“A mother’s love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity. It dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path.

Agatha Christie

I’m not one for sharing my personal life on here and usually  stick to recipes and interiors but thought I’d break the habit and share  a more personal post with you for Mother’s Day to tell you a little bit about myself……

I have one sister who is 4 years younger than me and we’ve always been very close and we had the most idyllic childhood growing up in Ayrshire in Scotland in a beautiful old Georgian bank house with a large garden where we always had lots of friends round to play.  My mum did a lot of entertaining and baked regularly and she always let me loose in the kitchen to concoct my own recipes and I often got to make the desserts for visitors which I loved doing.

When I was 15 we moved house and I had to move schools which I remember being very traumatic as I didn’t know a soul at my new school and it took a while to fit in as everyone else had already established friendships and I remember feeling very out of place and miserable for the first few months.  After starting at my new school I lost interest in the academic side of things and was more interested in making new friends and although I passed all my O Levels I decided to leave school at 17 and start working in a local bookshop whilst waiting to hear if I had got a place to start nursing.   I met my husband on my 18th birthday while I was visiting my aunt in the North of Scotland and the rest ,as they say,  is history!  I was offered a place at Inverness to start nursing and I had bought my nursing shoes etc ready to start but then  we decided we’d get married the following year  and my nursing career was over before it had even started! We got married in April 1988 when I was 19 and our daughter Rebecca was born exactly 9 months later!  I had a very straightforward pregnancy and was very excited about meeting our new baby so when my waters broke a week before my due date I made my way to the local hospital very calmly where I was given my own little room and I remember thinking what a nice little place to have a baby as it was a cottage hospital and everyone was so lovely.  However things didn’t go as planned and I ended up being in labour for 36 hours and eventually being rushed to Aberdeen hospital, which was 60 miles away, by ambulance and Rebecca was delivered by Caesarean section. And that’s when it all started to go downhill for me as I became seriously unwell with an infection and they couldn’t get it under control and I clearly remember thinking in my delirious state  I’m going to die without even making it home with my baby.  I remember the doctor ,who was so lovely,  being very relieved when my temperature eventually started to come down and telling me not to cry as I was going to recover and get to see my baby girl and when they brought her next to my bed in her little  cot I just lay and gazed at her and thought she was so beautiful and felt such a huge love for her.  I was completely determined to breastfeed from the get go although  I was so weak after being ill that the nurses had to hold her next to me to be fed.

I remember being desperate to get home  but I had to stay in hospital for a while till they were happy that I was over the infection  and the ward sister asked to speak to me before I left and she said to me you’ve been extremely  unwell and I don’t want to see you back here for a very long time and I thought to myself don’t worry I will NEVER be back here again and I never once deviated from that mindset as I was so utterly traumatised by the whole experience and I suffered the most horrendous post natal depression as a result of it all.  I remember trying to explain to my GP how much I was struggling and all he said was, you’re an intelligent girl Louise and you understand what’s wrong with you so you’ll be fine.  Which I most definitely wasn’t but I struggled on for the next few years before suffering a serious nervous breakdown where I became suicidal and truly believed that everyone would be so much happier without me in their lives.  My  GP (a different one from before)   said to me that  out of all his patients I was the last person  he expected this to happen to as I was always so bright and bubbly and appeared to have everything under control. He was absolutely fantastic with me and put me on medication which started to work very quickly and I felt as though  I had got my life back although I suffered with dreadful guilt that Rebecca had such an unwell mummy when she was little but someone wisely told me that I had to let go of the guilt in order to move forward in a positive way and eventually it did fade away.

I never ever changed my mind about having any more children but then through a set of circumstances which I won’t go into here I met the most beautiful little girl who needed a new family to look after her and although I never intended or set out to adopt a child that’s exactly what happened and she is an absolute treasure and I’m very proud of and adore both of  my daughters  equally and feel extremely blessed to be their mother.   You don’t have to give birth to become  a mother and not everyone who has a child biologically is equipped to be a mother.  A true mother’s love is fiercely strong and protective and what matters most to her is the safety and happiness of her children and I was most  certainly blessed with a wonderful mother who is the most amazingly strong & beautiful woman who has been battling terminal cancer for the past few years and is suffering so much at the minute but yet still cares so deeply about her family and their happiness & wellbeing above her own.  So whatever your path to motherhood was, Happy Mother’s Day to all you amazing women out there who are raising children to know that they are loved beyond measure! And thinking so much today of those who don’t still have their mums here with them ?

My two girls ??

 

Much love

Louise xxx