The challenge of being an expat new mum

Following on from my last post about my diagnosis of PND, I thought I'd put a little more flesh on the bones about what I've been facing.

I truly thought we'd met most challenges face on and were pretty settled out here by now - it's been over a year and half, after all. However, I really didn't count on the hard reality of becoming a mother half-way across the world from my family and close friends.

Regular readers of my blog will know that I've struggled with breastfeeding. To be honest, struggled is an understatement. For the first few weeks my son refused to feed from me, so I had to pump and supplement with formula around the clock. I had an in-built guilt about using formula (think it's a middle-class British thing!) so was absolutely determined to soldier on regardless. This meant buckets of tears, and I had no support at all from the nurses in the hospital where he was born (because culturally, more Arab mums bottle feed than opt for the breast.) Luckily I found a British midwife who helped me, my husband was a trooper and stood by my decision absolutely, and my Mum came out after a couple of weeks to cheer me on, but quite frankly I feel like I've been to hell and back with it. To this day I worry constantly about whether he's getting enough milk from me, and struggle to find a comfortable position to feed him in. So, breast feeding with no proper support from health visitors, doctors, etc - challenge number one.

Summer in the Gulf is universally felt to be the hardest time of year out here. It's 50c some days and you're basically confined to being indoors until dusk, particularly with a new baby. Add to that the month of Ramadan, which was most of August this year. Ramadan means shops are shut for a large part of the day, and restaurants and cafes closed all day, only opening in the evening (when the baby is in bed, of course..) and you can get cabin fever very easily indeed. Imagine then being a new mum, stuck inside with a baby, with a husband who's away for about 4 days a week on average. Hmmm..... So, that's another challenge to add to the list.

I've also been feeling the distance from my old friends very keenly. Although there are, as I predicted when I pregnant, masses of mums around to be friends with, they're all NEW friends, and as such I don't feel I can open up to them and ask for help when I really need it. I'm still in that "getting to know you" stage with all of them. It's tricky. Hopefully I'll begin to feel more confident over the coming months, and as my son's need for daytime naps reduces (at the moment he's sleeping for at least 3 naps a day, and won't sleep in his pram) I'll be able to get out and about to baby classes and coffee mornings to meet more people and get a regular rhythm to life, because that's something I really feel I've been missing.

The last challenge is, quite simply, being a new mum when your husband is a pilot. I could be living back in the UK and still have this to deal with. I miss him dreadfully when he's away now, much more so than before I became a mum. I miss his help with our son, as he's a brilliant Dad and regularly looks after him while I catch up on sleep. He's the third vital member of our family, and when he's away, things just don't feel right.

Still, I'm beginning to feel a lot more confident when I'm by myself now, so that's a good sign I think. My son and I have a good routine and I'm managing to get chores done and even get some time to myself, something I've really been missing.

It seems ridiculous, doesn't it, that I wanted and ached for my baby so much, and then feel foul of depression once he'd arrived. Trust me, I feel the irony of that more than anyone. I wish wholeheartedly that his first few months of life had been so much easier than they were, but hey, you can't change what's in the past, you can only look forward and make changes in the future, and that's what I intend to do. I love my son and my husband more than anything, and together, we'll get through this.

A conspiracy of silence?

I've been thinking a lot about the nasty dose of baby blues I got after the birth of our son, which is now thankfully fading to just a memory. Certainly it was partially hormonal, but also I think the result of lots of different things altogether - the shock and awe of becoming a mother, being unable to breastfeed initially and worrying about it, lack of sleep, and being far from home and friends and family. Not really a surprise, then, that I felt so rubbish.

What really gets me though is that no-one tells you this is how you're likely to feel! There's so much focus on the pregnancy and birth, and not on the first months afterwards, which arguably are much more of a challenge. I think perhaps it's collective amnesia; once you've got past that stage yourself you wilfully forget it, happy to put it behind you. Plus, why would you tell a first time mum this - it will only make her worry! Still, I've been very struck by how many mums have shared their experiences of their first few weeks with me, and how similar they are to mine. It's true of course that no amount of explaining can describe how it feels, so perhaps that's it. You've just got to find your own way.

Thankfully now things are falling into place for us. I love our son with an incredible passion, and know we are immensely lucky to have him. I'm out and about most days with him, meeting other mums and having precious family time when my husband is home. My body's healing, and I'm breastfeeding without a problem now.

Oh, and we're heading back to the UK for a break soon. I can't wait. It will be so wonderful to introduce our son to everyone! We're very proud parents...

Bump - the first month

Our beautiful son is now just over a month old. I realise weeks have gone by since my last blog post, but I have to say this parenting lark is taking up a great deal of my time! Just finding time to shower and clean-up the house if tricky enough, let alone writing an email or two or, God forbid, blogging!

Having said that though, we've come a long way since he was born. As I mentioned in my last post, I really struggled with breastfeeding, and it really upset me. It was something I was determined to do, and there was very little support here from the hospital staff, who basically just said that if I couldn't breast feed him, I'd have to give him formula, and that was that. Not what I wanted to hear! Luckily a combination of a British midwife out here, my husband's support and some bloody minded determination (plus our son getting significantly stronger) won the day, and I'm now managing to feed him myself almost exclusively. I am incredibly relieved, but it was a battle that took a lot of energy out of me, particularly at a time when I needed all my energy to adjust to new motherhood.

I was suffering from a nasty case of the baby blues until recently. I can only describe it as PMT on steroids. I really felt like I was losing my mind at times. In was incredibly hard, not just for me but for my husband too, who ended up dealing with a tearful me on a daily basis. Thankfully the dark cloud seems to have lifted now - and about time.

I'm determined to enjoy our son, who is simply incredible. I stare at him sometimes, just amazed he's ours.

News-wise, we've managed to beat the bureaucracy over here and now have a British passport and residence visa for our son, which means we can head home to the UK in July to introduce him to our families. We are quite nervous about travelling with him for the first time on a plane, but I've been getting tips from lots of other families out here. Fingers crossed he's a good flyer!