Another day, another article about how boring motherhood is. Admittedly the writer of the most recent article (published in Grazia today) has a book called ‘Why have kids’ to flog sell.

In my view, Jessica Valenti (who calls herself  a ‘feminist’) appears to  want to deny other women the right to enjoy the fulfillment that motherhood brings.

But I wouldn’t take her musings quite so seriously. Why? Because at the end of the article she admits that while motherhood didn’t bring her ultimate contentment  it is an experience not to missed.

That’s the point though, being a mum isn’t a box to tick – it’s about wanting to care for, nurture and protect another human being, added to that of course  the biologically driven and ultimately selfish desire to replicate ourselves.

So why has she written this book.?Well my guess is her publisher wants to capitalise on the paranoia of many 30 something (mostly single) women who are worried that they will never have children. And the 30something women who have chosen not to have children but feel guilty about that choice.

I can understand why having children might end up leaving some women feeling bereft. But I think that’s more to do with society’s expectations than our own.

Good example: when I told friends and family that I was pregnant again the reaction ranged from: “‘Isn’t Sammy a career girl, surely another will spell the end of hers,” or “I always thought Sammy was a career girl and only wanted one.”

I have to say my career has taken a back seat, in fact it’s so far back it’s squashed underneath the buggy/tricycle and scooter languishing at the back of our battered people carrier.

But that was more because of the recession, if work had been plentiful (i.e. there was still a demand for financial journalists with internet as well as ‘old fashioned’ print experience) then maybe I’d not have had the time to have another. Nor the time to enjoy motherhood so much that despite a very touch and go labour with my daughter I decided it was worth the risk to do it again.

I am scared that having this baby will ultimately spell the end of my career and I will be one of those mums who ends up feeling like she’s lost her arm and gained another head.

To any potential employer, and I’m pretty sure I’ve lost the chance of several jobs because of my mum status, I’m still as driven as I was before we started our  family, even more so.

In fact being a mum has made me the ultimate organised professional. More so as Imogen’s gotten older.

But again if it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be and hopefully in the end  I will be able to keep  my career, after all enough 40something women are disappearing from the professional work place, and I don’t intend to be one of them, ever, motherhood or not.

Another day another mummy bashing article.

Today it’s the turn of older mothers; older mothers in this context being mums over the age of 30. According to the writer of the piece that appeared in one of the red tops today, an older mother is someone who gave birth after entering her third decade.

My own definition of older mother is probably more 40, as most of my friends and myself included had children in our 30s; and at 37 I was by no means the oldest mother in any of my parenting groups.

Anyway, this point is this writer says the trend to have children when you’re older is breeding a whole new generation of spoiled brats.

She claims older mothers are more likely to give in to their children because they are so used to getting their own way themselves that having to look after a child is overwhelming.

Rubbish! Parenting is overwhelming whatever age you are, and if you are financially and emotionally stable, as you would be in your 30s,  then surely it’s easy to cope with all the stuff that having children throws at you. Not to mention not having the feeling you’ve sacrificed years of partying/travelling or moving up the career ladder for your kids.

This same woman apparently locked her door so her children couldn’t come in in the morning and even missed sports days and parent’s evenings.

She also knocks older mothers for not having routines, and letting their children run riot when they should be in bed.

Well routines are all very good (and yes I did use a well-known one) but what a child needs to know is that they are loved, and that often means having a cuddle in the early morning, or in the middle of the night sometimes.

There is a flip side, if a child is brought up within a strict routine then they may not be quite so flexible when you do need to change things around, my daughter for example  doesn’t like sleeping anywhere but her own bed.

Anyway the writer of this article is in her late 60s, so is therefore a babyboomer. The same babyboomers who have priced their children/grandchildren out of the housing market by buying two or three or more homes (their pensions  arent’ doing so well apparently) the same babyboomers who have final salary and full state pensions (that we are all paying for).

Ahh and the same generation who voted in governments that have done nothing about the above…

She reckons this generation of children are being spoilt – well if we can’t spoil them now, when can we. What else have they got to look forward to…

The medicalisation of birth is a hot topic in the UK and the US, with some women claiming intervention is often unwanted and paramount to abuse. Ella Mag’s guest blogger Dr Lesel Dawson discusses her own birthing experience.

While reading some blogs at the weekend, I was shocked to come across a wealth of (mostly American) material describing ‘birth rape’.

This is not sexual, but a term used by some mothers to describe unwanted and/or unnecessary intervention during labour, invoking a definition of rape as any physical violation.

As I read some of the disturbing stories about women given C-sections against their will, the unwanted use of forceps to ‘speed things up’ and the pressure put on a few to consent to chemical induction or pain relief, I was reminded of a blog I submitted to The Huffington Post in August 2011.

It touches on some of the arguments regarding the medicalisation of birth and suggests some of the differences between the US and UK system. While I don’t think that the issues surrounding ‘birth rape’ are confined to the US, the context of intervention in the US may make it harder for practitioners to identify with mothers who want to go au naturelle.

My first child was born two and a half months prematurely, on only gas and air. Despite the excruciating pain I was in, I didn’t realize I was in labour when my husband dropped me off at St. Michael’s Hospital in Bristol.

I went in wearing my work clothes, as if I might actually deliver the lecture I was scheduled to give, rather than my son. People always say that you forget the pain of birth, but this helpful amnesia depends on being given a baby at the end of your ordeal: the trauma of birth gives way to the love and joy of holding your child.

The fact that my son was whisked away from me the moment he was born, has meant that the pain of his birth remains in my mind separate from any joy of seeing him. During the final stages of labour I kept my eyes closed tight. I felt that I was both in the room and somewhere else. And all the while four lines from Marvell’s ‘To His Coy Mistress’, were stuck on repeat in my head (the bizarreness of this struck me even at the time). It was as if a strange madness had come over me.

This experience is a million miles away from the labour and birth most of the women seem to have on One Born Every Minute USA. As I watched it last summer, the first thing I was struck by was the absence of screams. At first, I thought this was just because it was early in the episode. However, it soon became clear that almost every woman featured had been given an epidural.

The result is to transform the show from gripping television to something both more surreal and mundane. ‘You have completed’ (the American term for fully dilated), one midwife informed a bored-looking mother to be, ‘You are ready to push’.

I had mixed emotions watching the US version of this show, both as an American and as a mother of two, whose children were born in the UK.

Certainly, there is something disturbing about the way in which these women appear so detached from the cataclysmic event happening to them. The tendency for most women to have epidurals (and to have them fairly early) not only medicalises birth, but also renders the mothers-to-be oddly passive.

A woman with an epidural requires continuous foetal monitoring and a catheter, making her unable to get up and move about the room (activities thought to help with labour pain and ensure that the baby is in the right position for birth). The women also seem passive and detached in more fundamental ways: they are unaware of the changes happening within their bodies, so it is for the nurses and obstetricians to inform them of what is happening.

Interestingly, when a woman is shown giving birth without medication it changes the interpersonal, power dynamics of the event in striking ways.

Marcella, a non-medicated pretty young mother-to-be, is told by her nurse that she will check on her again in a couple of hours as she probably has a long way to go in her labour. However, minutes after the nurse leaves the room, Marcella starts to scream, ‘I have to push!’ Nurses rush in to prepare the room for the baby’s imminent arrival. ‘I would have never expected this!’, her confused nurse comments. The attention is all on Marcelle and it is clearly her body, not the doctors and nurses, that has taken charge.

But is it right to idealize the pain of childbirth? Although this may be pain with a purpose, accounts of women in labour for several days who end up too exhausted to push or with emergency c-sections make it seem less like a joyful, natural process than a form of torture.

Unrelieved pain is also thought to be one of the risk factors for difficulties in breastfeeding and in post-natal depression. So isn’t pain relief a good thing? Surely Elaine Scarry is right to observe in The Body in Pain: ‘the most crucial fact about pain is its presentness’. When you are in pain, what is significant is that it is happening to you right now. And for most of us, our chief desire is simply that it ends.

So why is it that, according to some studies, approximately 65% of American women have epidurals while only 25% of women in the UK do the same?

In the NHS, where money is tight and anaesthetists fewer on the ground, it may be the case in some instances not that women are actively choosing natural births, but rather that requests for epidurals are not being met. Epidurals can slow labour down and, once administered, midwives are legally bound to provide the woman with one-to-one care.

Too many women having epidurals can thus lead to staffing problems and a shortage of beds. In America, on the other hand, where the patient is the client, epidurals are more readily available and a potential source of revenue (they generally cost somewhere between $1000 and $2500).

However, I do not think that the more natural, mobile births we see in the UK are simply the product of the NHS’s overstretched resources.

The midwives I’ve encountered try to tread a fine line between finding alternative ways for women to manage their pain and listening to requests for epidurals.

And there are, after all, some good medical reasons to favour natural birth, or at least to delay the use of an epidural for as long as possible: as well as slowing labour down, epidurals make it less likely that the baby rotates into the correct position for delivery.

They can also lead to a drop in the woman’s blood pressure and slow the baby’s heart rate down. As a result, women who have epidurals are more likely to need to help of an instrumental delivery (such as forceps) or to have an emergency caesarean.

I am glad that I have given birth without medication, simply because it is an experience beyond what I could have imagined. That being said, when I was in labour with my daughter I asked for, and was given, an epidural in the final stages of labour. So what right do I have to feel critical of women who choose an excellent form of pain-relief from the outset?

None whatsoever. I may like the idea of natural, non-medicated birth, but it is easy have such views from the safety of my front room. Indeed, I think we need to be wary of our ability to judge real life situations. It isn’t just that unmedicalised births make for better television (and let’s face it, they do). It is the fact that there is an unbridgeable gulf between the person in pain and the person witnessing it. I may find my son’s birth a source of fascination, but it is without doubt an experience I would rather recollect than repeat.

For many of us a child is a blessing, a gift from God. In my circle of friends quite a few of us only have had one child.  A combination of hectic careers, fertility problem issues and  money worries have meant we have – bar any extra time surprises – stopped at one.

As Imogen has got older I’ve met more and more mums with just one child. Some have wanted to stop at one, but they are in the minority. As I said having an interesting and fulfilling career has meant many of us have put off having children till later which means we are less likely to have more than one.

In the Daily Mail one writer said she was bullied because of her decision to have one child.

While I’ve not been bullied, I have been asked by many when will I have another one. And to be honest I’m still really torn about whether to have another. A year ago I would have said ‘no way’ – in the last few months I’ve slowly come round to the idea of having another but am yet still totally convinced it’s a good thing to do.

My indecision also  means that I tend to hang out with friends of mine who do have just one.  I feel more comfortable with them because on the whole (with the exception of a couple of  lovely friends) most of my friends with just one tend to be less ‘mummified’ than the ones with several -  i.e I can have a conversation with them about things other than children.

Imogen is an intelligent lively  three year old with whom I can actually hold a conversation now. If I did get pregnant I would be stuck in baby land again.

In truth I’m envious of my friends who have now two children and who aren’t planning any more because there’s still a chance that I will go through baby land again. Maybe this time I’ll be more chilled about it. it’s not a bad place to be, just a very sleep deprived, sore and chaotic one.

So here’s my list – and it’s not looking too decisive to be honest.

Pros of having another

Your child has a sibling – which means they can (hopefully) play together and grow older together.

They they have an ally – i.e. when mum and dad are telling them they can have a good old moan with someone else going through the same thing.

When their parents get older they aren’t the only ones around to look after them (although this assumes your only child doesn’t end up having any children of their own).

In fact the last one worries me the most. I don’t want Imogen spending her 40s having to look after frail old me and her dad.

Cons of having another

Not all siblings get on – look at Cain and Abel – and countless other famous brothers and sisters who’ve fallen out of the centuries.

Money is tight – for all of us. What if I need to send Imogen to private school or we need private healthcare – with one child we can afford to spend more on her education. Not that she is going to be spoiled.

Attention. Imogen will get lots attention, she’ll be pretty independent and she already has lots of friends and cousins.

Decisions decisions…

Ella mag’s editor Samantha Downes is wondering whether she is too old to have another child.

Several friends of mine and family members have had children in their 40s, and one even at 45.  None of my close friends had any problems getting pregnant in their 40s.

In fact I’ve been told that 40something mums are more likely to give birth to twins; but is this more as a result of assisted conception being a more likely reason for a 40something woman to get pregnant? I’m sure someone will tell me otherwise.

Anyway of the four close friends who gave birth in their 40s – none did so via IVF. But this doesn’t mean it’s easy to get pregnant in your 40s. Out of 10 women I know from my ante natal and parenting groups who had children after the age 35, five of them needed IVF to get pregnant.

Anyway as I finally got my head around the fact that we would not mind to give our a sibling, I decided to take medical advice first. And it made for tough listening.

Both a GP and senior nurse warned me that getting pregnant at my age came with risks, my chances of developing diabetes was higher as well as other complications like pre eclampsia and of course babies born to ‘older’ mothers are more likely to be born with neural tube defects (you can go and look that one up).

I thought about this and then  I read about Debbie Hughes. The woman who gave birth naturally at the age of 53.

Debbie already had three children, the oldest of which was in their 20s, tragically one of her children had died a few years back. Debbie is otherwise healthy and has grandchildren. She had not planned the pregnancy in fact she was on the pill when she conceived.

So I thought, well I’m in my early 40sv and healthy, and I could still outclass most 20somethings when it comes to a circuit class…

That was one day. The next day  it was reported Amanda Holden had nearly died giving birth to daughter Hollie, Amanda is only six months younger than me and has a history of difficult pregnancies. And by the way – I worked up to 38 weeks pregnant with Imogen but if I had been her, I probably would have taken it easy from 6 months; but then she has probably the money to employ a private midwife .

I don’t believe in regrets but there are times I wonder if I should have had children a bit younger then it probably wouldn’t seem such a big deal now.

But my mid30s were when I felt healthiest and when I was at my fighting best, physically and emotionally. In the five or so years before I got pregnant I probably went to bed most nights at 9.30pm and didn’t really party hard (I’d a freelance career to build up).

Having a baby is emotionally and physically exhausting, whatever age you are. I remember my 28 year-old sister being completely knackered after she had her first baby.

The only thing of course is that when you are in your 60s, your child might not even have left school. When I’m 60, Imogen will be 23. That doesn’t really seem that old, but I may seem that old to her.

But there are lots of older mother role models out there and having children appears to have kept them young.

The GP didn’t tell me anything I didn’t know except they did tell me they were worried women were putting off childbirth till later – encouraged by women in the public eye who had made it seem ‘easy’ to get pregnant  in their late 30s/40s. They (GP) told me  “Most of these women had assisted conceptions and of course private medical health support on call  throughout their pregnancy” something even the average well-paid career woman probably wouldn’t have access to.

Anyway the number of women giving birth after the age 40 has trebled in the last decade – and while I’m not going to be actively seeking any help to do so – it would be nice to think I may join them, maybe. This time round though I may need industrial strength eye concealer.

Like this. Read this.

What’s it like to give birth at home? One mum tells us how her two home births ended up being very different (but still wonderful) experiences.

How many home births have you had?

I have two children – both of whom were born at home – a two-year old girl and a six-week old boy.  With my daughter, I had a home birth which was attended by NHS midwives.  However, I booked a home birth with a private midwife during my second pregnancy.

Why did you want a home birth?

I was a coward that was too afraid to attend hospital…or to get in a car during labour!  I was also very well during both of my pregnancies and didn’t feel as though I belonged in a hospital which I associate with sick people.

Did you have to push (‘excuse the pun) for a home birth?

The first time round home birth was offered as a standard option by my NHS midwife during my first pregnancy. If she hadn’t made me aware of this, I might not have even considered it.  As soon as I had decided to have a home birth, I told my midwife and she completed the paperwork for me.

I was low risk throughout my pregnancy so my decision was never questioned by the midwives or doctors. Booking me in for a homebirth was simply a formality.

The second time round, it was very different.

How different?

I felt that the local midwifery services were under-resourced and my pre-natal care was inconsistent so at 36 weeks pregnant we decided to book a private midwife.

How were your friends and family about your decision?

My husband was very supportive.  The first time, we did not tell anyone as we did not want to be influenced by the views of friends and family until after I had given birth, and I would have felt uncomfortable if my neighbours had been aware of when I was in the middle of labour.

The second time, everyone assumed that I was going to have a home birth and nobody voiced any concerns as it had gone so smoothly the first time!  This did however, mean that all my neighbours knew when I was in labour (not helped by the fact that I was 10 days overdue)…in fact I had conversations outside with two of my neighbours while I was in labour which added to the experience!.

What support was offered – one midwife or two, and were you given
options if things got difficult?

In both cases, I had one midwife for the first stage of labour, who stayed with me the entire time, and an additional midwife for the second and third stages of labour to assist in case of complications.

I was booked into the local hospital (Harlow) in case an emergency transfer was needed. I was not concerned about emergencies as, not only was I low risk, I was confident that I could be transferred to hospital in the time that it would take the medical teams to set up a theatre and assemble all of the staff for an emergency section.

You paid for a midwife the second time, what difference did that make?

I paid a fixed fee which included a significant amount of postnatal care and support which is harder for the NHS to provide.

What room did you decide to give birth in and why?

We have a detatched house and I gave birth in our family snug…which has become a play room. It felt like a very private room that I was comfortable in.

I chose not to have a birthing pool but one would have been supplied as part of the package with the private midwife service.  The NHS midwife also advised on where I could hire a pool if I had wanted one.

What was similar – was there in difference in attitude of midwives?

As I only booked the private midwife at 36 weeks, I cannot really comment on antenatal care, except that as a working mother who commutes, it was very convenient when the private midwife attended my home for the antenatal appointments.  It was also comforting to build up a rapport with the same midwife who was going to deliver my baby.

I had a lovely experience of labour for both of my children and the midwives were very supportive.  The key difference for me was in the post natal care which is 30 days following the birth with the the private midwife.  This included access to the midwife who was on-call 24/7.  Without this, I probably would not have breastfed my son, who unlike my daughter, could not latch on properly at first.

What were the best things about your homebirths?

Eating chocolate cake (which I baked during labour) and drinking champagne with my husband soon after the event! Going to bed with my husband and newborn baby within two hours of giving birth

What were the worst?

Your neighbours knowing when you are in labour and the opinions of friends and family.

What do you think are the most common myths about homebirths?

That there will be a mess in your house and nothing can be done in the event of an emergency.

For more information about home births see the NHS Choices website you can also get support and information from the National Childbirth Trust

To connect with other mum to bes considering home birth you might want to look at Askamum or Mumsnet.com