#MatExp Flaming June – The Fire Burns On!

June was a month of action for the #MatExp campaign. It was well-named, being so busy I think I could see smoke!

The month got off to a flying start with the launch of the website, the Facebook page, people sharing their action selfies – and so much more!

Women have fed back that:

• They want to be treated as an individual
• They find terms like ‘low risk’ and ‘high risk’ unhelpful for a range of reasons, including that life is rarely black-and-white, and managing expectations.
• They understand the evidence behind advice and practice, and do not want to be preached to. They want to be engaged in conversation as an equal, listened to with compassion and empathy, and helped to understand in a way that is useful to them where necessary.
• Language is so very important – the words that are used are crucial, as is the intonation and the order you put words in a sentence (eg open questions – “Would you like…” “May I…” rather than “You must…” “I am going to do this to you…”).
• Better efforts are required to meet the needs mums whose babies are being cared for in neonatal units – while the mum is in the postnatal ward, and after discharge to make sure she does not miss out on the usual postnatal checks, as this can often fall between the cracks.
• Parents who have experienced the death of a baby need better access to support – too many parents are currently left to find their own support, or have to do without. This is unacceptable.
• There is a lack of support after birth trauma. Mums have said they’ve been told to ‘get over it’, their experiences invalidated. This is also unacceptable.
• More consideration needs to be given to birthing environments. For example, midwife-led centres seem so lovely, with attractive furnishings – and they seem especially lovely in comparison to many hospital labour wards. It can seem like giving birth in hospital (often the only option for ‘high risk’ women) is a punishment for things outside our control! Would it be possible to make hospital labour wards a bit homelier to reduce the disparity? It could help reduce some of the polarisation of opinion about where is the best or safest place to give birth (the best or safest place to give birth is the place that is appropriate for the woman and/or baby’s individual needs, whether than is in hospital, an MLU or at home).

#MatExp is growing from strength to strength. I haven’t had a proper ‘day off’ in ages (there is always something to tweet, something that makes me think “ooh that would be good for #HugosLegacy or #MatExp) – but I am so very proud of being involved in this change platform.

Gill (@WhoseShoes) has written in more detail about change platforms on her blog. I’ve borrowed this image from Gill’s post because I love the analogy. #MatExp really is like a bazaar – full of all sorts of people doing all sorts of things at once; slightly chaotic, full of ideas, activity, buzz, noise – ENERGY!

#MatExp definitely isn’t a cathedral – we don’t follow one particular leader, we don’t follow particular processes, we don’t follow a particular structure – and we don’t talk in a respectful hush.

Please do get involved! It is everyone’s business. Getting involved in #MatExp is like a no obligation quotation. We understand that life ebbs and flows, the time you have or are able to commit will fluctuate. There might not be anything that piques your interest now, but who knows what might happen next month, or in six months’ time (we certainly don’t – we’re making it up as we go along!).

We encourage people to find a way to engage that is relevant to you, where you are in life, the time you have on your hands.

For example, my lovely friend Jennie started a Charity Chat series on her blog, and information on recommended books for children dealing with grief. So much support is out there but it can be difficult to find. This will provide an invaluable resource for other parents and families.

Do also have a read of Flo’s post with ideas about how you can get involved.

How was FlamingJune for me? Thank you for asking. It was…busy! Very busy. My other half became unwell, which coincided with my return to work after a 15 month absence.

As well as that, I managed to squeeze in:

• Co-hosting a #PNDHour chat about baby loss,
• Talking about my #MatExp journey at an SCN event,
• My action post – #saytheirname appeared in the Huffington Post,
• My post about what I wanted the National Maternity Review to know was Mumsnet’s Blog of the Day.
• Talking (with lovely Susanne) about MatExp at the BritMums Live conference and being deluged with interest!
• Maintaining my own blog,
•  A wonderful week’s holiday in France (and it’s little wonder I needed to sleep so much during the holiday!).

So that’s Flaming June, in a nutshell. Has our fire burned out? Goodness, no!

What women (and men!) have told us spurs us on, our fire burns forever brighter.

For my part, I am going to continue encouraging people to #saytheirname; to talk about Hugo’s story, and the learning from that; to help reduce the taboo surrounding baby loss; to talk about #MatExp to anyone who will listen.

There are also some exciting ideas in the pipeline. My personal favourite is the possibility of colouring books – to help relieve stress and anxiety, as well as a way of conveying vital messages about pregnancy and related issues to women.

With passion and determination we can together make a difference to the experience of women and babies in maternity services across the country – and to the experience of staff who care for them.

Life After…My Childhood

I am honoured that Sian, whom fellow bloggers may know from The Potty Mouthed Mummy, has chosen to share the story of her childhood here, in the first Life After… guest post. After reading her sad yet so beautifully told story, I desperately wanted to give her a huge hug. Thank you, Sian, for being so brave and for helping give hope to others.

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Many a night in my childhood, I would awake in a cold sweat from a recurring nightmare. In the nightmare I would climb out of bed, peer over the banister and see a bag at the bottom of the stairs; one of those giant army green camping style bags. And I would know, he was back in our home again.

Some nights the nightmare would turn out to be real. As every time I had the nightmare I would wake up to check if it were indeed just a dream or if in some horrific way I had seen it coming.

He. My mother’s boyfriend.

My father left when I was five or so. Soon after my mum’s boyfriend, Paul, moved in.

He was much younger than my mother. So many people upon hearing what he had done would say to me, as a youngster, “Oh but he’s young”. As if age excuses it.

To my mum she believed I adored him. I put on a good show, as she loved him so much. When he was away she was a shell. Nothing I could do would please her. When he returned, my brother and I were almost invisible. She certainly wasn’t her best self while she was with him.

Days when she would forget to pick me up from school as they were in bed all day

Days when they wouldn’t care who heard or saw what they were doing…

Things like that haunt me, stay with me.

So, in a desperate plea to make my mum happy with me, to find some common ground with her, I acted like I loved him.

He was in our lives while I was 6-11 years old.

Sometimes I think of myself at that age, how much older I already was than everyone else.

A childhood lost.

Because the truth is, he hit me.

He would hit my brother and I viciously.

My mum would go to work and leave her unemployed boyfriend to care for us.

My brother and I were united, for once, in our fear and hatred of him. My brother, being older, was able to escape the house more. I do not blame him for that and to be honest, he wasn’t really aware how bad it was for me.

I remember playing out in our street with friends one day, the other children who lived doors away. I had to check in at an allotted time throughout the day. I remember checking my watch and seeing it was 2.04pm and running for home. My friends were shouting after me that it was in fact 1.04pm. But the fear was so ingrained in me that he might hurt me that I could only run home preparing to apologise for being 4 minutes late.

The most awful moment was one Christmas Day. I had been bought a Walkman and some version of “Now That’s What I Call Music”. I was listening to a Queen song and I remember feeling a little sad, recalling that Freddie Mercury had died the same year.

He saw my face, grabbed me and hauled me upstairs calling me ungrateful.

I was thrown into my bedroom.

He asked me why I was such a brat.

I tried to explain. But he would not listen.

He bit my lip and pulled me off the ground with the force of it.

He left deep purple marks in my lip, obvious to all.

My mum asked later what it was and on the spot I blamed the dog, who was later hit rather harshly. The guilt was unbearable as his yelps repeated in my head. And the irony of my mum protecting me, but against the wrong person.

Another time I was thrown down the stairs, I have no idea how nothing broke.

Eventually age 11, while he was away again, I told my mum what he had done to me, to my brother.

In my heart I believed she had known all along and was ignoring it.

But she did not.

She had no idea.

She wept, got drunk and ended it.

He was never seen again.

But it stays forever.

The secret behind my slightly, and ever present, serious yet sad face.

The way I have seemed 40 since age 10.

My quick temper, the one that makes me worry the same darkness in him has passed to me. I know I could never hurt Harrison like that, but I fear it nonetheless.

My quick to defend myself attitude; born through trying to stand up to him on many occasions. I remember him shouting at me once “Who do you think you are?” and I responded fiercely “Sian Johnston”. That one line stopped his raised hand in its tracks. Surprised perhaps.

My aversion to being held for too long. Due to seeing far too much intimacy as a young girl.

It would have been so easy to become someone who just stopped trying.

I could have been the girl who didn’t work at school.

The girl who slept with the boys too early.

The one who took drugs and lived on handouts.

That’s the obvious pattern for someone like me. I was told as much by teachers at school when they generalised about “certain types of people”.

People who are abused become abusers, they would say.

Criminals tend to come from a history of abuse, they would say.

As if they knew.

But instead, all I ever did was fight.

From that age, where he would hurt me, I began my love of getting lost in books. Escaping to worlds that were not my own. Which lead to a desire to learn, to read more, to be better and to actually escape my world.

I saved and put myself through University.

I got a degree. I got good grades. I got good jobs.

But the story doesn’t always end that way. Every time I see a girl in the news who was from the wrong side of the tracks, abused and has been arrested or worse, murdered. I always think of myself. Because I could have been her; I could have let myself fade away into nothing. Used my past as an excuse for so many things.

Now I have my husband, who knows all this past, who is so patient with me. Then of course there is my son, who I will never tell about this. He doesn’t need the burden of knowing how much I was hurt. He doesn’t need that darkness in his life.

My mum and I are now very close, the past will always be there. There isn’t a week that goes by when a memory doesn’t pop up in my head. But I try hard to push it away.

I try to focus on what I have now, my life after that childhood. Because thinking about it all too much, it hurts. It doesn’t feel like my life.

I wish it hadn’t been part of my life.

But in a way, it shaped me to be strong, determined and someone who never quits.

Which is truly the most perverse part of it all.

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If you would like to share your Life After story, please get in touch headspace-perspective@outlook.com