Can we please make some space for winging it!?

Asking for a friend because I AM DONE with being made to feel like organised chaos isn’t totally ok

I’m nine months pregnant and rapidly hurtling toward the destined date for pushing an entire human out of my body.

I’ve found pregnancy both magical as fuck and completely bizarre. While discovering an otherworldly appreciation for my body’s ability to grow a tiny person from scratch (honestly, wtf), I’ve also found myself overwhelmed with love and compassion for complete strangers, knowing another woman once grew them too. It’s equal parts heartwarming and weird.

It’s also the hardest thing I’ve ever done. And god, does it come with so many opinions, unwarranted advice, and judgement. And I have got to get this shit off my chest…

At our very first antenatal appointment a good few months ago, the nurse asked me what my birth plan was. I asked what she meant. What even is a birth plan!? As a woman in her early 30s, I’m lucky enough to be surrounded by approximately 3489573485 women of child-bearing age and, having born witness to the full spectrum of babies, bits, c-sections, and—unfortunately—emergencies, it was my understanding that you shouldn’t make a plan for something as violently unpredictable as childbirth.

Because, realistically, what’s the point? It’ll never work out how you plan it. You know you’re gonna groan and moo and scream at your husband for being a useless piece of shit and then, incidentally, probably shit yourself (in what order remains an exciting nugget—if you will—to look forward to) but a birth plan!? Really? Why bother?

Until this point, my plan had been to rock up on the day and do whatever the fuck my body needed me to do. In whatever hospital room was available. With whatever lighting was already vibing. With whatever gas or air or epidural or surgery was required at the time. It’s kind of hard to plan for so many possible eventualities, no? Neither the midwife nor I have any idea how this little fella is planning to make his entrance into the world and, frankly, I don’t care.

And I don’t mean I don’t care like that, I just mean I’m not remotely bothered by the surroundings, the music, the lighting, the fragrance. I’m only bothered about getting this magical, life-sucking little bastard of joy out of my body and into the world where I can finally look into his beautiful little eyes and cry at how much I already love him. Everything else? Who the fuck cares?! For once, it’s not the (labour) journey that matters—it’s the destination. I’ll get there however I get there. Reddit tells me I’ll be in too much pain to give a fuck.

Anyway, that’s what was swimming around my head. But to the nurse: I delicately replied that no, I didn’t have a birth plan. She eyed me oddly, kind of as if I’d failed a test. As if not knowing my own birth plan at the very first midwife appointment as a first-time mum was a very strange position to be in indeed.

But, regardless. We moved.

Approximately one minute later, she asked how I was planning to feed the baby. Again, I’ve had enough nipples chats with mum friends to know that even how you feed your baby isn’t entirely up to you.

Maybe I’d breastfeed, maybe I’d use formula. When did they begin eating solids? Did they need anything else? In which case, I’d get that, too. To be honest, I hadn’t really thought about it. I’d planned to figure it out later on. I was literally 16 weeks pregnant at the time and was still riding a strange mix of relief and worry in which just getting to that milestone felt huge. After suffering a miscarriage five months earlier, all my mental bandwidth had been taken up by just...making it this far. The idea of stressing over an endless checklist of everything that was going to happen when the baby was here was like trying to prepare for a marathon while still catching my breath from the last race.

But again, here goes the midwife with her disappointed—slightly alarmed—expression.

And then, as if I didn’t already feel like the world's most useless mum-in-the-making, she asked if I’d read through the leaflet we’d been given when we first received our maternity pack. I hadn’t (obviously). I’d flicked through the entire pack when we first got it, saw the offending leaflet and assumed it was trying to sell me something. I popped it back in the pack and carried on with my day.

But even I didn’t have the heart to tell the nurse I’d failed a solid 3 out of 3 of her pop quiz questions.

Yes, I said. I’ve read it, very interesting. Okay, great, she replied. That’s a good start.

As I walked out of the appointment, it felt as though if I’d been getting my A-Level results back, I wouldn’t be going to my first choice of university. Or my second, either. I’d likely be going through UCAS clearing and careering very close to ending up at a polytechnic (no shade). Apparently, I was the Oxford-Brookes of the motherhood world.

I vowed to read the little fucking leaflet when I got home.

And true to my word, 45 minutes later I did—and do you know what? It confirmed everything I thought it would: That an absolutely exorbitant amount of information about how to mother was something I found neither helpful nor stress reducing.

Politely, I do not need to know that there are seven different breastfeeding positions, each with their own unique names and use cases. I was kind of hoping I’d do a vibe check with my baby every day and we’d figure it out together. If there’s one thing I’m told time and time again about motherhood, it’s that it’s instinctual more than anything else. When you spend that amount of time with anyone you begin to understand their wildest, smallest, and most frustrating whims and fancies. If they don’t want to suck on my tits, then fair game, they were good while they lasted but you do you, babe! Let me get the bottle and feed you however you want to be fed, my little bundle of freeloading cuteness. If you change your mind, fine. We’ll work it out together.

It’s almost as if these new-mum checklists and advice columns and neverending leaflets are designed to introduce you to a whole new world of things to worry about—things you never even dreamed were concerns in the first place. But, as with much of the rest of my life, I’d much rather take the whole motherhood thing as it comes; dealing with whatever hand I’m dealt when it shows up rather than getting ready to conquer every possible affliction like some sort of motherhood bootcamp disaster prep.

And maybe I’m just wildly underprepared and there are mothers reading this who are laughing at my complete and utter ignorance (if I had a pound for every time someone smugly, knowingly said ‘Ohhh, you just waaaait’ in response to anything I’ve said during my pregnancy, I’d be giving Elon Musk a run for his spaceship). However, I can’t help but think that cavewomen didn’t have all this neverending nonsense, and they did alright—a notion I had in fact already brought up at our 8-week medical appointment after rolling through the entirety of Matt and I’s combined family medical histories for 95 minutes. To which the nurse replied, deadpan: ‘Well, actually most of them died’.

Right, okay FINE. I’m the worst mother of the year. But, regardless, what if I’m happy to let the doctors and nurses do their thing when needed without having to prepare and organise every single inch of the process in a birth plan? Can’t I just sit there and be told when to push? Ask for an epidural if I need it? Is that ok?!

And what if I’m happy to work out breastfeeding on the day? If I struggle, I’ll Google it or visit the GP.

I know people talk about mum guilt all the time, but it’s truly mental being made to feel like you’re already failing at motherhood before you’ve even become a mother or changed a single nappy.

So, please, please, please can we make some room for women who are happy to go with the flow? Can we leave those who are quite content to figure it out as they go along to just get on with it, without requiring a spreadsheet, birth plan, Sparknotes, organisational calendar, bullet journal, Pinterest moodboard, and 12-book long to-be-read list?

Can I just mother how I want to mother? At a time that suits me? In whatever way works best for me and my baby? Can we PLEASE just make some space for women who are happy fucking winging it??!!!

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New around here? vibes & voicenotes is a feisty little newsletter in which I bluntly discuss culture, life, motherhood, content recs, general fuckery, books, and anything else that tickles my fancy. Consider this the home of sarcastic musings, aggressive pontification, and the kind of voicenotes you’d only send after your sixth glass of wine. 🍷