Young mama by Marine

Reading time: 10 minutes.

My name is Marine Faure, I’m 22 years old, and I’m the mom of Ishaq, who is 17 months old. Before I got pregnant, I was a model. During my pregnancy, I gained 30 kilograms, and of course, my relationship with my body changed very quickly. I also lost my hair after giving birth when I regained my weight, so again, it was a huge blow to my self-confidence. I’ve always worked with my appearance. Suddenly, I had no reference points anymore. I stopped doing photos for a little while, but now I’m slowly getting back into it, alongside an entrepreneurial project I’m working on.

Meeting my husband

We met on vacation in Thailand: I had booked my tickets one evening at 10 p.m., and the next morning at 10 a.m., I was on a plane to join a friend. It was the spontaneous decision of a lifetime, the kind of crazy thing a 20-year-old would do. Once there, things went terribly wrong with my friend, and in the end, I met this guy. I didn’t even dare look him in the eye. I was so intimidated and immediately in love. We ended up spending our vacation together, we returned to Paris together, and we couldn’t be apart.

The pregnancy announcement

I was absolutely sure that I had found the right person. I was convinced it was him. I told everyone. A week before my expected period, I knew I was pregnant. I told my mom, and she said, “Stop with your nonsense.” But I knew it!

At that time, my mom was leaving for China for work (she’s a stylist). I took the test at six in the morning, and it was positive. I was left alone with the test, so I called a friend, and we went together to see a gynecologist.

The worry

I had to go to the gynecologist right away to make sure everything was okay. Whether he decided to be there or not didn’t matter; I was going to manage. So, I went to my gynecologist, but it was her substitute who greeted me. While my gynecologist is an amazing woman, this woman was brutal in her words, saying that there was a high chance my period would come in a week, that the baby might not survive, that many women go through this, and I probably wouldn’t even have known if I had waited to take the test. For a week, I felt awful."

Becoming parents, together

We come from very different worlds. We started talking and asking ourselves many questions. But I was also very euphoric, nothing was going to change my opinion or my point of view on the subject, which was to keep my baby. In the end, we decided that we were going to be parents, together. He was only 24 at the time. I called my mom to announce the news, even though she was still in China. When I told her, she was all worked up, afraid that I would be left alone. My dad, on the other hand, was immediately very happy for me. It was a bit the opposite for him: he thought I was taking responsibility.

A new step

We got married a month later, the pregnancy was going well, and we found an apartment in the following months. It was a big upheaval, everything took time to organize. Before moving in together, we lived at my mom's for six months. He would go to work and come home in the evening. It went really well. Then, all of a sudden, we had our own place, and since he was working and I stayed at home, we kind of played the roles of mom and dad. I was supposed to take care of the house a bit, but I didn’t know how to do that! It was very hard for me to think, “Okay, this is my life now?” Then Ishaq arrived.

The birth

The birth went really well. I gave birth at the Bluets, and I wanted to do it without an epidural. I took all the possible preparation classes. My water broke at 6 in the morning, and my contractions were immediately regular and opening my cervix. Everything went very smoothly until I had 7 hours of contractions without an epidural. I had a bath, laughing gas, etc. I arrived at the beginning of my midwife’s shift, so she was super engaged! It was great, my partner was also really prepared because he took all the classes with me. We were both super excited.

But after a while, the contractions started to hurt a lot, and I decided to go for the epidural. When the epidural started working, it was amazing! I wanted to call Ishaq “Epidural” (laughs). Best feeling ever, you have to advocate for the epidural. You can get up, go to the bathroom, choose the dose. It’s magical!

Except, I ended up not feeling my leg. I had overdone it. The midwife helped me turn to the other side, and an hour later, I started feeling it again. That’s when I felt the urge to push, we could see the head! My partner says, "Alright, it’s happening, it’s now." But I said I couldn’t, that it was too early, and I had told my friends I’d give birth at night. Laughter. And then no more contractions.

The wait

So we waited some more until the contractions came back. During all this time, I didn’t push the button to dose the epidural because I wanted to feel my leg. So I was really in pain, and it was time to push. And my partner, whom I had told not to look, kept looking, and I had to tell him to stop.

So I was stressed, I couldn’t push anymore. My partner, who could see everything, reassured me, saying, “I swear that at the next contraction, even if you don’t push, he’s going to come out because each time, he’s coming out a little more.” He really explained to me what was happening, and that motivated me. He helped me a lot. Finally, with that contraction, he came out, and they placed him on me.

Meeting my baby

The midwife covered him, and she left the room for at least thirty minutes. I was there with my baby, my placenta still inside. My partner didn’t want to cut the umbilical cord, even though he had seen everything, he wasn’t very comfortable (laughs). Anyway, it was a great birth.

I wanted to breastfeed, but Ishaq had a tongue tie, which we only noticed three months later. But at first, every breastfeeding session made me cry. After two days, I said enough. But that’s when my milk came in. My breasts were huge. They told me not to empty them because that would make it worse.

Despite that, the world arrival was great, and we went home. On the third day, we went to the pediatrician, a week after he was born. Everyone told me I didn’t need to go, that my baby was doing fine. I really wanted to get checked. During the visit, the pediatrician noticed that my baby had lost 300 grams and told us we had to go to the hospital immediately.

First hospitalization

We rushed there, but deep down, I thought they were just going to check everything and tell us everything was fine.

Upon arrival, they did a urine test and detected an infection. They took my baby to run more tests: a blood test and a lumbar puncture. I panicked when I heard “lumbar puncture.” They explained that the risks of the lumbar puncture were lower compared to the risks of the urinary infection he had. My world crashed, thankfully my partner was there.

We were then told that his kidneys were fine, but he had to be hospitalized for a week to receive antibiotics. We spent the week in the hospital, unable to rest or sleep. Ishaq had just been born, which meant waking up every three hours. Often the nurses would come right after he had just fallen asleep. We were exhausted. We were in a department where there were older children. Since Ishaq had already been discharged, we couldn’t put him in the neonatal unit. The doctors told us there were a lot of epidemics because of the winter, and we had to wash our hands well. The stress was overwhelming.

Two days before discharge, I noticed that he was having trouble breathing normally, intermittently. They said everything was fine, they listened to his lungs, and nothing seemed abnormal. He was also connected to electrodes, so he was being monitored. They told me not to worry.

Maternal intuition

The day of discharge, I gave him his bottle, and hundreds of little bumps appeared on his face. I filmed him to show the doctors, but they told me not to worry, it was probably just a milk allergy. At that moment, Ishaq started to have his breathing difficulties again, so I insisted that something wasn’t right. Again, according to them, all tests were fine, and there was nothing to report. They told me not to worry too much about babies.

We went home at 11 a.m. I talked to my mom all day, telling her everything that seemed off, but she thought it was normal for me to be worried given everything that had happened in the last two weeks. When I sent her a video of Ishaq, she told me to call the paramedics immediately. I hadn’t realized, but he was struggling so much to breathe.

Emergency for Ishaq

Five hours after leaving the hospital, I called the paramedics. They came and told me that my baby was fine, and once again, I heard the same phrase: "With children, you shouldn't pay too much attention to them."

I had to insist again. I told them that my baby wasn’t well, that he had slept all day, hadn’t eaten, and was breathing poorly. The paramedics decided to take us to the hospital, but they said it was just to "reassure us because we are young parents."

We were taken to another hospital. The person who greeted us immediately said that our baby had bronchiolitis. We arrived at 5 p.m. By 9 p.m., he had a tube for feeding below his stomach and a large respiratory tube.

The nurse told me that he wouldn’t have made it through the night without respiratory assistance. Luckily, I insisted. I felt like no one wanted to listen to me because I was a young mom at twenty. I was too young according to their standards. Every time, they reminded me that I was a young mom. There’s "young mom" as in "you just had a baby," but also "young mom" because of my age. But no matter the age, a mother’s instinct is really important.

Hospitalization

We stayed for ten days at the hospital for the bronchiolitis, a week of which was spent in the emergency department because they weren’t sure if he needed to be placed in intensive care. There are few spots, so they had to wait until the last possible moment. I was told it was going to get worse over the next few days, reaching a peak, and then it would start to improve. Every day, I asked them if my baby was going to die.

During all this time, I didn’t want to see anyone. I thought that as long as no one came, it wasn’t real. It was extremely difficult because my partner had to work; he’s self-employed, so if he doesn’t work, we don’t have any money. I stayed at the hospital all day and all night. I was so exhausted that sometimes I couldn’t even hear my baby screaming next to me. My brain was on pause. One day, I woke up, and I didn’t see my baby. The nurses had taken him to their office so I could sleep. Nothing could wake me up.

There was that famous peak, I saw everyone coming into the room to do X-rays, etc. I also saw the head of the intensive care unit. And that was the day I accepted visitors, and luckily, I wasn’t alone. Then things started to get better.

I began to discover my baby after twenty days because before that, he had feeding tubes, and he hardly ever woke up. He was fighting. After that, he started looking at me, and I was so shy, he amazed me.

Going home

When we went home, it was impossible for me to separate from him. I was glued to my baby, he slept on me. I didn’t move. Before that, with all the wires he had, I couldn’t hold him, I had to call a nurse to place him in my arms. And I couldn’t keep him for long because it would tire him out. After coming home, I stayed with him for eleven months. He was my baby.

During this period, I cried a lot. I got many comments from young moms or strangers who asked my age, whether it was really my child. It ranged from the security guard at the entrance of a museum to the flight attendant on the plane. People would address me informally, constantly telling me that I was too young to be a mom. One man on the street once told me to be careful, another time it was a delivery man in front of my door who commented on my age. All this happened during the first 6 months, when he was just a baby.

After that, I don’t know if I managed to put on a mask where people didn’t dare say anything about my age or my son anymore, or if it was because he grew up and people saw me interacting with him, but in any case, it calmed down.

Whether people think that I am not professionally accomplished, that I haven’t enjoyed enough, or anything else, it really hurt me. But today, it’s over. I know that as a mom, I’m on top of things, and I’m doing really well.

Advice for "young" moms

For me, it’s really important to connect with other moms. I lost a lot of friends my age. I’ve always had friends who were a bit older, but I still lost friends who were really close to me when I became a mom, because people don’t understand. Connecting with other moms, no matter their age, helped me gain confidence in myself as a mother. I met them through Instagram. One of my very good friends, I met through a story where I shared that I felt really alone. She responded, and we’ve been really close ever since.

I had never really made connections like that through Instagram. But when you become a mom, you really step into something that no one can understand unless they’re in it too. Even if you became a mom ten years ago, you forget some things. You forget certain parts of childbirth, for example, the pain, etc. You need to be surrounded by people who understand what you’re going through in the present moment. Even with your partner, he’s not living the same thing you are.

I had a miscarriage after Ishaq, and I told him that he couldn’t understand my pain because he doesn’t have a uterus. What’s happening inside me chemically, he can’t understand. He doesn’t have those hormones. But when you interact with people who are in the same phase or going through the same struggle as you, it’s easy to understand each other.

Josepha’s Loma Club is also a gem. It’s such a blessing to talk to other moms and keep in touch.

Reclaiming your body after childbirth

I started by not really focusing on my body. I took a photo every month, because I did that during my pregnancy too, but I didn’t look at myself. Gaining 30 kilos on a 1.60m frame is quite a lot. I had back problems, foot problems. My body really hurt. I went from a 85B to a 100E during my milk production.

I weighed myself once a month, noted it down, and moved on. It could only go down anyway, there was nothing discouraging about it. Then one day I reached the weight that felt right, but my body still isn’t something that amazes me.

I had a sagging chest. It’s not just that my breasts dropped, but actually, my glands sagged. It’s a surgery that can be covered depending on your mammogram, X-rays, etc. I think knowing that it’s sagging and not just my breasts falling, knowing that this happens to other women, that there’s something clinical behind it, is also what helps me accept it.

Right now, I’m still working on my body, even though I’ve lost all my pregnancy weight. For example, last summer I had 10 more kilos, so at the moment I’m rediscovering myself. It’s about re-accepting. For some women, it’s much quicker, everything goes back into place in a few months; for others, it takes longer.

I lost 30 kilos in 10 months, and my body went through a lot of different stages in a very short time. My chest changed a lot, my skin too. With each stage, you have to accept it. And I know that I’m still not “finished”; I’m still in the process with my body.

Final words

One day my friend Mathilde told me: "The days are long but the years are short." And that’s true for everything. Some days are really long, but in the end, everything passes so quickly.