Writer Jane Upton reflects on the ideas and feelings that helped shape her powerful Bruntwood Prize shortlisted play

Dear Jane,

Here you are, in the garden in early labour. It’s a hot May evening and you’re in the rented bungalow. The weird brown house full of pine with the most beautiful garden curated by a woman who’s died and a man who has dementia. They had their children here and now you will. You feel excited and full of youth still. Later, before labour really kicks in, you’ll put some wellies on and get your husband to take naked pics of you outside the greenhouse. These are the last moments of just you. You as girl. You as child. You as woman. The before.

Let me tell you, it hurts. Birth is painful. You’ve watched the videos and you’ve got the TENS machine and the playlist but nothing can prepare you for this. They say listen to your body and I would advise you to do that, but you won’t because it’s an ethereal thing and birth is scary for anyone less than an earth mother. Be kind to yourself.

What you don’t realise is that the way your brain works now, the things you struggle with, routine and organisation and reasonableness and decisiveness, they will all follow you into motherhood. You won’t suddenly become this fully grown, mature, accomplished adult who sees the meaning of life. People say all sorts of things – like you will become more efficient and use your time more wisely, and suddenly things you thought were important will become meaningless. This is not true. You will still be chaotic, you will still leave everything to the last minute, you will still hate routine. Be kind to yourself. What makes you amazing now will still be there. Embrace those things. Humour, spontaneity, adaptability, empathy, deep feeling. As much as you can, own who you are and don’t let it chip away at you.

Motherhood is scary. You don’t realise that yet. Taking full responsibility for a baby is terrifying at times – a lot of the time. People tell you it comes naturally but it doesn’t always. If you have an overactive imagination and obsessive tendencies, they might get worse in the middle of the night when you’ve had no sleep and your baby is crying out in pain. Don’t swallow those fears, talk openly, explain how you feel. You are not insane, it is just your personality on overdrive. Understanding your personality and how it might be triggered by things can help you put things into perspective. People will tell you to “listen to your instincts” but that’s a lot of pressure. Find people you trust who can reassure you. Your friend who is a nurse, your cousin who is a doctor. They know and love you.

Your first birth and the subsequent years will be pretty “normal” – you will still feel like your life and your identity has been exploded but that’s to be expected. You will cope and even thrive. You will love the long days of babyhood and toddlerhood with your little girl and all the new experiences. You will be nervous and anxious and afraid but not in an extraordinary way.

The second birth will be different. It’s going to go wrong. You will spend two terrifying weeks in neonatal and then years dealing with the post-traumatic aftermath of that. I am talking to you six years later so I can’t even tell you if it ends. It’s all an evolution. You will feel completely lost and alone and terrified. Fight or Flight will be your default mode and it will wring you dry of everything you’ve got. Luckily, and eventually you will feel lucky – not in a simple way, it will be tied up with a panic in your gut and a fear of the future, but still a sense of luck too – luckily, you will get to a state where you are not always scared, just sometimes. But it’s going to be very complicated and your marriage will be tested, possibly beyond what it can cope with, let’s see. Because also, your husband’s personality will become exaggerated by trauma and fatherhood, and all the things you loved about him, the opposite qualities to your own, will become entrenched. His need for plans and routine will crash up against your chaos and it will be hard not to feel angry and resentful. Both of you.

I think my advice to you is this. Be kind. Try always to approach everything with love. It’s easy to say. It’s very hard to do. But I think it is the answer. Your children. Your husband. Yourself. Approach with kindness and love. We are still trying to figure it out. Things you thought might be simple will become hugely complicated once kids are involved. And that’s as it should be. But be kind.

And write. Write about it all. Be honest. It is your pipeline through the earth with a megaphone on the end of it. It’s where sanity will find you. Keep writing.

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