Because, that's what I am. Mother Nature and I are not friends.
I am a mother - of identical twin girls. And I adore them but I honestly have no idea to this day how I managed to get over myself to have them!
I had children, well, because either, it's a lifelong dream since you played with dolls as a child - or, because that's what you do don't you. I fall into the latter camp. Before I even considered getting pregnant - due to long-standing vomit phobia, I had to research safe anti-morning-sickness drugs.
And so my rebellion against being an earth mother began.
When I found out I was having twins - it continued. YESSSSSSSS! Automatic C-Section due to the complications around delivering identical twins.
Not that a natural, home or water birth were even on the radar of options. I was all always going to be about as easy and unnatural a delivery as possible - definitely involving lots of pain relief drugs. No pain. Gain. That's what I say.
I signed myself up for my local NCT class. N.A.T.U.R.A.L. Childbirth Trust. Needless to say - I was going there purely to meet friends. And it seems, make enemies too.
It started off badly for me from the first moment I walked in. I put my hand up. "Please can you tell us about the drugs I can take should I go into early labour?" And so began my hate-hate relationship with the teacher.
I don't remember much about the classes except I have hazy memories of very graphic birth flash cards, featuring very ugly, hairy-vagina'd mothers-to-be, often with baby heads crowning out of them. It was the stuff of nightmares.
Much like the idea that the whole group should meet up after our births, with our screaming babies in Starbucks. That was never going to happen...
Now, to the birth.
Another great thing about a C-Section, is the booked birth time. How convenient. Except one of my babies decided she had enough of being inside and broke her waters the day before her due date. I'm in bloody labour now. It hurts. I don't do pain.
So we get to the hospital - drugs go in, pain goes out. Babies come out, one then two.
Go into the recovery room. Put on make-up. Ask for the "pill to stop my milk coming in and another for luck and make it SNAPPY please" Me and breastfeeding was a big NO. Not with one child. And with two - never in a month of Sundays, to the power of INFINITY.
Not. For. Me.
I get transported to my room. Babies given to me. Tiny. SO tiny. What am I feeling? I'm feeling like there should be this instant bond and where is it? Did it go, along with my placenta? Are these really mine? Where's the bleeding bond?? Is it there even a tiny bit?
Nope.
I definitely do not have a bond with these tiny creatures - they could be anyone's. Whoever said the bond was instant is a big LIAR!
Night One in the hospital "Suzanne, would you like your babies sleeping next to you?" Err... "Can they sleep in the nursery please?" Start as I mean to go on. Babies and me in a room together - co-sleeping - was a NO WAY for me.
I also don't do sleep deprivation. Getting up in the night to bond with my babies to demand feed? NOPE. So at crippling expense we hired a night nurse.
I'm not sure how my twins grew. They didn't drink their milk. They were super tiny. Probably the closest I got to being an earth mother was that I made it my life's mission to get milk into them. For 9 hours a day I sat on the nursery floor with that bottle in their mouths - much like some French farmer force feeding geese to create Foie Gras. Painful though it was, it did the job.
Then came the immunisation program. Bring it on! And we did a couple of extra ones for good measure - chicken pox for example - ugly, itchy - who needs 'em?
With first foods and weaning, the twins were even more impossible than at the milk-only stage. I did try to make them fresh food. Washing, chopping, steaming, pureeing, freezing into tiny perfect ice-cube sized portions.
Well that was an utter waste of hours of my life. They were not even vaguely interested. Those tiny mouths that could be so huge and open for screaming, were tightly clamped shut. Closed for business.
So sod making them food. Hello jarred foods! One holiday involved us bringing with 36 jars of food and 8 tubs of formula with us.
Cold and coughs or HEAVENS FORBID a sickness bug, I have medicines and pills for everything (age-appropriate of course!!). In fact wherever I travelled, I'd find new, better drugs for them. My travelling friends and family became my drugs mules - bringing things back upon request for me. My bathroom cabinet is like a dream global kids pharmacy.
Having retailed kids clothes and latterly being a writer and blogger about kids fashion, these babies needed to look the part. A headmistress at one of the schools I went to visit said to me "Suzanne, children are not a Gucci handbag you know". Well, I agree to a point. Celine is more my style. But actually - they are my accessories - my best and most loved accessories. Far more exclusive and 'it' than any handbag.
I'm not sure where the time went, but they turned two, and started school. From that moment on, parenthood just got better and better.
And the bond, that elusive bond, between this non-earth mother and her twin universes, finally developed.
Well, better late than never.
By Suzanne Peters of www.kidstylejunkie.com