EWW: All you need to do

A little musing on big love

I’m about to hop onto a plane to head to Nelson, then Blenheim, then Nelson, then home for a Wairarapa and Wellington show. I’m in Christchurch and I thought I’d steal some time to write to you.

Last night was such a wonderful show. So much fun. It was hard to wind down and I found myself just lying in bed at B’s house just thinking a lot.

At shows we have a question box for a little Q&A session and people are pretty shy with questions so we have reused a few. We are often asked for our “best” advice. The assumption, which I think is a good one, is that we’ve probably been given a lot of advice.

This is very, very true. I am not a huge fan of advice as I often think parents are actually looking for support, solidarity, community…but instead they get walloped with advice.

New mothers have heard every kind of advice possible for things like feeding, sleep, crying - that type of thing. I know when I was a new mum what I wanted was someone to say it was OK. All of the have you tried this exhausted me and made me feel isolated. Because of course I’d tried! Of course I’d tried this and that and everything else. And I was just tired. I wanted someone to just see me and not talk over that feeling. Let me sit in it, feel it. Sit with me, feel it with me.

But some advice is good right? So I’ve been thinking about what truly is the best advice I’ve ever been given. It’s from a nurse - all of the best advice I’ve ever been given has been from kindly nurses or midwives.

I remember when Eddie was in one of his intensive care stints and I looked at his tiny body, covered in tubes and medical equipment and I just felt so overwhelmed.

I was crying and crying and I thought I’d never stop. A nurse came to me and put her hand on my shoulder and asked me if she could get me a cup of tea.

I looked up at her and said “How do I do this?” I genuinely wanted to know. How do I be the best mum I can be when it’s so painful, when I don’t know what to do with all of his health needs, when I don’t know how to fix him, when I can’t fix him!

She said to me “all you need to do is love him”.

And just like that a calm washed over me because that that I can do that! I can love this child so fiercely, so fully. I can love my little boy all of my days and all of my nights.

It was exactly what I needed to hear.

Whenever I have felt lost or overwhelmed I’ve heard her voice: All you need to do is love him.

When they’re struggling? Love them. When you’re struggling? Love them. When they’re happy and sad and full of joy or full of pain? Love them.

When you’re exhausted, when you just can’t work out what to do, when you feel like a failure: know that you can, and you do, love them.

You just love them. Love them till they’re full and you’re full and love them more.

Aroha nui,

Em x