This is an edited version of the piece I wrote shortly after giving birth to my daughter Reva, who recently turned 2. I’ve been taking some very long walks down memory lane, and today I was inspired to (re)share my feelings of those early hours after becoming a mother. Rereading now feels like looking at earth from outer space. A lot of time, space and perspective.
Historically, generations of women before us have hidden how gruesomely tiring, lonely, and difficult becoming a mother can be. You’re celebrated and cherished during pregnancy. Your every whim is tended to, your every desire deemed reasonable. And then you give birth, and it is impossible to fathom thinking about yourself for a split second. Your own parents waltz right by you in the doorway to cuddle the baby. While you become highly visible to your baby, you become somewhat invisible to the outside world. At least for a few months, you are in a cocoon of mother and baby. That duality is difficult to stomach.
All of the routines you have known, the structures have put into place vanish, quite literally over night, and you must begin anew. Not only to figure out how the day will look, but also, to figure out who were before and who you will become. 2+ years in, I can tell you, I’m still working on it. My identity is being completely reshaped as we speak, no matter how much I try to say otherwise.
I recently saw an influencer post a photo of herself 5 days post birth. It was not a styled or pretty photo. It was real. There was mesh underwear and pumping wires, frizzy hair and a messy apartment in the background. I felt myself tighten up and then came a wave of emotion. I remembered how it all began, and how it unfolded.
Below is my story.
As many of you know, I come from a BIG family. So does my husband. I’ve been around babies for most of my life, and I have always been told I’ll be a natural. I had a fairly easy pregnancy. I read the books. I did my research. And at the end of the day, absolutely none of it mattered. Nothing, and I mean nothing, could have prepared me for the early days of being a new mom.
After I gave birth to Reva, everything moved so fast. It almost felt like I was watching a movie from my hospital bed. The nurses zipped around and clipped and wiped and it was all sort of blur. Reva cuddled on my naked chest, she tried to latch, they weighed her and dressed her, and soon enough, I was wheeled into recovery, fueled by adrenaline and the epidural. Speaking of epidural, I didn’t intend on getting one. In fact, almost nothing about my birth was how I envisioned it.
I honestly thought that I would labor at home with candles and Florence and the Machine playing in the background. I figured after a few hours, we would head to the hospital with perfect timing, push out the baby, and voila! Instead, I went to the doctor 5 days after my due date, was told I had low fluid, and that it was time to wrap this party up. My tenant was being evicted without notice. Of course, it was the one and only time we drove our car to the city without the hospital bag packed.
Inside of the recovery room, our families started to trickle into our tiny shared room, filling the space with affection, love, and noise. We were in awe of the newest member of our family. Nature had taken over and my hormones were steering the ship. I felt nothing but love. I wasn’t hungry, sleepy, or even tired. Esty, my 22-year old nurse, handed me a giant bag of supplies for bathroom use including ice packs, numbing gel, numbing spray, mesh underwear, and witch hazel pads. I graciously accepted the huge shopping bag of free products thinking to myself that I wouldn’t need it. I would be fine!
Eventually, everyone went home and it was just me, Brandon, and baby Reva. And our extremely loud roommates who were planning their son’s bris at midnight. “Are the wontons filled with cream cheese?” she asked, while I prayed that she stop rustling, moving, talking. I was itching for a few minutes of privacy that inherently cannot be found inside of a bright hospital room.
With the help of the kind and helpful nurses, we worked on getting the baby to latch and breastfeed. Newborn babies eat every 2-3 hours, which doesn’t really click until you wake up in the middle of the night to the sound of your daughter screaming. Also, babies are very sleepy which doesn’t make them the best eaters. I mean, you try getting up at 4AM and scarfing down a cheeseburger. Not so easy.
So imagine this: It’s the middle of the night in our shared hospital room, and I’m holding my baby, profusely sweating because I can’t figure out the right angle to keep my arms at so I’m basically doing a 40-minute arm exercise with a seven pound weight. She screams, smacking her face into my nipple, kinda missing the point (pun intended.) Brandon is next to me, pulling her hand out of her mouth, trying to be helpful although he too is clueless, and nervous, and it’s late, and it’s awkward. We did this all night, over and over and over again, with each nurse giving us different anecdotal evidence. Some propped me up on pillows, others helped to hold the baby at unnatural angles and told me to imagine a football. Somehow, none of this felt very natural.
Before we came to the hospital, I said there was no way I would let the nurses take my baby to the nursery overnight. Nope, I needed her by my side so we could establish a good breastfeeding relationship, like the books said! And then, you know, reality hit me like a ton of bricks. I was running on two days of zero sleep and my body is exhausted and my eyes are drooping shut. I felt so guilty, and only now, looking back I realize that guilt was unnecessary. It’s okay to need help. It’s okay to want some separation from your newborn. And it’s okay for your “birth plan” (which I put in quotes because the whole concept is kind of funny after you’ve given birth) to change.
We survived the night, and morning seemed like a new day. I was energized by sunlight, fresh flowers, and the hope that day two was going to be easier. Until, I decided to walk to the bathroom. The painkillers had subsided, and so had the rush of giving birth. All I was left with was my stupid, giant, bag of supplies. I was hobbling, managing both the pain and the giant diaper I had to wear. Why didn’t anyone warn me?
On Saturday afternoon, we were discharged from the hospital. Both Brandon and I were so excited to get home with our little peanut. The amount of stuff that we had was comical and unnecessary. As we wheeled away from room 317, our little car-seat-stroller gliding smoothly over the glossy hospital floors, l felt like I was sneaking out. I kept looking back, waiting for someone to stop us. Were they (who is they, I don’t know…) sure we could take her? Was she definitely the right baby? Was no one going to be home helping me hold her like a football, or swaddle her, or calm her when she cried? Mentally, I was feeling a roller coaster of emotions. And physically, I felt like I had gotten hit by a car. Except instead of tending to my wounds, the doctors handed me a baby and said here! She is so cute! You’ll feel better in no time.
I was bleeding, leaking colostrum, and bone tired. I had brought a cute outfit to wear when we left the hospital, but of course it was too small in all the wrong places, and I now regretted taking off my pajamas. We walked the block and a half to our car, breathing in the hot summer air, and remembering (for a split second) that there is in fact, a whole world outside of the three of us. I looked at the stores around me, the people going about their everyday life. The man sitting and leisurely sipping his cappuccino. The woman walking her dog, the teenager walking while staring at her phone. I fearfully left my warm hospital bubble and prepared for my reality at home.