Pregnancy

And in terms of your relationship together, how has both pregnancy and then being a parent affected your relationship together?

Well, I mean, I think we're stronger, we're definitely stronger. And both of us just look at her and just think “I can't believe she's here, she's ours.” He's just over the moon I think. My husband said that he'd like to give up work and look after her and I'd go to work full time.

In terms of kind of just having a baby, how has it made you feel about life?

Now I know what I was missing out on, because I'm thinking, “What did I used to do with my time?” And it was just work. Work, work, work, and that's it. But we know now what we were missing out on, you know, we've got the little angel. 

I was a bit worried about other people saying, “She doesn't look at all like her dad” which is happening sometimes, now that she's born, but well, we just cope with it. My husband usually says, “Oh well, she just looks a lot like her mum” and that's it. But I was worried about all the little things, you know. 

Once she was there, though, everything just disappeared, all my worries, you know, I just loved her straight away from the first instant, and my husband actually fell in love with her from the first instant as well, and he said to me, “Oh she's beautiful.” And when a couple of hours after she was born I said to him, “Did you, when you, when she was born, did you have the impression that, you know, how did you feel? That you just, 'Oh she's not mine' or something?” He said, “I forgot completely about it. She's mine and that was it.” So, you know, I was very happy at the time because I realised that, you know, we'd made the right decision. 

We've still got a long way to go, you know, and I hope that we'll be able to communicate with her, and tell her that's what happened and things like that. That we'll be open about it, because I don't want it to be a taboo, but I know sometime it's difficult for men, I think more than for women...

But when she was born it was just like I couldn't take my eyes off her. I mean, the first night in hospital I just didn't sleep, I just looked at her the whole time, you know. And even, I really even got told off by the midwife for just, you know, “Just leave her alone, you know.” I was like stroking her all the time, but I think I've been very over-protective of her in a way. And maybe some people are saying that's a little bit, you know, I should relax a bit more, but I just can't take my eyes off her and I just want to be with her all the time. 

But, you know, I've waited five years for her to come and she's very, very precious for us, so I think I deserve to be with her and to spend time and all these things, because that's what, my dream has finally come true.

There haven't, being a parent hasn't been as difficult, so far, as I anticipated. Having a baby hasn't been as difficult as I anticipated, and I know that my partner feels the same way, but I know it's just the beginning [laughs] so I'm not sure how it's going to change. But I am expecting for it to be very difficult at times. I feel that we've settled into it quite quickly and got used to the lifestyle change. And I was really someone that went out all the time, and now I can't ever go out [laughs] but I don't mind. And it seems to be all worthwhile and it's just, it's funny because I saw people before I had the baby that would say, “Oh, but you know, it's all worth it.” And, and I thought, "Oh God, I'm not going to be like that at all." But I feel really funny, but I do, that it, it is worth while and that I just felt that I, it hasn't been too challenging so far, it's just come to me, that I want to look after him, or that I'm enjoying the change in my life.

Some women say that their relationship with their husband sort of emotionally and physically changes after they've had a baby. Would you say that was true?

It is true. I think you just get, you're just too tired, you know. Sometimes you just get too tired, especially if she's not sleeping through the night. And she's going through this funny stage at the moment where she's just waking up, sleeping, waking up and won't sleep unless she sleeps in our bed, and then, you know, you have to take her out and put her back in her own bed, and then she wakes, wakes up again, so she's going through a really funny stage at the moment. So it is just - and then with the fasting during Ramadan as well now, so we're both, we're just tired. And it's just, “Yeah, okay, what do you want to eat?” “Okay that's fine.” Deh-deh-deh. And it's just like that. It's quite worrying [laughs]. But we do like, on a Sunday he doesn't work, and so we do try and make an effort on a Sunday to go out to together and we take the baby with us. Okay, to take her, take her with us, or we might just go to town or just go somewhere and go for a coffee, so we tend to make an effort of doing that on a Sunday.

And what was it like coming home with him?

Well, I hadn't, I was one of those people that was not, I mean, I'm a last, last minute person, so I hadn't got my steriliser out of the box and things like that. And I needed to use my steriliser when I got back because I was sort of half - I was breastfeeding, but obviously because it wasn't working out, it was quite useful to have a bottle available just in case, just to sort of take the edge off the hunger and stuff like that.

So I wasn't completely prepared when I got back, and obviously because I'm living on my own by the time I was having the baby, so, you know, unless you've got somebody who's actually going to come round and make sure that everything is put away - once you've left in a hurry to the hospital, if you come back and certain things aren't done, it's still not done when you get back. And if you're on your own you haven't got, you haven't got everything done for you, you know what I mean? So that was the only thing, I think, you know, coming back, it was a bit of a nightmare because he woke up, as soon as the front door slammed, and I was thinking, “I've got to get some bottles sterilised and I've got to get some breast milk pumped.” And so like he woke up and went, “Waah”, 

So I had twenty, him going for twenty minutes going “Waah” while I was breast-pumping and I was crying and stuff [laughs]. And it was generally quite a stressful thing coming home, but.

Being a parent has enlightened our lives and our families', and we've been very lucky with a very happy, contented child. We've had no problems, she sleeps, she eats, she talks and we're loving it. The choice of going back to work for me wasn't a difficult choice. I wanted to be around and to be a mother to our baby, certainly for the first couple of years, and having done just over a year, I'm delighted that I made that choice, very happy.

Do you think you will go back to work at some point?

I will go back to work at some point, not to my initial job, because obviously I've had to hand my notice in, that's the end of that. But I would like to work again in the future, yes, very much so.