Loretta

I was depressed after the miscarriage. I couldn't get over it. I was pregnant with my son about six weeks after. So we're talking about a six week period and I apparently didn't get over it quickly enough.

At the time, prior to all of all of the subsequent events, having a miscarriage was one of the most traumatic things I've ever had. Partially because of the psychological but there's such a physical component to it. Your body is already building up and in my case the place where we lived it didn't have legal abortions and I had to have a D&C and I found myself in a very sophisticated country and a very sophisticated city in a basement with a bunch of people where I was told that if I paid 50 bucks I could jump to the head of the queue and not have to wait.

It was horrible. It was so humiliating. It was terrifying. I hate needles. It was the first time I'd ever had a full anaesthetic and I just remember, talking about small comforts, the woman who actually gave the anaesthetic said, "I had a miscarriage and I went on and I've got two children". And that I think was probably the biggest part of it because I had a miscarriage before I'd had a pregnancy. I just didn't know if I was going to be able to have kids and I knew of a lot of women who'd had IVF and had miscarriages and I'd watched them.

So there was this, 'Is that going to be me? Is that what's going to happen?' And that element of not having a choice which you just presume that you have which now that I have children seems insignificant but at the time that you are facing that decision of having a child is a massive thing to have taken away from you.

So it definitely, it definitely impacted on me. I took one day off work and then I had to go back to work. They did tests on the D&C results and I got a call at work which was one of the most bizarre things that's ever happened to me and they called up and said, "Oh we're just calling to say that there were no genetic abnormalities. You're probably fine to have other kids and by the way the gender of the baby was a boy," and I was in my office and I just cried and I cried and I cried.

I was lucky I had an office where I could close the door. It was like, 'Why did you tell me that?'. I don't think that would happen here. I think that was just part of the general lack of sensitivity surrounding anything to do with children or birth in that country.

[My children had] very different [births] and also very different in the environments surrounding the birth. So for my son I was very excited and it was all great but by the time my daughter was born things were already very much broken with their dad and the difference in feeling supported whether perceived or real made a huge difference in my interaction with each of them.

And luckily my mum was around when my daughter was there and she did something which in hindsight was really very clever. She pretended to be my daughter and be her voice so she would say, "Mummy I know you are really tired but I just want a cuddle," or - she humanised her at a time that was really quite traumatic and I think I would have struggled a lot more to have connected with her had she not been there and played that role.

Obviously she took the physical pressure off but she also psychologically gave me that space and that, that ability to connect at a time when I was just thinking, 'What am I going to do? I've got this tiny baby and all this other stuff is going on.'

So having my mum around was - I can't even - I can imagine it without her, not having someone to support you. I don't think it's even a question of whether it's - who it is. It's just having that person around you who - person or people who really support you and putting yourself first. I was actually really glad. I couldn't get visitors. I didn't - I, I couldn't have thought of anything worse because I was still in that bubble of just needing to find - the awe of this person being here. [...] My daughter is slightly tongue tied like me so she had real trouble suckling so the breastfeeding was a much more stressful thing and to have had people coming and going would have just been - yeah, it was great that it was just mum basically at that stage, um, and dad popped in and out but wasn't of any kind of support. So definitely having the right people around made a huge difference.

I remember very early on, I think my son might have been three days old and my then husband wanted to go and have beers with his mates to celebrate and I knew quite well how that was going to end. So I said, "Why don't you go have beers and I'll bring him down and they can sight him?" - and I remember having a rip roaring argument because he said, "Oh you don't trust me".

It was like, 'No, a three day old baby doesn't need to hang out in a pub', plus I was just getting the hang of breastfeeding. This is a really concrete example and it's a really good one where it's just like, 'No it's not just about the son. It's actually about me needing to bond with him, and you know, I haven't done this before. I've got no idea what's going on. You're not taking this baby out for four hours to a pub', which could have well happened and we just had this rip roaring argument because he was insisting.

That was a really awful moment where I was like, 'Something is just not right. He's not really realising that it's not about him anymore', and I think that's the thing with having kids that actually - your spouse can say and act however, but when the child comes it has to be about the child.

I think it took having a child to see how selfish, how focused he was on him. There was another [incident], this was about a week after my son was born and his new boss was in town, and we had a two bedroom apartment which was small. It was a big city and typical apartment living and his new boss came with his wife and two sons who were later diagnosed with autism, they were eight and 10 I think and they stayed for four hours.

And I remember having to make the house spotless because the boss was coming, which was not even someone he was close to, it was purely work related, this is what I need to do to make the right impression. And by the third hour of these kids screaming around, jumping up and down off the couches, throwing things, I can't even describe, I just remembered thinking, 'I know I'm being hormonal but I am so fragile right now. I have just had my vagina ripped from front to back and I am in pain and I am trying to work this all out and I'm exhausted'.

And just there was no regard and so - those two examples were in the first week and it just went on like that. I think it was definitely there before but it was manageable when it was just me but when it came to having a little person, I think there was an element of him becoming more focused on himself because he just couldn't cope with not being all about him, but there was also an element of holding up a mirror. This child held up a mirror to what was definitely there before, just I couldn't see it or imagine the extent.

I suppose I thought too having a child that it was his child. Surely that would evoke the responses that he talked about having and the type of parenting that he described himself as exhibiting but it didn't.

It was definitely triggered by childbirth and I know from other mothers, I think that that's often a catalyst. It's that whole shift from, 'We're a couple and we can live in this fantasy world of we're having an adventure and we're doing all the lovey-dovey things', but you know you get pregnant and life isn't about that. You're not forever going for long walks and holding hands on the beach. It's actually about wiping bums and even when you're pregnant you know you're no longer the lithe sexy thing that you were. You're really attractive in other ways and I think a lot of other people would see it that way, but I think for a lot of men it's also really confronting and if they already have those sort of narcissistic tendencies I think they just became much more apparent.

But he wasn't also very good at hiding it. I think having a child, he couldn't be bothered anymore. He had me pregnant, what was I going to do? And he to a point was right. I think he was probably fairly surprised that I got away. I think he thought where we were, given my job, I would just stay because what else was I going to do but get away?

Another thing I really struggle with is the definition of single mums. I have been to dinner parties, not my friends, but with other people's friends and they will talk about people who are dole bludgers or single mums. You know, "That single mum who does whatever," and I'm like, 'I'm one of those'. There's this sense of injustice and outrage because it's like anything, I think you have no understanding of any process until you've been through it and I think with where I am now the biggest thing, the outrage is just when they cut $20 a week to single mums and people cry out, "Why are they getting so much money?" It's like, 'Do you know what single mothers live on? Do you know what they do?' And I worked professionally at a very, very high level and I have friends who work professionally at very high levels and we all agree that it is much more challenging to be at home with your children full time than it is to go to work. The luxury of going to the toilet on your own, let alone all the things that you take for granted and you do it because it's the most meaningful and incredibly powerful thing you'll ever do, but to have that portrayed as some kind of second-rate profession or something that, 'Oh those women who just have children' - people clearly have no concept and I had no concept before children. But I sit at dinner parties now and I really have to bite my tongue.