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!).’
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.