Mother Zen by Jacinta Tynan - Chapter Sampler

MOTHER ZEN

Jacinta Tynan

To Jasper and Otis,for opening my heart.

Thank you for choosing me.

Every attempt has been made to request permission from copyright holders. If you have any queries, please contact the publisher at the address below.

Quotation from How To Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran, published by Ebury Press, repro-duced by permission of The Random House Group Ltd; quotation from I Dont Know How She Does It by Allison Pearson, published by Vintage, reproduced by permission of The Ran-dom House Group Ltd; quotation from The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin, 2009, reproduced by permission of HarperCollins Publishers.

First published April 2015 by Harlequin NonfictionAn imprint of Harlequin Enterprises (Australia) Pty Ltd.Level 4, 132 Arthur StreetNORTH SYDNEY NSW 2060AUSTRALIA

ISBN 9781743692387

MOTHER ZEN JACINTA TYNAN 2015

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A cataloguing-in-publication record for this book can be found in the National Library of Australia

Cover design by Christa Moffit, Christabella DesignsCover photography by Stuart ScottPrinted and bound in Australia by Griffin Press, South Australia

Introduction

When my first baby was still a baby, I wrote a story about motherhood. Like many new mothers I was giddy with the flush of it, enraptured by my baby boy in a way Id never known, and I wanted to gush about it. The angle was the massive difference between what I had been led to expect and what was actually happening.

From the minute I shared the news of my pregnancy, and well before that, really, I had been bombarded with tales of woe. From pregnancy to birth to bringing up baby mothering was, by all accounts, going to be a rough ride. Kiss goodbye to your life was a common refrain. You will never sleep again was another. Of course there were occasional bursts of the good stuff too, mainly from older people peering back through the heady haze of hindsight, when the sharpness of memory might have dissipated. But I was repeatedly told being a mother was the toughest job in the world, a thankless task that I must fortify myself against if I was to make it.

This was coming not only from people I knew but also from strang-ers, who, on noticing my condition, would offer condolences for the cataclysmic life change that awaited me. In a bookshop one morning, Do you have any idea what youre in for? said another mother about my age, eyebrows raised. She didnt mean this in a good way. The press painted a bleak picture too of toil and trouble. Read enough newspaper articles about motherhood not, please note, fatherhood and the overall gist is of a career-sabotaging, money-sucking, relationship-killing,

6 J A C I N T A T Y N A N

sanity-threatening, body-wrecking venture that might be more trouble than its worth.

Not surprisingly I was apprehensive. As much as I wanted it, I was careening towards a life change which I had been led to believe would suck the energy, identity and life-force out of me. For the rest of my life. With no turning back.

Which is why I got such a lovely surprise to find it nothing like that at all. When my baby finally arrived after two days of labour and a touch-and-go emergency caesarean I couldnt wipe the smile off my face. Awash with happiness and powered by the deepest love Id ever known, I settled into a warm blanket of contentment, and theres nowhere else I wanted to be. My mother (herself a mother of six) had told me that if I could get through the first six weeks with a new baby then I could get through anything. If that be so, then I was on a roll. I still felt that way several months in. I was sleep deprived, sure give me a new mother who isnt and didnt have a second to myself. I only showered every second day and rarely checked emails, and sometimes I had no idea what I was doing, but I was having the time of my life.

One morning while my then nine-month-old baby was sleeping, I started writing. A first-person opinion piece for Sunday Life Magazine, the Sunday newspaper liftout I contribute to, about my mothering experience thus far. I hankered to describe the joy and privilege of it, the flipside you so rarely hear about. It wasnt my intention to preach to or berate mothers who werent having a similar experience. I didnt assume I had any superior skills or knowledge in the ways of this motherhood thing. I only had one baby, for goodness sake, a healthy one, and he wasnt even walking yet, all of which I made clear in the story. But what I did think was that if I, of all people, could turn things around from the fear and trepidation I had felt about becoming a mother to actually having quite a nice time of it, then couldnt anyone? If I shared my story, gave a little insight into my baby world, then it might inspire others to look at it a different way too, to see their way through the fog. The prevailing message of our time, the line we are all buying, is that motherhood is Struggle Street. Perhaps one little snapshot that suggests otherwise might do its bit to question that manifesto.

There is one thing nobody warned me about when I became a mother: what a breeze it would be, I started. I wrote the story during

M O T H E R Z E N 7

a mid-morning sleep (the babys, not mine: by now I had trained myself to do just about everything in those precious snatches of time). I admitted (it felt like an admission) that I was finding motherhood one of the most seamless, joyful, intuitive things I have ever done. Yes there are sleepless nights (many of them, in a seemingly endless row), but there is nothing difficult about being up all night with the love of your life. The common assumption that motherhood is hard work? I could now say from experience that, really, I didnt think it was. I would take this any day. Hard is being tied to a soulless job for eighty per cent of your waking hours. Hard is fighting cancer, or hav-ing a child who is. Or not being able to conceive a child when you ache for nothing more. Soothing a crying baby who wont sleep for love nor money is a privilege, not a hardship.

It was intended as an uplifting piece, a dose of positivity on a Sun-day morning to remind us how precious is the opportunity to be a mother: an invitation like no other to love and be loved. I never knew I had such capacity to love. Nobody warned me about that, was my closing line. It was a gentle prod to get things in perspective and laugh at ourselves. (Which went for me too.)

Then I hit send.After filing the story, I received an email from a sub-editor, profes-

sionals notoriously succinct in their correspondence, confirming I had hit the mark. Nice upbeat piece, even if I am coming off about four hours of baby-interrupted sleep! it said. That there was a litmus test. If she in her new-mum state was seeing the upbeat-ness of my words then it was mission accomplished.

Only it wasnt.The Sunday my story appeared was like any other Sunday. I forgot

it was even in the magazine, going to print, as they do, several weeks after I wrote it. I barely manage to glance at a newspaper most days since becoming a mother, and that was one of those days: me too busy entertaining our crazy crawling boy, who darted off in all directions, yanking and burrowing with no radar for danger, to read anything at all. But by Monday morning it seemed every other mother had some-how managed to read the paper. Propped up at the hairdresser getting a quick blow-dry before work that day, my baby on my lap, I finally had a chance to check my emails on my iPhone, and they were overflowing.


At first, a ripple of camaraderie. I cant agree more, wrote Sandra. Im so tired of hearing all the negativity of having a child. I am so sick of reading about whining middle-class women moaning about work-life balance, wrote PG (too paranoid to leave her real name). People with healthy kids dont realise how good they have it. And they kept coming: It is a shame that women seem to find solidarity in commiserating the arduous nature of motherhood. For me its not a hardship but a gift, said Raelean. Comfort descended upon me, wrote Jennifer, reading that my experience mirrors yours, There, I said it, Lola wrote. I love being a mum and I treasure every minute we have together. Motherhood rocks.

Several pregnant women emailed to say that after reading my account of being a new mother, theyre no longer so uneasy about their own impending and inevitable foray into it. I felt immediate comfort as I read your article highlighting to me that the journey I am about to embark is of joy, love and reward not pain, resentment and boredom, wrote (another) Jennifer. I (now) look forward to my twelve-week scan tomorrow.

And then the tide turned.The blogosphere went into overdrive, including the online Sydney

Morning Herald (whose comments section reached capacity within hours) and the popular Mamamia website, which also hosted my story, and had some fifteen hundred responses at last glance. I was invited onto TV and radio to defend myself, and my story inspired several follow-up articles and opinion pieces. Not many in favour.

When my story was posted on Mamamia, with my permission, dissenting mums took to it with a vengeance. It was a lighting rod for every mother who had ever found parenting hard. I, with my suppos-edly superior life on my high and mighty chair became the unwitting target for their frustration and discontent. If only we all had the money, fame, childcare and hair and makeup every day to make us feel good about ourselves, wrote Craazy. I can tell by your lack of regrowth that you are not living the life that many of us have as new mothers, quipped Mother of 4.

Much to my chagrin, many mums had interpreted my rosy senti-ments as an attack on them, and they fought back. Try a week at my house with four kids under ten and well see if she still thinks

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motherhood is a breeze, wrote Random. Jacinta has, unfortunately, made some very emotionally vulnerable mums even more so, posted Dianne. It lacked any sense of compassion for people who find it overwhelming, for whatever reason, wrote Green Leaf. From Meg: extolling the ease and smoothness of her maternal journey is likely to cause more than a few feelings of inadequacy in the rest of us mere mortals. Someone calling themselves Wheres her sisterhood? posted: Writing a deliberately provocative article is one thing. Writing an article that can be damaging to the mental health or self-esteem of a struggling new mother is quite another. And from Petal: Jacinta, I really dont think you should be talking about how easy motherhood is while the baby is at home with the nanny.

It unnerved me to read that, rather than inspire readers as I had hoped, my words seemed to have enraged them or, worse, caused them greater angst. Im still angry and it has been a week since I read this article, wrote Enz. Mummum said she had moments where I was frothing at the mouth. I actually spent all of Sunday in a fog and wept a couple of times, just because of your amazing ability to make a mother like me feel like a complete and utter failure, wrote Amanda. She should watch out for karma, warned Brissie Mum. And guest got right to the point: Stop being so up yourself!

I was on notice. Ive been a smug mummy before too Jacinta and I promise you itll come back and bite you in the ass! warned Gilly. And from Sofia, who likened me to the Queen of Motherhood (should I have been flattered?): Lucky we have this enigma that is Jacinta Tynan to put us all in our place!

It was hard to see, in the thick of all that, as I ducked for cover behind my laptop, that it was worth it. But it was.

Despite weathering the relentless fallout Im glad I wrote the story. For the majority of mums who posted their appreciation for the over-due voice of reason, grateful for a different perspective. For the expect-ing women who shared they now had an upwardly revised outlook on giving birth. And for those who were reluctant to have a baby at all because of the bad press, but who were now giving it some thought. My hopes have been lifted that I too will be able to survive mother-hood when the time comes, posted ImNotAMum. From Miss M: Now Im convinced its worth a go. And Talia: Its now something


I know I truly want. Its nice to hear mothers talk about the joy of motherhood rather than scare the be-jesus out of us non-mothers, wrote Non Mum.

As difficult as it was to bear at times, causing me to question whether I had lost the art of saying what I meant to say, contemplating even giving up this writing gig, or at least avoiding anything to do with the contentious issue of parenting, it was also worth it for the ensuing onslaught it triggered, because it started a debate that was busting to be had. To suggest that motherhood might not be the intense battle it is made out to be for everyone hit a massive nerve and caused women to think about where they stand on that, and why. One camp clinging with all their might to their belief that their post-baby life has been hijacked. Another floating about in a sea of euphoria and gratitude. And everything in between.

What became clear was that we are entering a new era of mother-hood. We may not be fully cognisant of it, but all that resentment unleashed by mums unhappy with their lot a silent scream of disenchantment shows something needs to give. We cant go on like this. Our experience of parenting is not universally definitive and we should feel free to describe our realities, whatever they are. Our mothers and grandmothers dared not speak of their discontent, many simply playing happy homemaker and dealing with their lot. As it should be, that darker side of motherhood is now open slather: per-mission granted to own up to any traces of unhappiness or dissatisfac-tion. So much so it has become the norm.

For a good two decades, we have applauded mothers for taking on the hardest job in the world without being paid for it. There are end-less books and blogs and support networks for women who are over-whelmed by the task before them as there should be reassuring them they are not alone in their struggle to keep it together.

But what about the rest of us?What stood out in the cavalcade of responses to my story, brack-

eted by the almost desperate cries for help, were the women who said they were hesitant to speak of their joy of being a mother for fear of backlash. One woman called it her guilty secret that she loves being a mum, another saying, Good on you for being brave enough to say what I, and many other mums, couldnt say. I have to hide the fact

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that motherhood is amazing for me. I have to hide the fact that its not a struggle nor difficult, posted Bethany.

There is a new unspoken code around motherhood, one that has firmly replaced decades-old taboos about complaining or criticising what was seen as the most precious of feminine birthrights: it is now not in good taste to speak of the good times. Not too loudly, anyway. The impassioned dialogue that took off in the wake of The Big Easy, as my story was headlined, uncovered the silenced voice of many mothers who say they are not game enough to acknowledge the posi-tive side of their experience in case they get shot down. As I was. We are keeping a lid on the good stuff, yet its the very thing so many of us are obviously hanging out to hear, need to hear. As Bethany said, Im sick of having to pretend that its bad. And Deb: Im tired of trying to censor my joy.

Which is why I didnt stop there: because the conversation had only just begun. It hardly seemed fair to open the floodgates, inviting mums to dive in with their tales of how they make the most of their treasured mothering days, others sharing their struggles giving them a forum, for once, to get it off their chests, and then go back to normal, leaving all those women bottling up their stories for fear of losing friends. What I witnessed in the mass outpouring (because thats what it was) the good and the bad was women reaching out. Those who were strug-gling sought reassurance from other mums that theyve been there too and promise it will pass. And those who felt they could speak up finally about their content as Libby put it, the absolute joy and bliss my babies gave me found simpatico with other mums in the same boat, and perhaps shifted the sands for those who desired the same but had no idea how to tune into this radical perspective of rapture.

The extremes opened eyes. Including mine. The perspective offered by other women however brief provided precious insight into the intense battle that motherhood is for many, from irritating to crush-ingly dull to utterly desperate. It proved women no longer wanted it to be this way. By hearing the accounts of other mums who were loving the ride accessing the ability to cherish the moment as one mum put it they were being given a taste of an alternative approach. If this woman can feel this way, then just maybe so can I. Maybe its not just luck of the draw after all.


And so, after a brief hiatus bringing up two babies, I got back to it. I started writing Mother Zen, just a few hours a week, any time I could grab it. One reader, Tali, had suggested, with great sarcasm, that I should get together with Gisele and publish The Guide to Being Fabu-lous at Everything including Motherhood for the rest of us poor souls.

Thats not quite what Ive written. If only I knew how to be fabulous at everything. If only I knew how to contact Gisele. But what I have written is a book intended to guide mothers away from the endless negativity surrounding motherhood and towards relishing this unique and blessed opportunity, providing ways to access the joy that is avail-able to us all. Its important for mothers to have permission to have a range of experiences, as they inevitably do in life, including daring to find motherhood trouble-free. At least some of the time.

I have come to believe that, in most circumstances, how we look at things, including pregnancy, birth and motherhood, is a choice. It has become de rigueur to complain about it, the default position for so many mums, so much that we dont even question if theres another way. But, for most of us, there is. I learnt to meditate when I was five months pregnant (the first time) and I have no doubt thats what got me here. Not that you need to meditate to enjoy being a mum. Not at all. But my ability to slip into gratitude and presence and see the wonderment above all else (not always but often enough): I work for it.

My baby was like everyone elses: he fed every two hours, cried for hours on end, and kept me up many nights sometimes I wasnt sure what to do next. But I decided to make the most of it all and not to will away one second.

And so I am.

(Just to be clear, this is a book about mothers, and its framed by my experience as a biological mother, but the word mother is a shortcut meant to include all the non-birth mothers and the fathers and the carers doing the same work. Of course their experiences will differ from mine, as do all other parents, and Im sure therell be some work-ing dads who find that something here resonates! Im not trying to address every variation on the parenting theme thats an impossibly large task but my hope is that by sharing my own experience, and those of many others, some more universal truth might emerge.)

C H A P T E R

1Mother Doubts

No one said over and over again (because thats how many times it takes) or even once, When you grow up you can embrace motherhood

wholeheartedly and still accomplish great things. It seems absurdly obvious now, but growing up, I swear, I could not fathom it.

Rebecca Walker, Baby Love

Dont get me wrong. I was delighted to be pregnant. I knew how blessed I was that it happened with such ease and with a man I hap-pened to be in love with. I was, after all, thirty-nine.

I had put off being a mother that long, testing the very limits of the fertility window, not only because I hadnt met the right man (hav-ing carefully avoided him on at least one occasion, terrified as I was by commitment) but more so because I hadnt found the right time. I had a career to think of, sure, and one that isnt traditionally accom-modating with motherhood. But that was also in the scheme of things a rather convenient justification for both myself and the people who were starting to wonder. I was known as the type who put career above all else. But, really, I wasnt. Underneath all of that, what was holding me back was that I wasnt sure Id be any good at it.

Id always assumed Id be a mother eventually, even when others had their doubts, even when I was passing over perfectly good men


into my thirties. But from everything I could see it was going to be a mammoth, life-changing event and, frankly not that I admitted it to anyone, hardly even myself I wasnt sure I was up for the task.

Motherhood is a daunting prospect. Ask any mother. It means no longer being able to call the shots, but getting swept up in the hurly burly whirl of someone elses a little tiny persons agenda. All that is allegedly cancelled out by the love and the privilege of moth-erhood. Mothers tell you that. Its just that that part those more uplifting mitigating circumstances cannot be explained. Only understood. And only when you get there yourself. And I wasnt any-where near there. Not yet.

Motherhood was for other women, women who were natural nur-turers, the ones who had always cooked and had their lives, homes and emotional states seemingly in good order. I had several friends like that, two sisters (so far) and a sister-in-law who had seemed to quite effortlessly bring three children into the world without much fuss. I meanwhile felt as if I was only just starting on my own quest for inner peace, let alone being responsible for the happiness of someone else. In an article I wrote for Madison Magazine (called Mother Doubts), back before I was pregnant, I examined why I felt quite inadequate to mother another. Im not afraid of the inevitable onslaught of sleepless-ness, disorganisation and career disruption. Of all that I have been well warned, I wrote. Nor do I baulk at the whole philosophical shift of handing over my life to someone else. After thirty-eight years of self-obsession, bring it on. Its just that am I allowed to say this? how do I know Ill be any good at it?

No one tells you about this, I went on. All women seem prepared to reveal is their primal yearnings to procreate and their God-given destinies of motherhood with a complete absence of misgivings. They know theyll be pros because its instinctual, isnt it? Its a womans birthright to give birth and, like a cow with its calf, she will know what to do. Yeah, right!

I was worried I was too selfish. I had enough going on trying to keep my own life in order, making it to work on time, collecting the dry cleaning, catching up with friends, grocery shopping for one, thinking only about myself, that the concept of someone else in the mix, someone who needed me every minute of every day, was way too much to fathom. I watched other mothers, including my own, and I


marvelled. What selfless souls they must be, I thought, to give up so much. Was I capable of the same?

For starters, the only people Id ever said I love you to (apart from my mum and dad) were boyfriends past, and it hadnt, in the long run, turned out to be the case (other than for my first love, Simon, who died suddenly, and for whom my love will never die). While I never doubted the love, like so many of my generation, we werent a stop-to-say-I-love-you kind of family. There was no need. It was implicit. I wasnt au fait with hugging either, aside from greetings and farewells, and teary and tender hugs of condolence from my mum when each one of my relationships ran their course. I treasured those hugs from my Mum. I knew I had it in me the capacity to love and show love. But it wasnt going to be a natural fit.

Was I too unhappy to be a mother, I had wondered, given, as I was, to intermittent but crashing waves of melancholy that had me want-ing to stay in bed all day (and, on the odd occasion, obliging)? You wouldnt be able to wallow if you had a child, my mother said to me more than once. Youd be forced to get up and get on with it. See, thats what worried me. I had had depression twice (officially), and was put on a course of antidepressants. When I settled into a mind numb from feeling, in stark contrast to my regular state, I suspected it had been there a lot longer, sadness and mild anguish trailing much of my adolescence and twenties, masked well by my deliberately sunny disposition and capabilities.

It felt a bit like an emotional roller-coaster. The best of times were fuelled by a band of similarly single, childless friends, who holidayed together, dined together, and gathered for breakfast and yoga on Sun-day mornings. Then would come a low, brought on by not much, and seemingly out of my control. I got hurt easily, crushed by the antics of an unreliable or insensitive friend, or goings on at work, misconstru-ing everything and allowing it to take up way too much of my head-space. I cried a lot, at the push of a button. About feeling lost, unloved, directionless, pointless. I was reluctant to inflict this on a child. One generation was enough.

Someone inferred once, as a kind of joke, that Id be no good with children, and it stayed with me. Would you like me to babysit? Id asked of their toddler.


Are you serious? The guffaws were not intended to slice through me. You might lose her!

I highly doubted that, but it reinforced my own inferior view of myself: I was a self-obsessed career girl who had not yet managed to find true love or lasting happiness let alone got it together in time to have and look after a small person. It looked as though I wasnt the only one who thought it.

Aside from minding my own younger siblings, I had babysat once only once as a teenager and it didnt go well. The parents were put out that their three-year-old was still awake when they got home. Well, we were having fun (playing toddler cricket in the front yard on a summer night) and no one had said anything about bedtime. But it scared me off. My one failed attempt at looking after a child (who wasnt family) determined the course of my non-maternalness. It clearly didnt come naturally to me.

I got around it by sticking with family. That much I could handle. I borrowed my nephews and niece and took them to the movies and concerts: Cinderella on Ice, Walking With Dinosaurs, Santas Kingdom, a Miley Cyrus movie, satisfying my deeper desire to commune with kids, regaling their parents with the adorable things they said, with-out having to commit to parenting myself. I took notes, once, of my nieces hilarious theatre commentary so I wouldnt ever forget, my heart flipping with adoration. Good-time aunty who could hand them back by the end of the day; there was less risk of stuffing that up.

But it wouldnt do in the long run. It would never be enough. Beneath the layers of doubt, beneath the idea of myself as hapless and hopeless, I knew otherwise. I didnt just want to be a mother. I desired it, a longing that kept me awake at night and gnawed at my gut at the vaguest inkling that it might not happen. To not be a mother was simply not an option. That would not be my life. I wasnt sure how it would come about, just that it would. Best I get myself sorted then, I thought, before attempting to love a child of my own.

I took great heart from hearing stories of older women getting preg-nant, including those Ive never met: Naomi Watts at thirty-eight, Halle Berry at forty-one, Nicole Kidman at forty, Geena Davis having


twins at forty-seven. The slew of female celebrities giving birth after thirty-five gave us older women hope. But were we conveniently over-looking the airbrushing, ignoring the fact that fame and money often buys options: surrogacy (as in the case of Sarah Jessica Parker), adop-tion (Michelle Pfeiffer and her first child), or donated eggs (which, at the time of writing, funnily enough, no celebrity had owned up to).

I tried to practise the Law of Attraction, all the rage at the time, and kept a pile of wishful thinking books by my bedside: The Wisdom of Florence Scovel Shinn, The Power of Your Subconscious Mind by Dr Joseph Murphy, The Amazing Power of Deliberate Intent and Ask and It Is Given by Esther and Jerry Hicks (you are the creator of your own reality), several Wayne Dyers (top of the list, Manifest Your Destiny) and Deepak Chopras, and not one but two well-thumbed copies of Creative Visualisation by Shakti Gawain. I made a Vision Board fes-tooned with magazine cutouts of babies and men with babies, includ-ing a handsome dad holding a toddler aloft above his head in his sinewy arms. In my daily stroll along the Bondi Beach promenade I would close my eyes and imagine pushing a pram until I could almost feel its handle enclosed in my fingers, my walking slowed by the weight of my baby, a sweet smile of contentment plastered across my face.

I had a massage once where the masseuse got me to close my eyes and imagine it: my child. And I did. I saw him/her. A chubby blond baby at my feet (I couldnt quite tell the gender; didnt matter), beck-oning to me its mother with outstretched arms. Other times I saw two of them. A sign of things to come? Or wishful thinking? Whatever, the image brought me peace.

I didnt have a boyfriend but it wasnt just logistics holding me back. I was plagued by apprehension. If only Id had more time to prepare.

Which is why Im glad I had a deadline. Not a definitive date, of course, but just that lurking inescapable knowledge that a womans fertility declines after thirty-five give or take a subtle biological whip-cracking that meant I couldnt loiter on the sidelines forever. Because such was my lack of faith in my ability to handle this toughest job of my life (as I had been warned), I would have if I could have. I needed to be pushed over the edge and time racing swiftly by was, in my case, the only thing that would do that.


Love in itself was not enough. A good man was not the incentive I lacked for motherhood. I had been in love before but, when it came to the crunch, so fearful was I of surrendering my heart fully, I always found a way to duck out of it (often by giving them no choice but to do it for me), causing immeasurable pain in the process (to me, at least). But, at thirty-seven, when another good man came along, I stopped. I was in no position by now to be letting love slip away, so I paid atten-tion. Eventually.

We met on Sydney Harbour one Sunday afternoon on a friend of a friends boat, me forgetting momentarily the clairvoyant whod pre-dicted, You will get an invitation to go out on the water on a Sunday. Say yes. It will change your life. I told him I wanted to be friends at first. I had met him in the midst of a dating moratorium imposed by my concerned and caring friend (and literary agent), Selwa, who wanted me to recover properly from a string of hurtful encounters with men who were not good for me before I fell for anyone else. I was impressed that he took it well. Instead of going off in a huff of I never liked you anyway, or refusing to take no for an answer and pursuing doggedly (as had happened to me before), he became my friend. When I asked him once why he was happy with friendship, hanging around when there was no apparent likelihood of it going further, he smiled and said he liked spending time with me, so Ill take what I can get.

It was a book that won me over. On my thirty-eighth birthday, he bought me a first edition copy of the The Womens Room with a card about celebrating another first edition (nice handwriting, I noted) and, overwhelmed by the thoughtfulness, I thought Id better sit up and take notice. Thank goodness I did, because not only did I fall in love, but this man was to be the father of my babies.

We had discussed it briefly: I was more ready than him to have a baby, but at least he was open to the idea. So we dived in the deep end. Though I was still not utterly convinced I was match fit, and wary as all hell, time was getting the better of me. If I kept putting off motherhood, I might miss out altogether. I was in love with a perfectly good man so why not? It wasnt going to get more optimal than this. Despite my mis-givings I just hoped all my ardent soul searching would be worth it. That by the time a baby came along, I would have defied my past and found it in myself to be a responsible, loving, present, competent mother.


I had no idea I was already pregnant when I turned up to the GP a year or so later to discuss my fertility. I wanted to know the optimum time to conceive. She drew me a little graph on the back of some scrap paper with an asterisk on the days in the middle of my cycle where I would likely be most fertile: between day nine and day fourteen. Theres no need to have sex every day, she assured me, as if it was a chore. She was surprised I didnt know this already, at my age. Well, why would I? I smiled. Theres never been any need to. I had always just assumed any time was danger time.

The doctor, who looked younger than me, suggested I get myself a thermometer so I could better gauge when I was ovulating; my tem-perature was likely to go up 0.5 degrees on those crucial days. But not always. And I wondered with such long odds how anyone ever gets pregnant at all. Why has nature made it like a jackpot window of incredible good fortune (or misfortune, depending on age and cir-cumstances) to conceive a child?

So how long should we give it? I asked. How long before we decide its not going to happen naturally and we might have to look into IVF?

How long have you been trying? She looked up at me over her glasses.

Well, we havent really been trying as such. But we havent not been trying either, if you know what I mean. Its only been a few weeks but, now that I know about this tiny ovulation window, I laughed, holding up my take-home chart, well, the timing has been considerably out.

Then give it a bit longer. She smiled reassuringly. Let nature take its course.

I sighed in relief and picked up my bag to leave.Oh, hang on a minute, the doctor said. She is staring at the com-

puter screen, motioning to my date of birth, looking mildly alarmed. Actually, probably best you dont wait. You are in the danger zone.

The danger zone. At thirty-nine.She advised I get to an IVF specialist quick-sticks, just to cover my

bases, and sent me off with a referral for a hormone test.Your partner should probably get checked out too, you know, she

added. To see if the problem is with him.The problem? We werent pregnant within weeks (without even

trying) and it was a problem?


I knew the stats. How could I not? That a womans fertility declines rapidly after thirty-five before taking a massive plummet at forty. I just didnt realise it was dangerous. Id had plenty of friends get pregnant in their late thirties and assumed it was more common than not. A spring chicken, one doctor called my thirty-eight-year-old pregnant friend. Compared to all the forty-plus women filing into his rooms, she was. That had given me hope when I was thirty-seven and single, and it gave me more hope when I was thirty-nine and in love with a man who was up for having babies with me.

I went straight to the chemist next door to the medical centre to buy a thermometer. The woman serving me probably assumed that, at my age, I was buying it to take my childrens temperatures. Until I threw in a pregnancy test as well.

For the first time in my life I hoped my period would stay away. The usual signs were there, the ones I had got to know well after almost thirty years straight of menstruating: swelling breasts, tinges in my abdomen, a dull headache. But the GP had told me you could get all that and still be pregnant. So, just maybe Also for the first time in my life I worked out the day when my period was due. And it came. And went. I Googled how do I know Im pregnant? and ticked all the boxes: missed period, morning sickness (is that what that queasiness was?), skin around nipples darkens (Id just had a spray tan so hard to tell), extreme tiredness (that too), frequent urination (is four times a night normal?)

Then, with a pounding heart, I sliced open the chemist-bought pregnancy test, used it, and saw for myself, rushing it in to show my man as the two of us watched the wonder unfold. Two pink lines.

I took great delight in going back to the GP waving the magic wand with the pretty pink stripes for a blood test to be certain: it was then license to call off the IVF visits, fertility tests and sperm counts and be referred instead to an obstetrician. Phew! I was heading off to the ones who delivered babies, not the ones who made them.

You are very, very lucky. She grinned, shaking her head in awe and writing a prescription for my already-set-in morning sickness.

We were very lucky. Conception is like a waiting list. There is a perception that you must do your time. I felt like I was jumping the queue getting a job for which others were so much more qualified.


There was not an ounce of smugness in my heart as I headed down Gestation Road. I had no idea why Id slipped through the net.

My mother was fertile I am one of six and my three sis-ters (a third pregnant with her first baby just a few months ahead of me) all conceived with ease. My grandmother, also a mother of six, famously said to Mum when she announced her sixth pregnancy and wondered how it could have possibly happened, Youve got to watch those things. They crawl up from the foot of the bed. You cant kill them with an axe. But genetics is no guarantee in the fertility stakes.

Falling pregnant after thirty-five carries with it equal parts elation glorious fortune has shone upon you and guilt. Conception guilt. What right did I have for this rarest of blessings to be bestowed upon me while others suffered? One friend who I rang to tell the happy news squealed with delight before hastily adding, Oh, dear. What will I tell Laura? Laura is a friend of hers whod been attempting to get pregnant for years. Shes going to be devastated, she speculated.

What, by my pregnancy? I asked.Its just she wont get why its not happening for her.Despite this growing awareness of my good fortune, when I found

out I was pregnant, delighted as I was with the concept, I still had a bit of adapting to do. I was relieved I had time to get my head around it eight months to be exact. Im convinced thats why humans require nine months gestation. Its not so much for the babies as it is for the mothers: just enough time to brace ourselves. To gently pre-pare. Not for the buying of cots and prams or painting of nurseries although there is that too but enough time to grow up. To take deep breaths and accept the era of childishness, of dependence of independence is over. I was about to be the one dishing out uncon-ditional love when I was not at all convinced I knew how. Not some-thing anyone can come to terms with overnight.

And, yes, as much as I wanted to be a mother to the depths of my soul it was even quite possibly, I was starting to think, my reason for being, I was anxious about the disruption. I had been warned end-lessly about how bloody hard it was going to be. And that was before I got pregnant. Get to the movies now because youll never go again, one friend a mother-of-two advised ominously. No movies I could deal with, but I was more anxious over predictions of two hours


sleep a night, persistent crying for seemingly no reason (the baby, that is, but quite possibly the mother too), that Id be in my PJs all day because theres no time to change, and a shower only if I was lucky. No yoga classes or strolls on the beach ever again, my career on an inevitable downwards slide, feeling out of control and not having any answers all that was one giant daunting abyss and I wasnt sure I had the mettle for it. The consistent theme as I edged closer to join-ing the motherhood ranks myself, building in crescendo once I got pregnant and was in the game for real, was that it was arduous and relentless and required the patience of a saint. And it scared the hell out of me. I could hardly even deal with the thought of it. So I didnt. I took to my bed instead.

In that, I had no choice. Within weeks of getting pregnant I was floored by the most debilitating all-day sickness (if only it had been just the morning). I threw up several times a day and felt seasick for the rest of it. I couldnt stomach anything except dry crackers, Cheesels, and slow sips of flat Staminade. Not even sleep was a respite; I woke often pre-dawn with the compulsion to hurl. I kept a bucket by my bed for easy access and lay on my back for every minute that I didnt need really need to be up. Such as my job. I managed to front up there most days but only just. Being a TV news presenter appearing live on air for six hours at a time (on slow news day) was a little tricky to navigate with quease as my default state, so I timed my vomits for the sports breaks, whipping off my clip-on lapel microphone and bolting off set in the four-minute slot to get to the bathroom and throw up, stopping for a quick pat down of my hair, a powder of my nose, and a quick swig of water, then slipping subtly back into the presenters chair in time for the throwback. The throwback from the throw up.

And thats all in sport; Jacinta?Thanks, Craig, and lets check todays weather now Grinning

warmly as if nothing was at all amiss, when really I was sitting upright by the thinnest of margins. I was immensely tempted to place my head quietly on the news desk and close my eyes. Forever. It took all my inner strength not to follow that urge.

I accepted an invitation how could I not? to be a guest on The First Tuesday Book Club on ABC TV. It was a big call. Trying to appear bookish and worldly among folk of that ilk, while struggling


to hold back vomit. The book we were discussing was Revolutionary Road. I had always meant to read it, so here was the perfect excuse, but the subject matter was confronting for a woman in my state. April Wheeler, a girl who could have been an actress if she hadnt got married too young, is considered insane when really shes just railing against the hopeless emptiness, the conformity of being a wife and mother.

The worst thing was, I couldnt tell anyone my news. It was too early in the piece. But how I would have loved to tell the host, Jennifer Byrne, who, on the only other occasion I had met her had pulled me aside and urged me (after reading all my single girl columns in the newspaper) to not miss out on having children. Its more important than any of the rest of it, she had said, or something to that effect. Here I was sit-ting opposite her on national television, in front of a studio audience, taking her advice and, in that moment, at least, paying the price. I had rehearsed some answers (I couldnt trust myself to think too hard on the spot) and I stuck to the script. I wasnt at my eloquent best, but to make it through without throwing up was the main thing.

I also agreed to host a quiz show. Not televised this time, thank goodness, but taken very seriously by brainy schoolkids all over the country. It was sponsored by National Geographic, and tested the cream of geography students on their knowledge of the world, with an international flight promised to the winner. The room was tense, the stakes were high: a huge digital timer ticked over to signal time up on each question, as earnest kids with sensible haircuts closed their eyes to summon the right answer. Im sorry, but I have to sit down, I said sud-denly, cutting through the silence, breaking the mood. I had held on as long as I could but, being on my feet that long, I was fair about to faint.

I know why I got it, the all-day-sickness. Everyone, from mothers past and present to medical professionals, insists its a random hor-monal curse that happens to strike some and not others but I was not so sure. Maybe the whole point of morning sickness is to force the mother to stop and rest so the baby can grow. Evolutionarily speaking, are we designed to run around working at the same time as building a human? I certainly wasnt.

Really, I suspect I created it, that the twenty-four-hour, twenty-four-week nausea was a symptom of my resistance to my new life (my now certain future), while simultaneously preventing me from having


to face it. It was natures way of obscuring my trepidation over what I was about to take on. Im scared that by having a baby I am signing off on my career for good, I wrote in my diary at the time. Pregnancy and childbirth and child-raising is all about surrendering, about relinquishing control. I was struggling with both. Dad-to-be could see it. Mourning sickness he called it. I was mourning my old life.

I went to see Sky, the beautiful, wise psychologist who had coun-selled me through several destructive relationships over the previous four years, and who was convinced that my time would come. We had been working on helping me see that I deserved to fall in love with a good man and have a family, an understanding that proved elusive at the time. No wonder she cried when I told her the news, leaping up from her chair to embrace me. Oh, I am just so happy! She stood back to regard me, her hands in prayer position. It must have seemed like mission accomplished.

So am I. I really am I stammered. But What is it, sweetheart?Is this the death of my career?I dont think she could quite believe, after all my talk of wanting to

have a family of my own, that I was asking that. But she also under-stands its not all I want. She reassured me that my career will always be there. If, indeed, I wanted it to be.

I also went to a hypnotherapist, the same one I had seen to clear my negative blocks about meeting a good man. (I had all hands on deck.) You are being forced into neutral, she said of the incessant nausea taking me hostage. You have no choice but to be in the moment, to sit still, because you dont have the energy for anything else. Its for the babys sake as much as mine, she tells me. To save the baby from absorbing my angst. The message is to surrender, she concluded. You must erase the conflict between you, your career and your baby. They will all support each other, side by side like railway tracks.

After counting me into a trance (which felt much like hanging back on the recliner with my eyes closed, a water feature trickling in the background and a scented candle on the loose), she whispered away like a medieval witch doctor, then, with another gentle count, brought me to, and assured me the job was done. The story in your head that career must be established first before you have a baby has now


changed. Its not one or the other. You will soon see that. This baby will be the making of you.

I liked the sound of that. I really did. But I was still sick as a dog.So I tried tapping. Dad-to-be emailed me a tapping therapy exer-

cise ebook hed found on the internet. Also known as Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) it works by tapping acupuncture points on the body and repeating affirmations out loud to clear up ailments, physical and emotional. Even though I have this morning sickness, I completely love and accept myself, was my line. Over and over I said it while tapping the most obscure places under my nose, beneath my little finger, on top of my head, and just under my armpit. I felt relief in the sheer force of taking my mind off the problem at hand but, for the rest of the day, it didnt touch the sides. I was told much later by someone who knows about tapping (it turns out tapping is a thing), that I perhaps should have tried the phrase all-day sickness. The morning part, in my case, was decidedly inaccurate.

I tried acupuncture too. Why the hell not? A gentle midwife and doula-in-training named Heather, who I also knew personally, stuck tiny needles all over me, assuring me it would make the same differ-ence she had seen with countless other clients in my state. She sent me home with a little pack of homeopathic pregnancy remedies. I was tempted to skol the lot. Call me if you need me, she offered kindly. So I did. Its not working! I wailed down the phone to the poor woman one morning from my bed. Try to get rest, she reminded me. And hang in there. I was clearly a lost cause. Im so over this, I protested often to my chandelier, which was in my direct line of sight more than anything else at that time.

But the hiatus had its payoffs. By being rendered virtually immo-bile and robbed of the headspace to think clearly, I was thrust into the unanticipated luxury of shutdown mode. It meant I couldnt even if Id wanted to whip myself up about my ability to mother well, or not. I was growing a baby and thats about all I was capable of. Just the here and now.

I was in denial. Now that it was really happening that mother-hood was not one day, someday but actually fast approaching I had escalated from mildly daunted to terrified and, if it werent for the nausea distracting me, could well have been overwhelmed. Even so, I


fretted over whether Id be able to cope. Those women who do friends and sisters I see taking motherhood in their stride, for example are exceptions, surely. Revered and rare natural-born mothers, and I was not one of them. Whether it was the filter I selected because you hear what you want to hear or whether it is the predominate wail of our time, all I seemed to hear about through my pregnancy was the bad stuff, and I took on the understanding that being a mother would suck the life out of me.

I didnt walk into one baby shop not one. I didnt peruse one cot, pram or cute little outfit. It wasnt just the all-day-sickness that held me back but that an expedition to Baby-and-Beyond would have made it more real than I was ready for. Luckily, my man, the enthusi-astic Dad-to-be, picked up the slack. Hunting for new baby necessities became his obsession, jumping onto chat rooms and parent consumer websites for the lowdown on the most practical choices, and scouring eBay for the best deals. He bought the Leander bassinet and matching sheets before I had even heard of the brand and was handed down a Mountain Buggy pram. He stockpiled a baby bath, onesies and a tiny towel with hood in the shape of a turtle, and traded in my Mini for a car with room to change a baby in the back, all while I lay in bed with morning sickness. He subscribed to a pregnancy website for weekly updates about the progress of our foetus, forwarding them to me to keep me in the loop. He arrived at my apartment one night with a cheery yellow copy of Up The Duff and various other baby parapherna-lia. I think Im more excited than you are, he said once. He probably was. I was too busy feeling sorry for myself back then.

We didnt even move house into the same house, that is, as each other, a house with a room for our baby-to-be until days before he was born. Its not like I could go looking at real estate while bent, as I was, over a bucket.

The chemist gave me a sample bag with my maxi container of Preg-nancy and Breastfeeding Gold vitamin tablets. It contained, among other handy items, breast pads (I had no idea what for), nipple cream (my mind boggled), nappy-rash cream samples and a dummy. It didnt get me in the mood. It just made me more wary. There was no baby yet, hence there was no breastfeeding, hence why did I need all this stuff? I wanted to be left in peace to just lie back and let the baby grow, wallowing in my own apathy.


I didnt drop the ball on air, thank goodness, but I did in real life in front of a couple of hundred women celebrating International Womens Day with me as their guest speaker. At their kind invitation and against my better judgment I had trekked to the Ex-Servicemens Club in Boorowa, a country town about 330 kilometres southwest of Sydney, where my youngest sister, mother of (then) two, happens to live after marrying a local farmer, our youngest brothers best friend. They wanted me to talk about my books, specifically the one about my journey to meet a man in my thirties, something titillatingly for-eign to women who married in their early twenties, most of them to no-nonsense farmers, and wasted no time knuckling down to the business of starting families. The life of a late-thirties woman in the city with a career and no bloke (although I was able to mollify their concerns by informing them I had at last found a perfectly lovely one of those who was waiting outside) and a rapidly diminishing window to procreate (one I had wriggled through barely eight weeks earlier, though that information I wouldnt be sharing) was equally as fas-cinating to them as it was calamitous, and they wanted every detail.

I stood behind a wooden church-like pulpit on a small semi-circle stage, where generations of children singing their hearts out at end-of-year concerts would have stood before me, and countless town meet-ings would have been held on all manner of bush concerns, and Anzac services, one a year, since it was built in 1952. There was a portrait of a young Queen Elizabeth II over my shoulder and I wondered whether she got morning sickness and if so how did she manage her official engagements? Much later her granddaughter-in-law was forced to pull out of her formal appearances and lie low with a very public bout of hyperemesis gravidarum, giving her no choice but to tell the world long before the traditional twelve-week mark. I had psyched myself up to make it through the next allocated half hour to a cool drink and a sit down. But I didnt make it.

About ten minutes in at the bit where I shared the story of losing my first love at nineteen, the sadness of which Im sure the women assumed was the reason for my melodramatic falter came an understandable dramatic pause while I collected myself and I collapsed. The whole scene went black and I knew there was no way out. Umm Im s-sorry I stammered, mid sentence, gripping that rickety lectern with all my might. I need to sit down. And so I


did. And not very gracefully. It was rather more like a slump than a swoon, legs askew in my pretty mauve Leona Edmiston frock. Organ-isers leapt up on stage and gathered around me then, in full view of my enthralled and captive audience all the good women of the town I threw up into the Pauls ice-cream bucket a quick-thinking CWA member (in all likelihood, given her sensibility) had thrust under my chin as she rubbed my back with her spare broad and trusty palm. When I was done I was led backstage in a cluster of reassuring arms to a floral-carpeted anteroom filled with dusty props for the Christ-mas pageant. I lay on my back on the floor, allowing the efficient and practical throng to buzz about; someone popped a wet facecloth on my brow, as someone else offered me shortbread from a circular tin depicting a Scottish highland fox hunt and a lemon cordial with ice.

I didnt come clean, I didnt tell them I was in the family way although I would be most surprised, given they have seen all this before, if they didnt surmise my condition. They were naturally far too polite to pry. At only eight weeks along and with only me and Dad-to-be in the know, I certainly wasnt about to fess up to a room-ful of strangers as kind and caring as they were before anyone else. So once the blood had returned to my head, I bravely and gaily popped back on stage and reassured my audience with a giggle that all was well it was just the heat and the heels (though my feet were now bare, the first ever on that stage, I bet) and now, where were we?

Driving home Dad-to-be at the wheel, thank goodness my seat reclined and my legs up on the dashboard, we headed straight for casualty (via McDonalds drive-through for a cheeseburger, for which I had an rare and inexplicable craving) at the same hospital where I was booked in to give birth in seven months time, and lined up with the physically wounded to ask if there was anything, anything they could do for someone in my condition. It seemed I wasnt the first pregnant woman to turn up in desperation, and not for being in labour or even close to. I was issued a standard injection of Maxolon in the triage room to settle the nausea then ordered home to bed. It was either that or an intravenous drip that would take two hours, and I couldnt do two hours. At least, unlike so many despairing people in that grey waiting room, their sallow eyes fixed on So You Think You Can Dance on the tiny monitors mounted on the wall, mine was a


temporary condition with a likely happy outcome. I expected, though, that I would recover only when I truly said yes to my baby, to being its mother, with every fibre of my being. Which would be great. If only I knew how to do it.

In the meantime Dad-to-be said he would confiscate my car keys if I went anywhere that week. I was under strict instructions to rest and hydrate or, according to one text message, to Change Eat Pray Love for drink sleep love. (Like most women of my generation I was reading the book.) Unbeknown to me, he rang my boss and, telling him I had gastro (well, the symptoms were similar), arranged for me to have the rest of the week off work. I had rarely taken a sick day in my life (could count them on one hand) and I wasnt about to start now, so I would never have made the call myself. But he could see what I couldnt see: that if this went on much longer I was destined for collapse.

Despite all his precautions I dragged myself to a good friends wed-ding, but spent the duration slumped in the back pew white as a ghost then slipped out the side door to a courtyard to vomit in a plastic shopping bag. There was a hole in the bag, dammit. I watched help-lessly as vomit pooled in my lap on my pretty lace dress. My baby, it seemed, had joined forces with its father and was giving me no choice but to put my feet up. And so I did.

I know how you feel, Dad-to-be told me one day perched on the end of my bed. He had been seasick on the Sydney to Hobart yacht race. Sometimes it gets so bad youll be looking over the side of the yacht and think, One little slide and it could all be over, he said. It does happen in sailing circles. Thats one of the reasons they strap them in.

I would have taken offshore racing any day.A lightweight chick-lit novel someone lent me at the time summed

it up much better than I did: Imagine beings seasick for thirty-four weeks with no sign of land or medication. Now double that feeling. Youre almost there, quips the narrator in The Starter Wife.

We ventured out to my friend Shaminis picnic in Centennial Park one Sunday afternoon, and I spent the duration lying under a tree, sipping ginger beer. My friends asked, concerned, if something was up. Just tired, I said. I stayed on after the others had all gone home, circling the tree trying to make myself dizzy enough to throw up.


There was some relief with throwing up. Its very exciting, Dad-to-be says, watching me circumnavigate the tree. And I wonder when the time will be right to break the news to our friends and families, who by now must have been starting to wonder.

It was very exciting. But, still, on some level I wanted to know, why me?

If there is such a thing as pre-natal depression then I think I had it. This was supposed to be a joyous time this wait for a new baby, a first baby, especially at nearly forty, when I should be basking in a sea of gratitude but I was as flat as a tack. I had had depression before memories still raw of the hopelessness and darkness and this was looking eerily similar. And so I feared its return. At this rate I would be a prime candidate for postnatal depression, or at least for the much more common and less serious baby blues, and this onset before the baby was even born did not auger well. I needed to take action. I needed to embrace my looming motherhood quick sticks for my sake and the babys or I was doomed. I had to find a way to get my head around it, to gear me up for what was in store.

I wrote in my diary:

I havent given much thought to the baby because I ve been so distracted by the nausea. Its all I ve been able to concentrate on. But this morning as I lie in bed (for the third day in a row) I have rested my hands on my abdomen or a bit lower, where I know our baby is growing. I am sending love through my hands.

I did enjoy occasional ripples of excitement and anticipation about meeting the little person inside me, especially when I started feeling it wriggling around. Much later, watching it slide across my stomach, limbs jutting and jarring, became my greatest obsession, and I laid awake until all hours because I couldnt bear to part even momentarily with the wonder, with my new love. Just one more kick and then lights out, I would tell myself and my baby but I always allowed a few more trying to catch it with the palm of my hand. Is that a foot? An elbow? A tiny bum? I tried out names too, saying them out loud to my belly to see what flowed. And I had moments where I pictured us


together (there was time enough for imagining), me cuddling our little one or watching him or her crawl around at my feet, catching smiling and feeling utterly content. I knew I had love to give lots of it, a huge stockpile and wondered if love would be enough.

There is great wisdom in desire, Sky told me at the time. She meant if I desired this (which, she knew better than anyone I did) my desire would give direction and guidance. I could do this. Not your garden-variety psychologist but one who believes in the spiritual realm, Sky also assured me this was all part of a grander plan she referred to as the soul journey. This baby chose you to come into this dimension, she said with such clarity that who was I to doubt it? You three are a soul group orchestrating for the baby to come through. It is time.

I tried to convince myself too, writing in my diary:

Right now in this moment I am having a baby. It is one of those rare moments in my life when I know its meant to be because it has all happened with such little effort. There was no angst involved, or coercion. It just transpired. This baby is meant to come and it is meant to be ours. And theres so much potential for peace in that. Everything else will find a way around it.

As my time grew closer it suddenly troubled me that I didnt know any lullabies. I bet other mums-to-be did. I know Im supposed to start singing to my baby even in the womb, they say but what? What do I sing? Twinkle Twinkle Little Star came back to me, but that was all I had. Im not a play-music kind of woman (Im embar-rassed to admit), so I didnt have much else in my repertoire. My baby mostly got news radio in the car.

I worried that all my apathy, unpreparedness and avoidance might have an impact on the baby, even in utero. Theres a school of thought that the baby is influenced by the dominant emotions of the parents dads too from the moment of conception. According to Thomas Verny, a psychiatrist and co-author of the best-selling The Secret Life of the Unborn Child, and a leading authority on the effect of the pre-natal environment on babies: From the moment of conception, the experiences in the womb shape the brain and lay the groundwork for


personality, emotional temperament and the power of higher thought. If that were so, we were stuffed.

But I couldnt be concerned about any of that. As if pregnancy isnt taxing enough, the stress about being stressed can get too much to bear. I do not just exist to grow a baby. I am not an incubator. I have very real and present emotions (mostly lingering around fear at that time), which, as much as I would have liked to, I could not just flick a switch to turn on to happy-go-lucky and inner calm. For that, I needed a few more months.

Then two things happened to snap me out of it, and snap me into it. My veil of nausea started to dissolve ever so gradually, but enough for me to see the light and imagine a life without having to take a supply of Qantas sick bags with me everywhere. (Dad-to-be grabbed bulk supplies on a business trip to cover me for those inconvenient moments. Incidentally, he also found some purpose-built Morning Chicness bags, and ordered fifty from the US. Fifty!)

And I learnt to meditate. Im not sure which happened first Im certain there was some overlap but have no doubt one led to the other. And only then only then with four months to go did I start to sense thicker threads of joy and anticipation, and with them the slightest inklings of faith. Perhaps I was ready for this. Maybe I, like so many billions of women before me, could make a go of this. I had the stuff to be a mother. I was being called to action.

Lesson LearnedDespite my doubts about my ability to mother another, despite my past threatening to overwhelm my present, I am mother material. I have what it takes. Love will be enough.

Mother Zen by Jacinta Tynan - Chapter Sampler

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Transcript of Mother Zen by Jacinta Tynan - Chapter Sampler