Leaving the baby...

I was surprised to hear yesterday at my weekly NCT coffee afternoon that I am the last Mum (out of seven) to of not left their baby. (This is with the exception of being whisked off in an ambulance when she was ten days old and having to leave her with Daddy for about half an hour... felt like days.)

If you had told me when I was pregnant that I wasn't going to be ready to leave Euna at 9 weeks I would have been surprised. If you had told me that before I got pregnant (that person feels like a different human being) my first thought would probably have been "you mean I STILL won't be back out on the lash by then??!!"

Pre-baby and pre-pregnancy me aside... I am not ready. The girls have been talking about arranging a spa day and night out for a few weeks but the conversation has always been quite abstract in terms of date "WHEN we're ready to leave the babies..." But it seems they're ready. It seems they've all been to the gym, been out for meals and one has even been back to work for two days to cover someone so they started talking about the first week in June for a meal... Well my face must have been a picture because they all turned to realise I was not ready and to be honest this was even news to me. Never EVER thought I'd be that Mum. Kind of assumed I be the "oh you'll babysit? How's NOW for you?" Mum...

So there it is. I don't really have much more to discuss on it because I feel very certain about my non-readiness. I know it will come and iI have no intention of pushing myself out before I am ready, even though when I discussed it with my husband I very much got the sense he's a little impatient for me to leave so we can get a little bit of what our "normality" was back.

As a side note when I was telling the NCT girls that they should go for the meal and I would not be offended (explained the opposite as I would rather they went because if I feel like they're waiting for me I will feel pressured) one girl responded "I'm a bad Mum I leave him to go to the gym all the time". Then this morning I went on to my online birth board forum and asked when everyone on there was first leaving their babies (just to get a sense of the average) three other women jumped on the defensive with "oh well I must be a bad Mum cos I've left my baby..." What? No! There is this general sense when discussing baby things with other Mums that if you say you do something other Mums permanently hear it as "I think Mums that don't do this are horrible parents". I get it off people when I tell them I use cloth nappies or when I said I wanted a home birth. I don't know what I think about it because I KNOW it's just about what an emotive role being a parent is and that every subject relating to it will be a sensitive one. It must be where the Mum playground competitives start... "MY child sleeps for 6 hours at night" turns to "MY child completed grade 67 on the harp" and it all escalates from there... At the end of the day it's a tough job and we all find it hard to conceal our insecurity when someone else's choices could be seen to be making a comment on our own. I guess it's just a good thing to note... good to remember when someone says "have you left your baby with anyone yet?" is not "wow you're a clingy Mum". They're emotive things these little babies and learning to talk about them is a minefield...

Lesson? Leave your baby when YOU are ready to and very little to do with babies has a right or wrong just a right for you.