Chai Loving Mumma

The expected: Help with settling techniques, more sleep, better sleep. 

Master Z slept 12 hours on the Thursday night. I may have done a happy dance in the corridor outside his room. I certainly did a happy dance in the dining area – there were witnesses! I feel more confident with settling and now know the difference between what they teach and the settling that I was doing at home. Key points being that both grizzling and settling have time limits – no more than ten minutes at a time of either. Previously when using patting as a technique, I would just pat and pat and pat, and pat….and if he cried when I opened the door to leave, I would return to the cot and pat some more. Finally I would pick him up, rock him, sing lullabies and/or pull him into bed with me. A familiar story shared by all the mothers at Masada. One even talked about how she would end up crawling into the cot with her son because she was so tired and desperate for sleep and he just wanted her there, always.

Now I know to leave the room, give him ten minutes to settle himself and go back in for another ten minutes of patting if he is still unsettled. If he is actually crying, go in more frequently: after two minutes, then another two, then four…2, 2, 4, 4, 6, 6, 8, 8, and start again. Or something like that. I don’t have my notes right here with me.

Another key point which is helping me: even if he doesn’t go to sleep during the whole two hours, he is still getting some much-needed down-time with minimal stimulation. This fits with what I’d been noticing after the sleep consultant. Even if he’d just spent an hour and half grizzling (crying) in the cot in the afternoon, he still seemed more rested and happier afterwards. Go figure. With the Masada technique, he’s not even crying the whole time. He quietens whenever I am in the room patting him, so I can actually see him getting some relax time.

I feel like a different person. Not only am I getting more sleep, but it is not as broken as it has been. Thanks to kitty cats, and my body having adjusted, it’s still a little broken, but I can go straight back to sleep whenever I wake up. The psych said that it would take several weeks for my body to re-balance and become used to the new status quo. My brain is definitely firing better. Not sure that I’m on 100% but definitely approaching 90%! I am not getting so tired during the day, I’m finding it easier to focus on tasks and to remind myself to stay focused on one thing at a time. I am still quite forgetful, but that is also very slowly improving. I love not feeling like I am chasing sleep the whole time and never catching it.

The unexpected: The start of grieving and healing.

I haven’t really had, or made, a chance to really grieve my mum. I’ve known that it’s sitting there, waiting for me to deal with it but I haven’t had the energy, the time, the emotional space or the head space to even contemplate starting.

Meeting Fran, the psych at Masada was the start. She picked up on things which I hadn’t mentioned, she connected dots that many haven’t been able to. Just finding someone who I wanted to open up to made me feel ready to start talking, start the process of grieving and allow healing to happen. There is such a tangled web of emotions where my mum is concerned, it will be good to lessen the tangle, to accept it, learn from it and move on. I don’t want to feel the tangle forever.

Then on Friday I had my massage. Talk about opening the floodgates. The masseuse was one of mum’s teachers when she was studying massage. He didn’t remember her, but he would have taught her physiology and anatomy. He was the first masseuse that I’ve been to who used the same massage techniques that my mum used to use on me. It felt wonderful and sorrowful, full of discovery and loss. It provoked a strong missing of her, sadness that she never became all that she could have and a desire to remember what she taught me about massage.

I just managed to hang on to the tears until I was out the door. I will return to him, and maybe explain how profound it was for me. I’m sure that he could see that I was upset. But then it was too raw and I was not ready. I returned to my room, only to hear lots of voices in the play area just before my room. I ducked into Master Z’s room to cry a bit before trying to get past everyone, only to hear him calling for me. When I went into the corridor and the nurse looking after Zac asked how my massage was, I just started sobbing. She directed us both straight into my room and held me while I cried and told her what had happened. She was beautiful. She stayed with me for about half an hour, made me tea, entertained Master Z and helped me work through the initial rawness of the grief and get to a point of being able to talk with others at dinner. I found out later that she worked as a psych nurse in a maximum security men’s prison for ten years before working at Masada. She’d also come through the residential program at Masada with her first child.

I felt so nurtured by these nurses who work with mums and bubs every single week. I did not expect to feel the level of care that I did, personal care and a sense of mothering. I hadn’t realised how desperately I needed to be mothered, until last week.

One of the other mums also had a rough day that day, singing at the funeral of her friend’s mother. She lost her mother seven years ago, and was surprised at the emotions she felt at her friend’s mother’s funeral. I suspect the loss of a mother never goes away and no-one ever replaces your mum. Your mum is your mum forever. There can be step-mums, and mum-in-laws, and practically-mums but you only have one mum. Sitting here as a new mum, I find that thought both scary and reassuring.