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When you become pregnant for the first time, you may notice a slight swelling at the base of your throat. It increases gradually as pregnancy progresses, and once your baby is born, it enlarges quite dramatically. The swelling continues to enlarge for another twenty to thirty years, after which it gradually decreases in size. It hardly ever regains its original size. This is due to enlargement of your guilt gland. The risk of complications is fairly high, but treatment is usually symptomatic. Surgery is necessary only in rare and extreme cases. Enlargement of the guilt gland seems unavoidable, but is usually less dramatic with each subsequent pregnancy.
Your guilt
gland may also enlarge more noticeably with the following:
Having a
caesar
Having a vaginal birth
Breastfeeding
Not breastfeeding
Giving solids
Not giving solids
Weaning baby from the breast
Not weaning baby from the breast
Staying home
Going to work
Waking baby from a nap
Not waking baby from a nap
Rocking him to sleep
Not rocking him to sleep
Letting him play in mud
Not letting him play in mud
Taking him to a playgroup
Not taking him to a playgroup
Giving baby medicine
Not giving baby medicine
Buckling a crying baby into a car seat
ot buckling baby into a car seat
Etc. You get the idea, I’m sure, and if you already have your baby, you’ll know exactly what I mean.
Whatever you do, there seems to be a sense of guilt about what you are doing, when you are doing it, how you are doing it, why you are doing it, where you are doing it, and/or just simply because you are doing it. Or not doing it. You can’t seem to escape it, it follows you everywhere. Perhaps this is nature’s way of making sure we look after our babies properly.
We sometimes carry our guilt around with us for ever. It’s a heavy burden. Sometimes we even feel guilty about things which might happen sometime in the future, but which mostly don’t happen at all.
Very often we women take all the blame upon ourselves when things go wrong. And when things go right, we usually say it was just good luck. Try changing it around: When things go wrong, blame it on bad luck. When things go right, take all the credit.
Let go of
guilt. Mistakes are inevitable, but children will forgive most of our
mistakes, as long as we love them. Forget about being a perfect mother.
There is no such thing. Be a good-enough mother. You are doing your best,
and that is good enough. And remember that most children eventually turn
out OK, not because of how we raised them, but in spite of it.
© Erica Neser-Nieuwenhuis. Erica is the author of Baby Sleep Guide. See www.adept.co.za/~erica for more info.
