We Got To Grow Up Together.

Something odd happens when you have a child at a time when you are just becoming an adult yourself. I mean, I was 19 when I became a parent which isn't dramatically young, like MTV wouldn't have wanted me to feature on their show for example. However, it was absolutely at the age where I had no clue about anything. I remember my Aunt and Uncle etc being on holiday at the time of the "announcement" and feeling quite baffled that my Mum called to tell them. It was actually that long ago that the "announcement" was either face to face or via the phone (maybe via text if I had credit....CREDIT FFS!!) because social media wasn't a thing.

And truly it wasn't an announcement like you see these days online with balloons, banners and boxes with baby grows in.

It was a tear filled panic of what the fuck are we going to do?

One of the two photos I have of pregnant me.

Over the last few years so many of my friends have had children, intentionally. I've seen friends go through hell to become parents. There has been chat about ovulation cycles, private scans and then gender reveals. As well as IVF, adoption panels and beautiful new beginnings. And as much as I have supported and celebrated my friends, it's always felt so strange that they actually planned for this new chapter in their lives. And then when they brought their children home, conversations switched to next-to-me cribs, ISOFIX car seats and Ollie the Owl. Now, even though I had a head start on parenthood, and by the time they had new-borns my son was belting out "This is me" from the Greatest Showman in his year six leavers assembly, I had simply no clue on what any of this was. Yes, some of it wasn't around when I gave birth, I didn't even have a phone with internet on let alone apps that you can track sleep and feeds with. And everyone is buzzing over an owl that I still don't know what he does, but he is very well respected in his field I believe.

But it's not just the terminology and technology I was lost with, it was this lifestyle they were all going on to live with their "had-them-on-purpose" babies.

Taken four weeks before his arrival.

They were going on maternity leave, and then working out plans for "keeping in touch days" upon their return to the same place. I worked in a pub that gently suggested I started my maternity leave at the earliest opportunity, and then as I hadn't worked there very long at all I only received the government's contribution to maternity pay, which I believe was a grand total of £108 a week. They then also didn't legally have to give me a job after my "leave" was up. So it wasn't really leave at all. I just left. When he was a few months old I got a job at the local hospital doing tea rounds on the wards. It was quite lovely actually, and I got to wear a hair net so it didn't matter that I didn't go to the hairdressers for 2 whole years.

They went to private antenatal classes where they made friends, I went to ones at my doctors, which were lovely (and free) but I was the youngest there by many years and fainted most weeks due to lack of iron, and probably common sense if that's possible. So it wasn't a shock I didn't make any new mum friends at these gatherings.

Let it also be known, he was 9lb 7oz at birth. Apparently that's ever so big.

They listened to podcasts, read blogs online and had baby showers where people offered advice and gifted really useful presents from wish lists. I rationed myself to reading one page a week in the "Emma's Diary" magazine given to me by the midwife, feeling like that meant I had my shit together because I knew what fruit my baby shared a size with. This does mean though, that when my hands and feet started itching at 38 weeks it was incredibly fortunate I was already in hospital because if I'd been at home, I would have probably wacked on some moisturiser and kept watching Deal or No Deal rather than raise the alarm that something was wrong, like the nurse did who overheard me asking my mum for some E45 cream.

Babies, literal babies.

I know women have been having babies for thousand's of years, many without access to the internet and many, many more without gadgets that have become standard these days. But I feel like having a baby at that age plus that baby not being planned, results in you wading through the 9 months quite awkwardly. I also know how lucky I was to have a healthy baby just like that (no ovulation consultations over here, just a missed pill and a lot of denial), and as I looked at my friends with envy for having the money and the means to plan for a child in their late 20's/early 30's, they also probably looked at me and thought it was a tad unfair I hadn't had to go through a biological struggle to become a parent.

It was never that I wished I was having another baby, I always knew I was a "one and done" at all points over the last 19 years. But I did always have that slight ache that I have never, and will never, get to experience the excitement of a pregnancy and new-born journey. And while I of course know that it's not an excitement for everyone, and some never get to experience it at all so I am extremely lucky I did, I often think it would have been nice for him to have had a more "I'm ready for this" rather than "I'm totally winging this" upbringing. Maybe featuring Ollie the Owl?

The other strange part of releasing an adult into the world , is that people very often tend to tell you that "You get your time now!" When it was all nights out, girls holidays and forging career paths, I was trying to figure out how old The Tweenies were meant to be and what was Max's official role in the nursery. I of course still went out with my friends because my Mum is an angel, and they themselves were always amazing at nights in with me and a baby who cried, a lot. But now I'm out of that world whilst they are in it, although from what I gather it's Bluey that everyone watches and I think Max is possibly on a register, don't quote me on that though.

The thing is, you don't stop being a parent when they stop being a child.

Even though my son is now 19 and taller than me, the worries I have for him these days are honestly more intense and horrific than I did when he was little. It's almost like because we grew up together, I didn't see the world for him, I saw it with him, while we figured it out together. But now he is at the age I was when I had him, I feel like I know about this part. So I don't feel like I "get my time now" at all. Yes, I don't have to navigate childcare in the summer holidays, but I do have to wish him well as he boards planes for lads holidays, while my anxiety goes through the roof because I genuinely believe I could keep him safer in an aeroplane than a literal pilot could.

I don't have to get through night feeds or colic exhausting me, but I do have to try and relax when he is on nights out in various cities while the news is filled with knife crime and other tragedies taking the lives of teenagers.

Not a clue, literally not a clue.

I don't have to arrange with my Mum what time I will drop him off on the bus and get him the next day so I can slap on some fake tan and go for drinks with my friends. But I do have to stop myself from asking my husband if he thinks the ambulance sirens we can hear round the corner, are on their way to the son (I know full well) is over an hour away.

I have however, had the honour of sharing so many of my firsts with him, as he did with me. Moments that I wouldn't have had the opportunity to experience if I'd become a parent later.

I got to see his first steps as he plodded towards my arms, and I got to walk down the aisle with my arm in his.

My husband said we looked like a bit of a rabble walking down as a three, but it was one of the best moments.

Even though he is pretty much covered in tattoos now, he promises he will never cover this one.

We saw each other pass our driving tests and we have matching tattoos, mine says "I love you" his says "I love you more".

And a few years ago, we lived together just me, him and our dog and bloody hell, it was a chaos but it was so gorgeous.

We didn't have it all together, but together we had it all.

And I will never, ever, get bored of people saying "No way you're his Mum, you're not old enough!" Shout out to teen pregnancy and Botox!

Essentially, we get to see each other grow up, so although I don't "get my time now", what a bloody good time I've got to have.