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[radegund]

The meme goes on...

Questions from yiskah

1. What has surprised you most about motherhood?

I was actually pretty well prepared for the psychological aspects of motherhood (at least so far), and as I've encountered babies at close quarters before, I haven't been too phased by the mechanical aspects either. I suppose, then, that what surprised me most was how difficult breastfeeding was to begin with.

[WARNING: This accidentally turned into a big fat pity-fest. Apologies, but I'm posting it anyway, because I hadn't written it down before and I want to remember.]

My son has a jaw like a steel vice. The first time I put him to my breast (in the delivery room, when he was less than an hour old), I was completely unprepared for how hard he would suck. It really hurt - my nipples were raw after only a few minutes. Between then and our discharge from hospital the next day, I got help from a nurse every time I fed him. They assured me that he was latching on correctly, and I took deep breaths and tried to pretend it didn't feel like rusty razor-blade shards being dragged through rubber sheeting. "Is it supposed to be this sore?" I asked one nurse. She paused, pursed her lips, leaned in as though to confide a secret, and said, "Well. It is sore at first. I know the books say it's not, but it is."

The books mostly say things like "some women experience discomfort at first, but this is generally due to poor positioning or incorrect latch-on". Anecdotally, that "some" is complete bollox. Most women find it very hard, as far as I can tell. And "discomfort" should read "pain", at least, if not "agony". One of the midwives who visited me at home in the first week watched me stiffen and tear up as the baby took hold of the sorer nipple. She hugged me and said, "Like knives, isn't it?" I whimpered that it was. "That's what most of my first-time mothers tell me," she said.

For the first ten days or so, it seemed that no matter what I did, it was wrong. My nipples cracked and bled, and every few hours, day and night, I had to let my son suck the barely-formed scabs off and reopen the wounds. I used nipple shields (little sombrero hats made of silicone, with holes in the tip for the milk to be sucked through), but was advised against using them more than was strictly necessary. On the fourth day, when my milk "came in" (replacing the much scarcer colostrum), I swelled to Lolo Ferrari-esque proportions and had to go more or less topless for two days. Latching on became a horrible ordeal that could last thirty or forty minutes, and even then mightn't work. To make matters worse, the baby went on losing weight into the second week, so I kept being told to supplement with formula, which I absolutely didn't want to do. (I didn't. Nyah.) Niall and my wonderful sister, who stayed with us for the first three weeks, were frantic and helpless. I guzzled Paracetamol and cried and cried and cried.

We called in the cavalry. A midnight howl on the phone to my mother (who does not easily talk about physical things) led to an extremely helpful call from an aunt (who does); we talked to friends who had gone through similar difficulties; we had a visit from a La Leche League priestess.

And crucially, time passed. (Not sure how I'd have coped if it hadn't...) Day by day, things got better. One side healed up, and I began to realise what was lovely about breastfeeding (it is, truly, lovely), and that it's a hell of a lot more convenient than formula. I got more confident about feeding away from home. I no longer yelped when the shower water hit a nipple. Finally, after six weeks, the last fissure healed. Since then, it's been totally fine.

Yes, it was worth it. Breastmilk is objectively the best food for my son, and six weeks isn't very long in the grander scheme of things. But I really, really wish I'd known in advance that it would be such hard work.

There. That's what's surprised me most about motherhood. Glad you asked? :-)

2. How did you and Niall meet?

OK, you're getting the long answer to this one too!

This being Dublin, there are numerous social connections between Niall and me. The two main ones: he went out with glitzfrau's best friend when they were seventeenish, and he was good friends with my best friend's boyfriend when we were twentyish. So even though he and I were in different universities, and I studied arts and he studied science, it was inevitable that, sooner or later, he'd show up at a party in my house.

And so indeed he did, in September 1995, in the company of another friend of Glitz's, whom I'd probably vaguely invited. I was pretty drunk, so I don't remember much other than that Niall was very tall, wore a leather jacket and drank milk. Thereafter, he was on my guestlist (a "second-tier friend", as he likes to put it). He came to my parties; we read each other's poems from time to time; he solved my e-mail difficulties when I was on my round-the-world trip in 1997.

Niall (it later emerged) was very taken with me from quite early on, but I was an idiot and didn't consider anyone worth my notice unless they were (a) flamboyantly nasty, (b) extravagantly fucked up, or preferably (c) both. In 1998, I left college and got my first proper job. Glitz was very eager to leave her parental home, and she and Niall had a provisional plan to move into a flat upstairs from the one he was living in. It wouldn't be available until February 1999, though, so when the chance arose to move in with some other friends (including, as it happens, stellanova and the friend who'd gone out with Niall in school), she took it.

Conscious of having scotched Niall's plans to move to a bigger flat, Glitz suggested that I might think about moving in with him instead of her. It seemed like a reasonable idea. There was I with a salary burning a hole in my bank account; Niall was a decent, trustworthy person, whom I got on well with. So we started e-mailing each other about who had a kettle and who had a toaster, and went to Argos to buy bookshelves, and as the discussions broadened I very quickly began to realise how much more to Niall there was than I'd guessed.

The feeling was so unlike any attraction I'd felt before that I didn't recognise it. When we moved in together, on Sunday 31 January 1999, I honestly thought that I'd enjoy getting to know a new friend - nothing more. I spent the first week in an Austen-style turmoil, not understanding my own feelings, having no clue how to determine if they were reciprocated. Frightened of ruining what looked like a very workable flat-share. It was a very charged few days. Glitz called round on the Sunday, when Niall had gone to his mother's in Kildare. I asked her if she thought I should ask Niall out on a date (he doesn't drink, so the usual Irish gambit of getting shitfaced and falling into bed with each other wasn't open to me). She said she thought it could do no harm. Halfway through our conversation she took a phone call from Niall who (it later emerged) was fretting about whether he should risk asking me out. Glitz handled the situation most tactfully, and left me with a firm plan to propose dinner out the following week.

But it never got to that. Early on the Monday morning (8 February, all of eight days after we moved in), Niall called back to the flat (ostensibly to get his glasses), and sat beside me and told me he was falling in love with me. And I said "me too". And then we kissed. And that was - miraculously, marvellously - that.

3. Where is the most beautiful place that you've ever been?

Oh, there are so many candidates. I think I'm going to have to say west Kerry - the Dingle peninsula (you know, where glitzfrau should really have come from, according to her German acquaintance...). Runners up include Connemara, much of New Zealand (the ferry-ride from Wellington to Picton particularly stands out), Paris, Rome. It's quite possible that the Blue Mountains would blow all of these out of the water, but it was raining torrentially the day I was there, so I didn't see a thing that wasn't within 20 feet of me :-(

4. What is the most frightened you have ever been?

Either I don't scare easily, or I'm very risk-averse - or perhaps both. Believe it or not, I can't remember a single time when I was really, viscerally frightened. Stressed, yes - for instance, when we were bidding on this house. Worried, yes - for instance, when the baby threw up blood-streaked goo (you know your priorities have changed when you go "OMG, he's bleeding internally - oh, wait, that's probably just my blood - phew!"). Anxious, yes - for instance, as a child when I woke up from nightmares about World War Three. But frightened? Dry mouth and sweaty palms? Probably my Critical and Cultural Theory exam in 1996, for which I hadn't studied enough. Bo-ring!

5. What (motherhood aside) are you most proud of?

The fact that I went to therapy and stuck with it until I had a handle on what was wrong with me and how to deal with it.