Rachel O'Connor
Tell us a bit about yourself?
I'm Rachel O'Connor and I am mum to Spencer who is almost 10 months old - which seems entirely crazy in itself! I moved to Canberra 6 and half years ago from Sydney and then met my husband and bought a house and I guess I'm here for the long haul!
What were you doing before babies?
I am a travel agent so I would say that I was travelling! I have been to over 30 countries and 6 out of 7 continents. Most recently before my son and before COVID closing all the borders, I was on my honeymoon in the USA & Canada with a week spent in the Caribbean. I've been lucky to go to some incredible places like Egypt, South America, Europe and Cuba to name a few. Throughout my pregnancy I was navigating the chaos that was COVID and travel where I was helping my clients come home from overseas and also cancelling the trips that my clients had booked for 2020.
How did you come to be a mum?
Spencer was born in October 2020. I've always liked babies and thought I'd have them some day but it wasn't until I saw my best friend become a mum and how she managed her day to day that I realised that it was something I could actually handle each day. I don't think you're ever 100% ready for it but watching her made me believe that I could do it.
What has your feeding journey been like?
In short, I didn't love breastfeeding. I liked exactly two things about it - it was free and it was convenient. I had to use nipple shields through the entirety of my breastfeeding journey because my nipples were too large and too flat for him. Unlike the rhetoric that you see pretty much everywhere, I didn't wake up soaked in my own breastmilk, or leak that much at all. Instead, I would find myself with lumpy engorged breasts. I was lucky that it never progressed to mastitis but I worked hard to keep it that way. I did so with heat packs, ice packs, hot showers, pumping, massaging the lumps, feeding through the pain of it to make sure that it didn't get out of hand. Spencer was fed both breastmilk and formula from the day we got home from the hospital. My milk was on a 24hr delay because Spencer had had a good feed of whatever they consume in the womb before he exited so he didn't need to feed for the first 24hrs. This meant that when we got home, I had nothing to give him and he was hungry! So, I sent my husband to Woolies to get formula. It was really helpful in those first few weeks when Spencer would need to cluster feed and my nipples were all cracked and bleeding because I had the ability to say that I didn't want to do this feed and my husband could give him a bottle instead. I was very thankful for the 3-month breastfeeding regression where my engorgement completely subsided. If this hadn't happened, I don't think I would've been able to continue. We stopped breastfeeding at 6 months and he's been on formula from then on.
What has sleep been like in your house?
We had the best little sleeper when he was a newborn and in the first few months. Every night is different but right now, we're deep in the 8 month sleep regression and he's teething so we get at least one wake up a night and he more often than not ends up sleeping in our bed with us as it's where he's the most comfortable because he feels safe and secure.
The hardest bits…
The isolation of having a baby during a pandemic. I couldn't really have any visitors in hospital which meant that I rushed home only to be back in the ward 2 days later with a fever and an internal infection. I also struggled with finding my tribe beyond my family and best friends - most of whom live in Sydney or Brisbane. I naïvely thought as long as I put in the effort to catch up with my friends when asked then my friendships could remain mostly unchanged. I saw my life as it has been pre-baby, going to dinner or grabbing coffee and he would just come too. I always had assumed that friendships slipped away because the mother said no too much, or she made excuses to not go or pulled out at the last minute. What I didn't expect was that no one was reaching out to catch up. It went from messages of congratulations and "I'd love to meet him when you're ready" to zero contact. I actually wrote an article about it that you can find on Mamamia because I knew that what I was going through wasn't an isolated incident and I wanted other mums out there to know that they weren't alone. It made me start to get quite resentful towards my husband because he'd go out with friends for baby-free time and I realised that I wasn't resentful that he was leaving me behind, it was because when he told me I should just make plans and go out too, I had no idea who I could call to do it.
The best bits…
After every hard, frustrating, never-ending day or night, this little human that you made smiles at you or reaches for you and is just so excited by your existence that you forget all the crappy moments (for a time at least). Watching Spencer grow is the most amazing gift. I can't believe how much he's changed in these last 9 months but I also can't wait to see what's next.
How do you make time for you?
I am back at work now a couple of days a week so I have my "long showers" on the nights before I work where I wash my hair and shave my legs and exfoliate and all that stuff. But it's my uninterrupted time. My husband also does bedtime which really gives me space to decompress from the day.
What’s next for you and your family?
I've just returned to work from maternity leave which is nice step into finding who I am post-baby. Spencer is in daycare and just loving it and absolutely thriving! I'm hoping to get back to travelling soon and start to have amazing adventures as a family. I have all these ideas about the kind of trips I want to take with him so fingers crossed we can do that sooner rather than later.
Rachel also wrote about having a baby during a pandemic over at Mamamia.
You can read it here: www.mamamia.com.au/pandemic-baby/