It was a fresh October morning, I was five months postpartum with my second child Eva. Here I was again sitting cross-legged on a dusty community centre floor, watching the baby yoga instructor show a group of new mums how to stimulate trapped wind from baby’s tummy. It was at this moment I realised that for four weeks running, Eva has not been awake once for this baby yoga session and that for the last four weeks I’d sat following the actions as told and surrounded by other mams on the floor.
As I looked around the cold dusty room surrounded by a mix of coos and cries, I felt nothing really. I felt empty, I felt disjointed and disconnected from reality. I was definitely thrown but this realisation and these feelings as I didn’t feel like this during maternity leave with my first child Freddie. ‘What is this feeling?’ I thought over and over again to myself. As I sat and watched other mammas either feeding or massaging their beautiful babies a small pinprick of pain alit in my tummy. It made its way up to my head and offered a lightbulb moment, a physical lightbulb moment of consciousness. ‘I am LONELY’ I said to myself.
I left this session like many before; unsimulated, unsatisfied. Now this had nothing to do with the baby yoga session and the teacher and parents who took part in the class. But I realised I’m rather far away from the ‘Kayleigh’ that I used to be. And I think, as I sat and nurse Eva in the car, ‘what was the point?’. Yet my beautiful baby girl who had saved me so many times in these first few months of her life was none the wiser of what and where she was. As long as Mamma was with her, she was happy and satisfied. It dawned on me that for this family to thrive, Mamma needed to be happy, stimulated and supported. But unfortunately, maternity leave and parenthood are not geared up towards supporting the parents and I felt at a loss as to what to do next or where to turn for help.
I drove home, and sobbed, with the realisation of the situation that I was facing. For the months I had been detached from myself burying my head in the sand with the difficulty of facing my thoughts and emotions. I had, for the last five months, been blindly following the pack of parents who are all moving in the same direction. Yet from my brief conversations with parents I did know that not many were feeling truly great, and they recognised that this is not how they expected the fairytale life of maternity leave would be.
Before you start Maternity leave you have this disillusion of what it will be like. The jobs in the house you will finally finish, that you will finally fit into your old jeans again, and you will have those coffee dates that we all long for. When in reality new mams are often struggling to function, getting dressed and out the house in the morning is such a chore at times. We suffer greatly due to lack of sleep so meeting an old friend for coffee and organising the goddamn shoe cupboard that's bursting at the seams becomes only a dream that would come true if only the baby could be put down for more than five minutes.
I eventually pulled up to our house and couldn’t even begin to get out of the car. I felt stuck, frozen in time not knowing how to get through this realisation of reality. Then I told myself, don’t go in the house, go for a walk. As I strapped Eva into her carrier I blindly walked into the beautiful forest outside of the back of the house, like so many times before this. But this time I feel on autopilot, I felt detached, fully conscious but not in my body. Walking with haste to a destination that my legs seem to know about but my brain was yet to fully register.
I soon found myself standing alone with Eva on the locally nick-named Red Bridge and very matter-of-factly started looking for somewhere to put Eva so that she could be found safe once I had taken my own life. I walked back and forth across the bridge taking my time to secure her safety and it dawned on me that there wasn’t anywhere at all for her and I was unable to go through with my intention, purely out of concern for her. I found myself in the middle of that bridge and I took a deep breath, smelled the beautiful newborn scent radiating from her head, and decided that I need to go home.
As I shut the door to our home, I felt a switch back into reality and I was faced with the devastating realisation of what I very nearly could have done to myself and the devastation that I could have left in my family. I was filled with guilt and so many questions; ‘why did I feel this way? How could I have possibly left young Freddie without his mam? How would my husband Dale, my family and friends have come to terms with my loss should I have found that safe space for Eva?’ I then realised I can never be in this position again and that I simply couldn’t walk alone again!
I picked up my phone and created a post on Facebook. A raw and real post on how parenting can be at times rubbish and if you are tired of paying a fortune for a baby class that your child has no clue about as they have slept throughout, then I will be at this location at this time tomorrow. And I pressed send.
Of course anxiety hits again. “What will happen if no one turns up?” my husband says when I explain through a wave of snot and tears how lonely and isolated I felt and all about my recent Facebook post. My reply was, “I will continue to walk, who cares if I barred all and no one comes, I hope the post helped someone to feel a little less alone and odd”. I found that it can be so difficult to talk about the crap parts of parenthood and the truly raw moments of terror we can find ourselves in. I still feel lots of our initial new parent interactions with our own peer groups are too often filled with either parents unintentionally bragging about their child’s milestones, sleep or relationships. Then there's the already established friendship groups and there’s simply no wiggle room on chipping in on a conversation. But maybe when we walk we can then talk more truthfully and honest moments will arise. When we walk we are surrounded by fresh air, nature and space and only then parents can drop their armour and be authentically the new version of themselves. We can walk together, alongside each other, dealing only with our children in front of us and the path ahead - no eye contact and no barriers.
I woke up the next day to my Facebook post being shared 25 times, and whilst not many comments but a lot of shares and I felt optimistic to meet my village and see if what I am feeling is felt by others. I turned the corner and saw nine mams all looking as frazzled as I was, I instantly started to cry with this overwhelming feeling of support and understanding.
This is when my maternity leave started, I felt like Kayleigh! Not the Kayleigh I was pre-parent or even the version of myself I was after Freddie was born in 2017 but Kayleigh 3.0. I’m now a mamma of two and this woman has now lived through something that not everyone would have. I felt grateful for this moment and proud of my bravery to share.
This is where Mamma Social Co. was born, eventually it was no longer a need for me to get well from PTSD and Postnatal Depression, but I was now supporting a community that needed to heal. From this first walk, Mamma Social Co. quickly grew arms and legs and within no time at all we were recruiting parent-lead volunteers throughout the Northeast and within one year we were looking nationally. And the tribe and community we are continuing to build is brave and parent-focused. By creating a parenting organisation that creates events, activities, support, connection and community for all parents Mamma Social Co. will combat isolation and loneliness within parenthood, one walk at a time.
By Kayleigh Laverick
Mamma Social Co Founder
Mamma of two
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