It took less than £2000 to make me a good mum
HOW TROUBLED ANTONIA TURNED HER LIFE AROUND
ANTONIA Caithness bakes Easter cakes for the nursery party. Her face lights up when she talks about three-year-old Mia. But when Antonia was pregnant, she panicked.
The 25-year-old said: “I never wanted to have children. After the amount of neglect in my own life, where I was never shown any affection or love, I didn’t think I’d be maternal. I didn’t know how to protect a baby.
“I thought there was no maternal blood in me.”
Antonia grew up in Motherwell. Her mother was a heroin addict, getting high in her bedroom with the curtains drawn. In the morning, Antonia got herself up and off to school. At night, tea came from the chip van.
Her mum’s boyfriend was a dealer with customers in and out of the house all day. Police raids at 4am were a regular feature.
A week before her 10th birthday, Antonia’s mum dropped her off at her grandmother’s house and said she would pick her up later. She never came back. If they passed in the street, she looked the other way.
A year later, Antonia’s mum was dead. She was 35.
Normal childhood resumed for a while. Antonia recalled: “My gran cared for me. She would have my pyjamas on the heater, she made me dinner, there was some normality after not having that at all.
“She gave me the love I’d missed for so long. But I was coming up for 10, 11, teenage years and all that stuff. I didn’t realise how much my previous life had affected me.
“My gran didn’t have boundaries for me. I think she just felt sorry for me, so I was allowed to do everything and anything. So I did. I went off the rails.”
Before she met Mia’s father Jamie, Antonia had a controlling, abusive, violent boyfriend. The couple were banned from her gran’s house. That relationship ended, leaving her, aged 18, sleeping on friends’ couches. Soon after, her beloved grandmother died.
She got together with Jamie and life got better. He’s five years older than Antonia, kind and laid-back. He had his own place. She was working in a hotel. A year in, she got pregnant.
For 12 hours a day she made beds and cleaned toilets. At night, she couldn’t sleep.
Antonia said: “Eighteen years worth of memories flooded me. What had my mum done to me? What did I do at this age? None of it was connecting. I started to realise my childhood wasn’t normal.
“I was petrified because I had no idea what to do. My chaotic lifestyle for all those years made sense to me. But I didn’t know how to be pregnant. I had no idea how to behave like a mother.”
Luckily, there was someone on hand to help her learn. Antonia was given a First Steps worker to guide her through pregnancy and the baby’s first months.
At first she was unsure. Antonia admitted: “I totally freaked out. I thought it was social work and they were going to find out about my past and take the baby off me.” She considered lying and saying that everything was fine. There were a few false starts. She said: “Then I got there and thought, ‘No, I do need support. I have had a troubled past’.
“My First Steps worker was lovely. She didn’t tell me what to do, she offered to take me to classes and helped with what I need to get for the baby.”
Antonia threw herself into pregnancy. She said: “Before, I didn’t care about myself. I wasn’t a healthy person. For most of my life, I just wanted to die.
“Being pregnant, I thought, ‘I can’t die now, I need to look after myself ’. It was a total overhaul for me, trying to be alive for this baby.”
Mia was born. With reflux and colic,
I had no idea how to behave like a mother. ANTONIA CAITHNESS
she slept for three hours a day at the most.
Jamie and Antonia were living in a top-floor flat. Their downstairs neighbours regularly trashed the place. When Mia was three weeks old, they tried to kick the door down.
Antonia rarely went out. She spent long hours sitting in the dark, in Mia’s room, breastfeeding her new baby. She said: “I kept telling myself, ‘As long as I feed this baby and cuddle her and keep her alive, I’m doing a good job’.”
She knows now that she was suffering from anxiety and post-natal depression.
Antonia said: “There was no morning and no night. It was a constant cycle. I loved Mia but I felt sometimes I couldn’t look at her.
“I didn’t have support. I wished I had a mum. Not my mum but a mum. Or a dad. I hadn’t spoken to my dad for three years.”
Antonia’s First Steps worker suggested Parent Network Scotland classes. Again, she wasn’t sure.
She said: “I thought I was going to be judged. I couldn’t cope being around people. I had isolated myself all those years.”
She dragged herself along – and knew straight away she had done the right thing.
Antonia said: “The facilitator was so warm, very attentive. The first thing she said was, ‘How are you?’ It had been a while since someone asked me that.”
The eight-week course covered the basics of parenting. Antonia learned it was OK to look after herself.
If she wasn’t functioning, how could she look after a baby?
She stopped saying no all the time and began using more positive language with Mia. When she threw toys on the floor, Antonia could control her anger. They would get down on the floor and pick them up together.
She credits the course with turning her life around, saying: “It built me up as a person. I felt looked after and cared for. I feel like I can be a model for Mia.
“Before, I didn’t really feel like her mum. I knew I did not want the same life for her. I just didn’t know how to get to it.”