Halinah Neal

Tell us a bit about yourself?

Hi! My names Halinah! I’ve lived in Canberra my whole life and love it! Honestly wouldn’t live anywhere else. About 18 months ago my fiancé and I bought our family home and have been renovating it over the last 6 months. We’ve been together for nearly 6 years and we’re due to be married last September... but then COVID happened so we decided to slip the wedding back a year, and bring our dream of starting a family forward a year and 3 weeks ago we welcomed our little girl Winslow (Winnie) into our family.

What were you doing before babies?

Enjoying being an auntie to my adorable niece (Georgia) and nephews (Oscar and Harrison) and focusing on my career. I’ve always been a bit of a workaholic from working multiple hospitality jobs as a teenager to never really grasping the concept of a “9-5” job, starting early and finishing late because I was so passionate about my projects. COVID hit, and it changed my total outlook on work. All our work travel was suspended and I was essentially forced to slow down a bit.

How did you come to be a mum?

As I said, COVID forced me to slow down. Having more time at home, meant more time to make babies! We were super fortunate to fall pregnant relatively easily the first time but sadly, like so many women, that pregnancy ended in a miscarriage. We were devastated but determined to try again and to our surprise, within 6 weeks of our miscarriage we were pregnant again. We were so excited! But I was also extremely anxious. It probably wasn’t until our first scan when were heard the heartbeat that I realised that I probably didn’t have enough time to process our first loss before falling pregnant again. It meant that for a good chunk of my pregnancy I was extremely emotionally and shit fucking scared of loosing this baby too. I feel as though society makes women feel that they must enjoy every bit of their pregnancy journey because so many women don’t get this opportunity but for me I just couldn’t see how people loved it. I was uncomfortable from day one, I gained a lot of weight really quickly, I had terrible back pain and on top of all of that, I was scared. I was scared to loose the baby and I found that I was actually scared to be a mum. Even though for years it’s all I could think about! It was an emotional rollercoaster that’s for sure.

Early on in my pregnancy I found out I had a low laying placenta which unfortunately didn’t move during my pregnancy and prevented me from having a natural birth. This didn’t worry me. I told my obstetrician that I didn’t have a birth plan and I’d follow his lead. He waited till the 11th hour to make a decision because I think they really want women to do natural if they can, I assume from a recovery point of view. Anyway, he booked us in around 36 weeks and at exactly 38 weeks, on the 4th of March our baby girl joined us via caesarean section. Recovery has been really good the first 10 days were a bit difficult but since then I hardly even remember I had major surgery, unless I’m walking for long periods of time, then I get these super attractive sweats... and my scar starts to sting a little.

What has your feeding journey been like?

I’m only at week 3, but so far it’s going good. My milk didn’t come in until day 5 which was stressful for me because I was already worried that I wouldn’t be able to breastfeed. I was hand expressing colostrum for the first 2 days and my partner and I were getting so excited when we’d get 1ml! But that excitement soon turned to frustration on day 2 when the midwives said she needed more than 1ml now because her stomach had grown! I felt defeated already.. it was taking me over 20 minutes of hand expressing just to get 1ml and now I was expected to get between 10-20mls! Thankfully we were offered formula on day 2 which we took without hesitation. Whilst I wanted to breastfeed I wasn’t going to kill myself over it. Day 5 hit and I started expressing using the hospitals electric pump and when I looked down and saw actual milk.. and a lot of it.. I cried, took a photo of my milking boobs and sent it to my girlfriends! We are now 3 weeks in and I’m exclusively breastfeeding and my little babe is gaining weight like a champion! Aside from the fact my boobs are massive (even prior to having a baby) and it requires both my hands, a feeding pillow and two pillows behind my back to ensure she doesn’t drown in the boobie, while it’s working we’ll keep going!

What has sleep been like in your house?

I’ve gone from sleeping a solid 9-10 hours a night to adjusting to broken sleep every 2-3 hours. But surprisingly we are coping well. Winslow sleeps between her bassinet next to our bed and then in our bed between us. Lately it’s been more of the latter because she seems to settle after a feed a lot quicker in our bed. We were so determined to have a routine from day 1... what a joke that was haha!

The hardest bits…

So far, probably the advice you receive from everyone. Everyone has their own opinions on how people should raise their children and it’s very overwhelming for new parents. I don’t think I’ve googled so much shit in my whole life “does my baby poo too much, is she ok” “I think my baby is having a nightmare” “can I over feed my baby” “can I under feed my baby” “will my baby ever sleep a full 9 hours”.

The best bits…

Watching my partner be a dad. I knew he would be amazing but actually seeing it... it’s something else!

How do you make time for you?

I really struggle in the evenings between 9-12pm from exhaustion so we’ve been trialing me expressing a bottle and then going to bed at 9 and getting a couple of hours of deep sleep before the peak nighttime feeds. It’s a lifesaver at the moment but once we find our groove a bit more I’d love to get out to have dinner with my girlfriends while bub stays with her dad for a few hours.

What’s next for you and your family?

Just enjoying our little Winslow! We only want 2 babies and probably won’t consider number 2 for a couple of years. We are so excited to finally have our girl with us and for the next 18 months we want to focus on her exclusively!