Zibby Mag

By Holly Ruskin

When my daughter was six weeks old, I started taking her to baby massage classes. At that point I was still in the thick of postnatal depression and my husband was working full time. At the time, I didn’t know much about baby slings, and I hadn’t realized that they’d much rather be held close to their mothers as opposed to pushed in a stroller.

Every Friday, for the duration of our walk to the massage class, my daughter’s screams would punctuate the air of the otherwise sedate neighborhood and park. I would arrive sweating and close to tears, embarrassed and desperate to leave before the class had even begun.

I bought a sling shortly thereafter and I found myself emboldened by a new sense of confidence. My world opened up. My daughter would happily walk with me for as long as it took to reach a baby sensory class, my new mom friends in the park, or our local cafe for (another) slice of cake.

I could share countless other stories like this one, involving our desperate late-night searches for swaddles, crib wedges, and white noise sheep to help our daughter sleep in the bedside crib. No one told me that bed-sharing, when practiced following the Lullaby Trust guidelines, was not only perfectly safe but would also bring more comfortable sleep for all of us.

All of these stories from the early days of motherhood would end with the same two phrases: “I didn’t know,” or “No one told me.”

Of course, there were plenty of other things I was told. As new mothers, we’re bombarded with what not to do. In the ten minutes after my daughter was born, I was told how not to breastfeed her. There was a whole raft of well-meaning advice that centered on what not to do — an attempt to make my life easier, without respecting the very real and urgent needs of my newborn daughter. I was also given advice on what to buy and the right books to read for establishing a perfect routine. It seemed I should not be guided by my daughter or my own instincts.

I knew I would be giving birth to a baby at the end of my pregnancy because that is the end of virtually every motherhood/parenthood story I was presented with. But I rarely got to see the next chapter of that story. I felt deeply unprepared for what came after her arrival.

Looking back now, there are so many things I wish had been told (and not told) about becoming a mother, in part because it would have helped mitigate my chances of suffering from postnatal depression, as one of my biggest mental health triggers was the overwhelming feeling of being out of control. I was cast adrift in the stormy seas of changes I had no idea how to navigate. Luckily, my doctor was quick to diagnose me and provided a holistic treatment plan that I still follow today.

Now that I’m almost two years into my motherhood journey, I try to pass along the right information to other mothers who struggle silently just like I did. The first step is understanding that sometimes you just don’t have the answers.

Because we don’t live in villages anymore, it can often feel like there aren’t extra sets of hands to support us or our children. And particularly in the last year, we have brought children into this world completely alone. We haven’t been able to help our sisters, friends, or relatives navigate their motherhood journeys, and so many mothers are lacking that first-hand knowledge.

This is why I’ve turned to writing articles and essays on motherhood, with the hope that we can start to share the real stories of what it feels like to become a mother. That a mother’s story doesn’t end after pregnancy. And that we never have to utter the words “I didn’t know,” or “No one told me” ever again.

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Holly Ruskin has a BA in English Literature and a MA in Film Studies, specializing in feminism and the representation of women. As a lecturer and freelance writer, she has edited screenplays, written short stories and academic essays. Writing poems about motherhood has brought her the most creative joy. She co-founded “Blood Moon Poetry,” an inclusive and welcoming place for female poets to submit their work for publication. A selection of her work is published in an anthology of stories about postnatal depression titled “Not the Only One” and her poems have been published in various zines, anthologies, and journals. She also writes for Harness Magazine and is a Motherscope contributor. Holly lives in Bristol, U.K. She can be found on Instagram @mother.in.motion