Just the way you are.

My younger son arrived into the world the way he does everything – like a bull at a gate. I had been induced at 38 weeks due to suffering from cholestasis and was enjoying being hooked up to the sweet, sweet joy that is an epidural. The labour was progressing nicely, and the midwife had rebelled against the doctors wishes that we hurry things up by increasing the syntocin. I love midwives. She bald faced lied to the doctor that she was going to up the dose while looking him straight in the eye, then as soon as he left, she turns to me and says, “Not bloody likely”.  

Anyway, things had felt a little weird “down there”, so I mentioned it to her. Although to be honest, my poor flaps had been swollen and blue (yes, blue – like hello, what the hell) for months so nothing had felt normal for a while. She had a quick look, gasped and said “He’s there! The baby is right there! Don’t push! Stop pushing!” 

Mate, I wasn’t pushing. However, 5 years earlier I had pushed a 9lbs3oz (4.16kg) baby out of there, so perhaps that had paved the way. This time, when I was allowed to push, I gave a halfhearted “Nughhh” and out he slid. Like a fish. Literally flew into the world. And into my head popped the phrase “He’s trouble”. 

NOW. 

I HAVE to explain this before people start thinking I’m horrible. I did NOT mean this in a negative way. I have spent my life liking and being drawn to the troublemakers. I have been a troublemaker my whole life. His Dad is one of the biggest troublemakers I know. And I had two kids with the guy. So let me clarify that when that phrase popped into my head, I was pleased as punch by it.  

Right from the start he was different from his brother. He tested my boundaries like nothing else. His big brother had slept through the night when he was only one week old. His brother had breastfed until he was 14 months old. Now I had this powerhouse, pocket rocket who simply would not be tamed. He would sleep through one night, and then be up for 3 hours the next night. He was walking by the time he was 9 months old, running at 11 months old, and jumping off of small walls by the time he was 13 months old. He was a firecracker. He rode a bike without training wheels just before he was 3. Just got on it and rode off. Yeah ok, don’t worry about me buddy – I’ll just be over here being ROBBED of the chance to teach you how to ride a bike! 

One memory that sticks out so clearly in my mind was us sitting down for a sweet, calm breast feed. You know, we would be bathed in a beautiful calm light, with soothing music and my son and I would be at one while he suckled on my teat. (Side note: I did NOT need to use that word – it’s not even anatomically correct – but it made me laugh, so it stays.) Anyway, there we were…. 

Joke!  

Never happened like that. My little guy didn’t want to sit and breastfeed. He wanted to run around breaking things.

So, this one particular time, he was about 10 months old, and I was trying to persevere with the breastfeeding. He was craning his neck around on a 90° angle, arching his back and generally resisting the feed. I found myself desperately clutching my own boob and sort of wobbling it in the direction of his completely closed mouth while he tried to get away from me. I mean, enticing right? Which child, who categorically does not want to be breastfed wouldn’t be motivated by having a tit literally shoved into their face? All of a sudden, I had one of those moments of clarity. What the hell am I doing? Just one of many experiences in my life where I was trying to get my oblong peg, to fit in to the square hole and he was not having it. It was the bottle life for him, and I got my boobs back. 

When I look back now, it was so obvious that he had ADHD, but I had absolutely no experience with it, so there was no way I was recognising the signs. I just accepted that he was my crazy little coconut and that was that. 

It was another 5 years before I thought about that incident and started to connect the dots…