Of mak and motherhood...

At 24, when most of my mates were tying the knot, I never had a real boyfriend.

At 25, when they started having their firstborn, my mak was worried - worried that I would never find a boyfriend, let alone a husband.

At 26, I told myself that I’ll resign to being matched if I’m still single by the time I reached 30. I guess it didn’t happen – the matchmaking that is.

I tied the knot at 27.

It was all happening so fast, and before I knew it, I was pregnant within the first month of my marriage. It was not gelojoh, as some may think, but it was my clueless attempt at using the rhythm method.

My pregnancy was not smooth sailing. The nausea that came in the evenings after work went on for nearly 80% of the 9 months I was carrying my firstborn. My energy level dived to minus degrees, and my zest for work and life was almost non-existent. My vomiting bouts made me sick and lethargic, and I was down with fever, flu and cough. I never knew pregnancy was going to make me this ‘sickly’, and I wondered how our mothers and their mothers before them did it, especially when they had many children of their own to create a football team.

Before my baby was born, I promised to breastfeed, as it has been hailed as the best thing that a mum can give her child. There are so many benefits of breastfeeding that I had read up, and even though I came across words like ‘engorgement’, it didn’t mean much until it happened to me. No one told me that breastfeeding was going to be an uphill task. The engorgement left me so sore and helplessly in pain. My baby's inability to latch or my inability to make him suck makes me felt like a failure. He was crying, and I was helpless. It was so difficult and trying. I cried. I was depressed within the first two weeks of having my first son.

It didn’t help that my baby had long crying bouts at night. He was not colic, and not even mak knew what was wrong with him. It drove everyone in the house crazy. We were sleepless with his every 15 minutes of wakefulness and constant crying. It gave hubby and me migraine from the lack of sleep. At one time, my husband nearly shook our baby and shouted at him. I was shocked at our inabilities, incapacities. It left me stoned and zombied and I was feeling how unfit we were as parents, how useless I was as a mother.

After two months at my parents’ place, we moved to our new home, hoping to start a new life. But I felt alone when hubby went to work, eventhough baby was with me. When my baby cried non-stop, and no amount of coaxing could stop him, again I felt distressed and helpless. I called mak and cried over the phone. I didn’t know what was wrong with him, and I didn’t know what to do.

After I talked to mak, I managed to calm my dear baby down, and started to calm myself down too. I called mak and told her that she did not have to come to see me. But mak and father assured me that they will visit me the next day. They did. As much as they were bewildered at first, they were also amused at what a goondu I was at something so naturally simple. Is motherhood really naturally instinctive? If it is, I do not have the genetic make-up for this.

That first hari raya with baby, as I salam my mak to kiss her hand, I caught everyone by surprise, even myself. I cried in front of mak and told her how much this whole experience taught me about mak’s experiences of being a mother and motherhood. It made me feel truly appreciative of the experiences my mak must have gone through when she was having me and all her other children. I guess you never knew how it really feel and must have felt unless you go through it yourself, experiencing all the myriad of emotions that came with being pregnant and having a child. I am blessed to have gone through it because I feel that I will be arrogant and emotionless of the feelings of a mum – struggling to manage her children and her life if I had not become a mom myself. It was truly, truly humbling and no words can describe my feelings of motherhood, and the connection with what mak might have gone through. No matter how old I am, I knew I will always be her baby because I am always in need of her wisdom, her strength, her determination, her love, her stoicness and so much more.

To mak, “Happy mother’s day, thank you for everything. I will always love you.”