Who am I?
Well in my very early life I guess I was known as Bob and Julie’s baby daughter the first born to a normal run of the mill working class family.
In my early life through school and my young adult-hood, I was known as Rachel.
The school reports always said Rachel is a kind and caring pupil always putting herself before others and I guess that’s something that’s always followed me through life.
Then boy meets girl and girl takes his name.
I’m no longer Rachel suddenly I’m Mrs ‘F’ – it’s funny how things change somewhat once you’re married. Some old friends drift away as they seem to think you’re not that party animal any more that they once knew. You suddenly need to be a grown up and responsible.
Then along comes the children. My first ‘J’ was a difficult baby. He literally didn’t sleep day or night and he fed non-stop.
Looking for support and friendship with other young mums, I found myself at mother and baby groups and yet again my identity changed. I was now known as ‘J’s mum.
Other first-time mums started to fall pregnant with their second baby, their first was getting easier to care for and sleeping through the night so why not?
However, that was not true in my case. ‘J’s tantrums were like nothing I’d ever seen. he would hit his head on the floor and scream and shout for hours on end. I’d started noticing differences between him and children the same age. He didn’t play with toys – he either lined them up in colour or shape order or took them apart. And still he didn’t sleep. Something just wasn’t quite right but what was I to know? I was a first-time mum, never having done this before.
So not sleeping and up at 4 am every day? (‘J’s favourite wake-up hour). I agreed to have baby number two. When ‘J’ was two and a half years old, a little brother for him was born.
‘N’ was an unbelievably fast delivery at just 55 minutes in total. But ‘J’ was very scared. What was happening to mummy? Why had the Doctors taken her away from him?
Back home, trying to settle into motherhood now being a mum to ‘J’ and ‘N’ it was decided that we would move to a new house. Now a whole different chapter of my life was to start.