What kind of a mother does this make me anyway?

I have been questioning my motherhood a lot lately.

There was a pregnancy, nine and a bit months of it, a labour and a birth and at the end of it all, an 8 pound baby girl, but most days, I don't feel like much of a mother.

I mean I call myself a mother. Right here in this space. You all call me a mother, too. But for the most part, I really don't feel that way.

I know I made many mother-like decisions right through those nine and a bit months. Don't eat that. Eat that. Don't drink that. Don't stand near that smoker. Take this vitamin. Go to that yoga class. Read that pregnancy book. Exercise. But not too much. Rest. Rest some more. Take days off work. Get massage. Rest. Eat. Eat some more. But for the most part, I think I felt like I was making those decisions for me. Having sailed right through the dangerous part of the pregnancy, I really did not think I had to worry much about bringing the baby to the other side. I was so convinced she was a sure thing. So convinced.

I think the main reason I'm doubting this whole motherhood thing is the first time my mothering instinct really kicked in, when I first got a sense that something was horribly wrong and I had to act fast to protect my precious child, it was all too late.

I'd felt her stop moving, and could no longer detect her heart beat with Simon's stethoscope and a cloud of worry came over me, so we got our arses to the hospital, but it had already ended. After finding out we'd lost her, despite being huge and obviously pregnant, I felt anything but pregnant, let me tell you. That bump was just there to taunt me. But oh how I missed it once it was gone....

Why could my mothering instincts not have kicked in 24 hours earlier? Probably right about the time the infection first started to take hold. I know, I know, because that wasn't possible, there was basically no way of knowing. That was the hideously cruel nature of this infection. Too fast and too quick and with little to no symptoms.

But there is such an impossible ache in knowing that when I first smelt danger, the worst had already happened and there was nothing that could be done to undo the horror.

No turning back, no second chances - no hope. And as a result for us, no Hope.

Those three days I laboured at home, after initially being sent home in the very early stages, I was more worried about me than the baby. I feel so incredibly stupid about that now. I was worried if I went back to hospital, I'd just be a nuisance and that they'd send me home again. I did not want to seem like the "girl who cried labour" and be twice sent home from hospital. I was worried that my ideas about having a drug free natural birth were going to backfire on me and that I was somehow going to "fail" by racing in the door and demanding drugs and epidurals, because in those three days, I was in a shit load of pain - more than I'd expected. But I was being made to think that those contractions, those early stages were nothing and that I had the worst ahead of me. Boy, those nurses were sure as hell right. The worst was most certainly ahead of me. Stupid morons. I will just never be able to forgive those jaded women and their relaxed and complacent approach towards me and my precious little baby. I might not have acted quickly enough, but they have blood on their hands, and our loss should weigh heavily on their hearts.

I just feel like I made it to the finish line and I got scared. I realise I was sent home then continually told to stay home after that, but I also made the decision to ignore their advice and just go back anyway. To question what I was being told, to take charge of the situation and just go back to where mine and my baby's welfare could be assessed. Why did I trust so much? Why did I willingly put my life and my baby's life in the hand's of others? Others who I assumed knew better.

One thing I have learnt from it all though is that there is nothing scary about childbirth. Yes, it does hurt and things can and sometimes do go wrong very quickly, but it does not hurt as much as this does. This unbearable pain that just wont go away - even with all the drugs and epidurals in the world. This is a permanent type of pain. I'd go through childbirth 100 times again - no drugs, no nothing. Just guarantee me the baby will be fine and that's all I need to know. I will carry this with me in to any future pregnancy knowing I've done it once and I will easily and happily do it again knowing that I'll more than likely have a different outcome.

One of the saddest things for me to come from all of this was the day we got home from hospital. I felt like I had to totally dismantle the last remaining pieces of my now shattered motherhood. We folded the pram up and put it away in the wardrobe. We took the car seat, which had just weeks earlier been professionally installed, out of the car. We removed the bright, yellow baby bath, filled with luscious smelling baby soaps and cute and squeaky bath toys and placed it back inside the fully stocked and immaculately decorated (if I do say so myself) nursery. I took the pregnancy books off my bookshelf and put them out of sight and I took my new breastfeeding bras out of my drawers and put them away, hoping I'd be able to use them again another time. Anything that screamed mother or baby in our house, was quickly removed. I've read about how the Jewish don't buy baby things or don't decorate the nursery until the baby arrives, a superstition they have. Sometimes I wish I'd had the same superstition. While I feel comfortable to come and go freely from (what would have been) Hope's room now, I still feel like a fool and still feel like I get slapped in the face each time I go in there. The emptiness just taunting me.

I was given a pill that we get here in Australia to suppress my milk from coming in. I didn't even get a chance to ask what it was or what it was for, before the nurse had put it in to my mouth and put a cup of water in my hand.

It worked, and my milk never came in, but from time to time in those first eight weeks or so, I still leaked small amounts of the milk that would have and should have been hers. The milk my poor old tortured and confused body was working so hard to produce. I guess right through that initial post-partum period, I did feel like a mother, as I was feeling the after effects of her birth but now - not so much.

And without a new pregnancy, now almost five months on, I'm really just struggling to find my place in the world. What the hell am I? Where do I fit in? Am I really a mother? Because really, I'd planned on mothering a wiggly little pooping and eating machine. A giggling and smiling cute little bundle of joy. Not a spirit.

But maybe this is a good thing. Maybe it means my body is really starting to prepare to do this all again. The dust has settled on my first broken attempt at motherhood, now I'm ready. I AM READY. I really am. I read the blog of another woman who went on to have triplets 10 months after a full term stillbirth. I really, really am ready. Women have babies this close together without having had a loss. Either an accident or they want their kids close together. I don't see I have an option to wait. Not losing my first. I was at the finish line and all geared up to do this whole parenting thing then had it ripped away. I have waited, now I feel like it is my turn again. Friends are now coming out of the woodwork to tell me about new pregnancies, some with their second. NOW IT IS MY TURN.

I just want to do this motherhood thing properly. If it is hard, BRING IT ON! If it means I lose my social life, my sex life and my waist line I DON'T CARE! If it means I don't sleep for six months and my nipples bleed - I can promise you I'm really curious to see what that all feels like. And when and if that does happen and I'm tired and cranky and flustered, I can promise you I'll be doing it all with a smile. A really, really big cheesy one. On the inside and the outside. I just want to be a mother in the way our society sees mothers.

To mother a real life baby. One who I get to bring home, so I can unpack all that baby stuff and finally put it to good use.

Anyway, we're doing all we can. So I feel it is out of our hands now, and in the lap of the fertility gods. And so we wait.