyway.

How can I say you are going to a better place?
How can I say your life will be fuller without me,
And all I can't offer?

So I keep it light.
So you will see that I approve of this person, 
That this is a good thing.
But perhaps you sense what is happening. 
The jolly lady pretending,
Her voice so bright it cracks my face.

I remember how our little one,
Dozed in the crook of your fore leg, 
I remember the warmth of your skin-fur,
As you nestled by me while he fed,
He was our charge, and you his second mother.

I remember your amber eyes, forever silently monitoring,
Deftly swerving away as he wobbled towards you,
His almond-eyed smile and heart wide open.

I remember our procession each day,
Winding downstairs to the rough and tumble of play,
The energy fizzling and soaring.
The rush of cold air as the world blew into our morning, 
We ventured out of our bubble to walk through the hours,
While the birds called the daylight in.

I then remember the crunch of his skull against the brick wall,
The wall you pulled us into while pursuing a cat,
The wall a passer-by had to drag us back from,
You in your half-crazed state.
And I remember his siren cries afterwards,
Still strapped to my chest,
Torn from sleep,
His skin flushing with the impact.

I remember the times I guarded your smaller friend
From the flash of your teeth.
His terrified yelps,
His shock at your attack staining the sofa brown,
Leaving him shaking and moon eyed, then wary for days.

I watch you, watching me, as the distance yawns between us.
The car disappears 
Round the corner
Up the hill
Signal flickering
I stone still. 

And now?
The day ahead to perform.
But nothing works as it should.
The house is eerily quiet.
The absence of you,
And the guilt I wade through,
Have painted the walls a sickly yellow.
Dimming the light I saw in your eyes.
Cloying my mouth like nausea rising.

Another loss to swallow,
Another memory to forget.
Something inside crumbles and hot tears burst through.

Two sets of eyes stare
At me inquisitively, solemnly,
As the ragged breaths play out.
Two sets of eyes, both locked on me.
One clings to me as a koala,
And one, your smaller friend, sits, head tilted, eyes as yours.

How much they both understand is debatable.
How much we have lost is not.

 ***

‘It is for the Best’ by Siobhan McDaid appears in the Mothership Writers anthology Dispatches from New Motherhood. All 50 pieces from the book will be published here over the year to come, creating an online library of what it really means – right here, right now – to be a new mother.

WAITING by Eleanor Rose Shaw

This week’s treat of a Dispatches New Motherhood piece is WAITING by Eleanor Rose Shaw. It’s a brilliantly vivid and intricately-rendered account of a particular time of day – the torpor of late afternoon – before the return home of her partner. With brilliant originality and vigour Eleanor takes us right inside these moments so we feel it all too. In her piece, Eleanor says ‘You can’t capture both the menial and the momentous in a single sentence’ but I think she’s achieved just that here – multiple times.

Eleanor says, ‘When I wrote this piece I was still mostly at home with my two children. My son was four months old when I started the Mothership Writers course, and my daughter had just turned three. I wanted to try to convey to my partner how I felt, in those lost hours between the last afternoon activity and him coming home. I'd written in some form all my life, mostly as work, but doing Mothership Writers helped me see that conveying these feelings, these moments, in poetry or prose was something that was important to me, that helped me. I wrote, and still write, almost exclusively in the notes app on my phone. I try to capture a few sentences or thoughts, and then sometimes flesh things out later. Often poems especially come fully formed and I'm notoriously unwilling to edit them! But with this prose piece Emylia did a great job of supporting the original vision and helping it to be its best self. I'm still really proud of it, more than a year on.’

***

Waiting

Eleanor Rose Shaw

There is a time of day, after their naps, when my brain slumps against my skull. One hour and twelve minutes before I will pick up the phone and say ‘Where are you?’ In my ear the hideous sea creatures wail, ignored on the rug. No matter what cleaning may have taken place earlier, I am surrounded by garish debris and tiny pieces of unidentifiable carbohydrate. On the days where my fingers tingle and judder with exhaustion I lie down in surrender. The biggest one tells me I need to ‘have the black hair’ so I can ‘see the animals properly’. Chewed plastic tines scrape my scalp in a way that would be invigorating if done at something less than breakneck speed. I look ‘beautiful’ now, apparently. I wouldn’t personally have chosen fringe brushed straight up as a go-to style, but what do I know. I stare at your as-yet undeparted train on my phone. One hour and two minutes. Yes, I would like a cup of tea. Twelve pompom sugars. Might take the edge off the robot ABC song. Maybe I could hack the offending light-up laptop to say ‘Please be gentle’ at four-second intervals. I try to nuzzle the smallest wispy head but I can’t smell him now. His sharp gums rake my nipples with dissatisfaction. Small fat fingers grasp at me, needing endlessly.

Nobody told me that every afternoon would be stupefied, a long-awaited key in the lock breaking, finally, the wall of shrillness. I won’t tell anyone either, because it’s not really a kindness, speaking the unspeakable. You can’t capture both the menial and the momentous in a single sentence. I refuse to be the cartoon mother with coffee mug and ringed eyes, comedically miserable. My laugh rings true as we stuff her feet into too-tight unicorn slippers. Later, I will put my face into the blissful soft crook of his neck and breathe deeply. I spin with happiness when they are asleep. It’s just that I want to cut every single split end on my head with a pair of travel scissors uninterrupted. I wait for your feet along the hallway and my body aches to slip upstairs, unseen, leaving you to the shrieks and tears. Until then I stuff pork product covered in mayonnaise into my mouth just to have some kind of pleasant bodily sensation. I know these brief days of domestic intimacy are falling through my fingers but am unable to do anything to seize them. They continue to stream away. Time moves differently now, stretching endlessly over this rainy afternoon, yet springing whiplash fast across the years since each was born. If I could, I would pause here, look around a while. ‘No, there aren’t any more ice creams.’ ‘Yes, you can watch Dupliss Dragon.’ Forty-three minutes.

***

Waiting by Eleanor Rose Shaw appears in the Mothership Writers anthology Dispatches from New Motherhood. All 50 pieces from the book will be published here over the year to come, creating an online library of what it really means – right here, right now – to be a new mother.

THE MEALS OF MOTHERHOOD by Amy Ford

This week’s Dispatches from New Motherhood piece is THE MEALS OF MOTHERHOOD by Amy Ford, a brilliantly relatable and well-observed account. Through food, Amy offers a fantastic framing device for this moving and insightful meditation on the various stages of new motherhood, starting while pregnant, through to her return to the office …

Amy says, ‘I've always enjoyed cooking (and eating) and to me sharing food has played a vital role in so many relationships and moments it seemed like the obvious thing to write about. Life with a baby is simultaneously boring and chaotic and mealtimes are the regular bookmarks in the day, both grounding and exciting. These meals served as an anchor for me during stormy times!’

Of her writing, Amy says, ‘I applied to the Mothership course when I was still in hospital recovering from the birth of my first child, Charlie. I knew, even then, how important writing would be as a tool for healing and a way of exploring my emotions in those first few months. It couldn't have been a better experience. Charlie is now two and a half and I've just had another baby who is 11 weeks, and I'm still writing (sometimes!).’

***

The Meals of Motherhood

Amy Ford

The baby wants porridge. Dairy is the drug of choice for this unborn addict. I pour over silky double cream which mixes with the brown sugar forming pleasing caramel swirls. There are some glacé cherries in the cupboard. Perfect. It's more dessert than breakfast. I eat at the kitchen table opposite Si, my huge belly protruding and making sitting difficult. We are weeks from meeting the person who will transform us into a family and little do we know how precious these leisurely breakfasts are. The porridge is almost finished; I feel sick. 

***

Beef. Gravy. Smash. Over-boiled vegetables. Me and my new, pink companion have already been in the hospital for eight days. He has group B strep, I’d never heard of it before and now it is the only thing I think about. His infection markers had to go down below three; they'd started at 102. Thank science for antibiotics. I am becoming institutionalised. I haven’t been outside since before he was born. I’ve stopped asking when we can leave. I tackle my 1950s-inspired meal sitting up in bed. I don’t need to, I’m not catheterised anymore, and the trauma is starting to knit a new reality. But in this pseudo-prison, I eat meals in pyjamas and learn to be a mum. The smell of gravy lingers on the sheets.

***

The baby is screaming because I’d put him down, but I have to turn the carrots on the hob off and I haven’t started chopping the garlic for the dahl. Should I put him in the sling? But then he might fall asleep and I don’t know if he should, I want them to see him at his best. Right, drain the carrots and put them to one side. Why have I decided to make bread?  Stupid idea. And will there be enough food? Ok, garlic now. Try and put him down again. Nope. On with the sling, he’ll just have to sleep through the meal. I burn my finger on a pan and drop a spoon, hot tears, wipe them away. Why have I decided to cook for so many people? Because I can do this, I want them to see I’m OK. I open the lentils and they spill all over the floor.

***

Sitting on my own at my desk with my headphones on, I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve forgotten something. The soup is cooling and I break off a little bread. The thought of an uninterrupted meal is a delicious prospect when you're standing in an untidy kitchen with a one-year-old revving around – but in practice it's something of a disappointment. I swipe through photos of him on my phone and wonder for the millionth time whether going back to work was a good idea. I pick up the spoon and finish the soup as fast as I can. Not really tasting it. If I do everything quickly I can get home sooner.

 ***

The Meals of Motherhood by Amy Ford appears in the Mothership Writers anthology Dispatches from New Motherhood. All 50 pieces from the book will be published here over the year to come, creating an online library of what it really means – right here, right now – to be a new mother.

ISABELLE by Emma Lancaster

This week’s Dispatches from New Motherhood piece is ISABELLE by Emma Lancaster, an incredibly powerful and moving account of being rushed to hospital at 33 weeks pregnant for an emergency C-section (TW: birth story). In rhythmic, controlled, and unflinching prose Emma shares her experience of pre-eclampsia, and the distressing journey that led to the birth, ‘here and safe’, of her daughter. Thank you to Emma for this beautifully expressed and affecting piece.

***

Isabelle 

Emma Lancaster

I remember lying in bed, the sunlight just starting to come in through the blinds.

I remember studying the patchy ceiling that looked more grey than white. 

I remember feeling safe and comfortable, thinking about the tiny baby growing inside me. 

Then, I remember feeling something. An intense cramp in my stomach. 

I remember reaching down with my hand and pulling it back, red with blood. 

I was 33 weeks pregnant. 

I remember screaming for my husband.

I remember the look on his face as he fumbled around trying to find my orange medical book and dialling 999.  

I remember the four paramedics who burst into the room in a blur of green and yellow. 

I remember a lot of questions and trying to get the answers out through tears that wouldn’t stop. 

I remember the flashing blue lights, then a white sterile room and a nurse who fitted a monitor around my stomach. 

I remember a heartbeat and the pressure of my husband's hand in mine. 

Then, the words: 'We have to do an emergency C-section.'

I remember a mask being put over my face and someone counting backward from ten.

I remember my hand being dragged apart from my husband’s.

And then, well, then nothing.

I didn’t see or feel her being born. I didn’t get to hold her to my chest. I didn’t give her her first taste of milk. 

I was not the first person she saw or smelt or felt. 

I couldn’t bring her the comfort she needed when thrust so suddenly into this cold and scary world. 

I remember being told it took doctors just seven minutes to tear my tiny baby out of me – saving her life.

I remember a yellow room and looking down to see my husband asleep on the floor next to me. 

I remember needles, lots of needles, prodding and poking. 

I remember being told I had pre-eclampsia which had led to a placental abruption. 

I remember asking why this had happened and never really getting an answer. 

I remember an overwhelming feeling of guilt. Guilty that I hadn’t kept her safe; that my body had evicted her before she was ready.

I can’t tell you what happened to my baby that first night in intensive care. I was too ill to go to her.

I know she was brought to me for a few fleeting minutes the day after she was born – the first time I would see her – but I don’t remember how she looked or how she smelt.

I remember the next day and the painful journey upstairs to NICU.

I remember feeling weak and tired but desperate to see the daughter I knew I’d had, but hardly seen.

I remember her red and screwed-up skin that looked too big for her body.

I remember her peacefully asleep, the incubator providing her new warm place. 

I remember thinking how beautiful she was, here and safe, my Isabelle. 

***

Isabelle by Emma Lancaster appears in the Mothership Writers anthology Dispatches from New Motherhood. All 50 pieces from the book will be published here over the year to come, creating an online library of what it really means – right here, right now – to be a new mother.