What Mothering Sunday means to me

Mothering Sunday and stress

Stress can be a nightmare to live with, and certain things trigger it for me.

Here’s an example: Is my MS behaving itself? Great! Then a big ball of stress and sadness comes along for me to untangle, and exhaust myself in the process. All my symptoms flare up and my ability to do anything – literally anything – worsens. I feel so sorry for myself that even I can’t bear to be in the same room as myself! For years, Mother’s Day was one of those damn triggers.

Trying to get pregnant

With MS, I was dealing with not being able to work, run, concentrate, do up buttons in under ten minutes and a host of other things that my mind and body no longer found straightforward. On top of that it took me eleven years of trying before I finally fell pregnant with my daughter. Those eleven years that I wasn't a mother were hard!

I felt like I was a failure, that my body was pulling yet another stunt on me. That my MS was to blame for my unexplained infertility (it wasn’t, by the way, just one of those things).

Reframing the situation

So, I made a conscious effort to reframe the day in my head. I wasn’t a mother (the noun), but I could mother (the verb).

And my lovely husband would buy me a card from our cats, and present me with the Sunday papers, cups of tea, and packets of biscuits in bed each Mothering Sunday, so I didn’t feel left out.

Astonishingly, the annual stress and sadness that would spike my MS symptoms at this time of year gradually got better.

After 11 years, my daughter arrived

My lovely daughter was born on New Year’s Day, 2013. Alongside the Mothering Sunday cards she's since made in playgroup she went through a phase of persuading her dad to let her chose my Mothering Sunday present herself. A fine idea, I hear you cry! Well, one year my present was a very expensive rose-patterned silk dress – for her. Another year it was a Minions art set – which she insisted was kept in her room at all times. But the thought was there, I’m sure!

My favourite present was a tiny scrap of writing paper on which she wrote ‘I luv yoo mum x’. I keep it safe (so safe, in fact, that I cannot remember where it is) as to me it is priceless.

A day that suits me

Now, come March 27, I’ll hope for another such message from her, because I hate surprises. Booking meals out always seems to coincide with my fatigue being though the roof, or a bout of vertigo, not to mention my late-onset food allergies! Mothering Sunday bouquets are always overpriced and half-dead, so I don’t need them either, thank you.

No, a kind word, and the Sunday papers, cups of tea, and biscuits in bed, are all that I desire. I hope that all of you have a happy Mothering Sunday, too, in whichever way is right for you. x