About the Club

Hello! And welcome! Perhaps you are wondering about the name of the blog.  Well, the “Club” was born as a collateral.

The story goes more or less like this.

I was scheduled by one midwife to go to my antenatal course. The first day of the course I was running late (as usual; I will be late for my own funeral, like Liz Taylor used to say (and she did!). To be bluntly honest I did not want to go; it was raining cats and dogs to say the least and I was tired, very tired. Thanks to my partner who dragged me to the car and dropped me at the midwife’s clinic I (finally) arrived.

I took a deep breath, it was taking me quite a while to get my head around about what was going to happen, and I did not feel like going around listening to people that I did not know, never mind talking about the zillions of doubts I had in my brain.

As I walked towards the room where they were, I heard some giggles, and soon after, laughter. As I walked into the room thinking how I was going to apologise, I saw a midwife on the floor, pretending to be in labour, and she was making the whole situation so hilarious that I couldn’t help but giggle.

The midwife spotted me and she stood up, I apologised for being late to which she couldn’t care less, she was happy I was there, and carried on explaining more about labour.

I sat, in silence listening to the midwife and looking around to my fellow companions, and listening to their questions, their opinions. Different ages, different paths of life, and that we were all in the same boat. It was there were I met “the girls”. The feeling when I came back home was an odd one; I did learn a lot, things that my mother wouldn’t tell me (neither would I ask!), things that the internet doesn’t explain, things that I never ever thought about. This thing about being pregnant was complicated. More complicated than what I thought. I wasn’t happy or upset but for once, being in this fellowship with complete strangers was somehow a relief.

I did go back to the following meeting and I kept learning more, preparing myself for what today I can say with confidence is “the unexpected” because it does not matter how many antenatal classes you have, how many books you read, how many websites you read and subscribe to, nothing can prepare you for what it is to come.

Soon the complete strangers became “the girls” and I don’t want to think about how could things would be now if I didn’t go to that antenatal class.

One Thursday I came back from the antenatal meeting, and my partner asked how it was. I explained to him that the topic that day was breast feeding, and how to stimulate “happy hormones” in order to produce milk. I shortened the whole two hours class in one phrase : “How to make your boobs happy”. My partner looked at me like I was mental, but that was the best short explanation I could come up with in a language that he would understand about the class that day.

Finally the moment came, my son was born and the world turned upside down forever. During our first month of life everything I have learnt during the antenatal classes was useful but somehow not enough. I wondered how the girls were doing; one of the girls was “the messenger” keeping all the group informed on how everybody was doing. One day, a text message came, asking me if I was going to the “breast feeding cafe” where the girls from the ante-natal classes were meeting. I decided to go, and this time my partner did not have to drag me. He just dropped me at the midwife clinic with my little one.

After the meeting, with the girls we all agreed to meet the following Wednesday. And so we kept meeting every Wednesday, but not at the clinic. Now we decided to meet in a Coffee Shop. Needless to say we still do it, and when my partner asks what I’m doing on a Wednesday afternoon, I simply say “Happy boob club” and that’s it. With the girls we share the sunny sides of our little ones, questions the dark corners of motherhood and the lack of sleep.

The idea of this blog is a collection of all the conversations we had with the girls, and the realisation that perhaps there are so many new mums on the same boat but they don’t dare to ask, or perhaps they don’t dare to talk or to share their experiences, not only about their babies but about the day to day we have to face our new reality.

So here it is, the Happy Boob Club, a blog about motherhood, and everything in between.

Hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it.