Caroline was six weeks old on Thursday. According to the pregnancy books, my postpartum period has ended. I’ve experienced a lot during these recent weeks. Of everything I’ve read about the postpartum period, the most helpful article came from the most unexpected place.
About two weeks after she was born, I was given a Lamaze Parents 2006 magazine by the visiting nurse. Most of it was, naturally, about childbirth. I almost didn’t even bother looking through it, but I did – just in case there was something really good. There was an article entitled “Straight Talk for New Parents” by Kathryn McGrath about the first six weeks postpartum. I’ve tried to find the article online, but with no success. The magazine is put out by www.ivillage.com. I am hoping they won’t mind if I quote extensively here since it is such a good article.
Six Weeks Postpartum – Realistically
I think what I appreciated the most is that it was a realistic look at the postpartum period. They said things that you don’t usually find mentioned elsewhere. In fact, if you read enough pregnancy websites, you start to realize how much they all plagiarize each other. There is very little unique content from site to site – they all say pretty much the same thing.
So here are a few truths I experienced during my postpartum period. I put them on my website in hopes that they might be a timely word for another new mom sometime in the future. As the article says:
Research shows that parents who anticipate the changes realistically fare much better than those who don’t.
In random order…
Recovering from childbirth takes longer than six weeks.
A four- to six-week recovery period is unrealistic for the majority of women. The truth is, your physical and emotional recovery should be thought of in terms of months rather than weeks.
Thank you very much! I’m a little tired of these “I felt great and went to Walmart eight hours after my twins were born” stories I see. Thank you for a more realistic approach to the reality of what many women face.
Your baby’s birth is not the end of your pregnancy experience.
And you thought it was over in nine months. Actually, some of your most important work takes place after childbirth – mulling it over in your mind, making sense of what happened and matching what you felt on the inside with what other people saw on the outside. The greater the discrepancy between what you expected and what you got, the tougher this task will be.
It’s very important that you have supportive people around you (starting with your partner) who will listen to your birth story nonjudgementally – as many times as you need to tell it. By reviewing the experience with someone else, you can better understand it yourself and successfully move on to other issues of mothering.
If you’ve read my blog for any length of time, especially this, I think it should be fairly obvious why that section meant a lot to me.
With change, there is loss.
We’re all aware of the indescribably wonderful joys that come with having a new baby: There’s nothing quite like the feeling of having a sweet-smelling newborn nuzzle into your neck. But the birth of a baby also brings some necessary losses – your lifestyle, freedom and income. The appropriate reaction to loss is grief, and the only way to get to the other side of it is to move through it. Our culture tends to shun new parents who express any sadness. We tell parents they should feel only joy and gratitude, but this doesn’t make any sense. Having a baby is no doubt the biggest life adjustment you will every make; it’s only natural that you’ll feel emotions from both ends of the spectrum. Instead, be honest with yourself and acknowledge the losses, ambivalence and moments of regret. It’s part of letting go and moving on.
This was one of the most helpful things I read. Not because I didn’t know it was true, but because it was just helpful to see it written down in print. Somehow seeing things written down makes them more real. Not to go all psychological here, but it validates what you feel. I’ve had a lot of people make comments to me about how happy we must be, how thrilled we must be to have Caroline, etc. And they are all right. We are happy. We are thrilled. We’re very grateful. But we’ve also been going through this grieving process as well.
Ironically, it has been some of the small things that have hit me the hardest. We knew about the “big” adjustments and had prepared as best we could for those. What I wasn’t prepared for was doing the dishes during my fifth week postpartum and starting to sob as though my heart was breaking. David (who was feeding Caroline at the time in the other room) heard me and came to ask me what was wrong. And what was wrong? I missed doing the dishes with David. I wash and he dries. We’ve done this pretty much every night since we were dating and he would come over after work for dinner. Ten years of that has been disrupted and it was hard to adjust to. I missed talking with him and doing this daily activity together.
I think it is also hard to be honest about any sadness you feel because a lot of people will write it off as hormonal or they will think you are awfully ungrateful to have received a baby from God and not be just totally and completely grateful and happy. Kind of the equivalent to “eat your peas because there are children starving in Africa” only in this case it is “don’t you know there are thousands of women who would chop off their right arm to have a baby like you have so don’t you dare express any unhappiness”. I know this is the case because when I wrote my birth story someone left a comment telling me how insensitive, ungrateful and self-absorbed I am. (Yes, I deleted it.)
Anyway, I appreciated someone else saying that no matter how very happy you may be with your new baby, you can also be grieving for other things lost in the process and it doesn’t make you a bad person. It makes you normal. So those are some of the things I’ve experienced. I’m grateful whenever God leads me to something helpful, usually in writing. We love Caroline to pieces and are so thankful for her. But we also continue to make adjustments in life – sometimes easily and sometimes with difficulty. And I know we’ll be continuing to do that until… well, forever.
Sallie, I seriously think there are some women who actually make a concerted effort to say mean spirited things from their heart of pain. Misery just loves company to validate it’s actions. How dissappointing that someone actually wrote such a unnecessary comment to you.
You’re right on target about loss and babies. I know a counselor who stated (re: adoption)”There is so much grief in adoption”. That comment from her made me think about the period of adjustment I would later endure as we welcomed a new baby into our lives. It’s just change, and change is hard even when it is good. I am glad I knew about that idea before our daughter came home or else I would have been in for a rough ride heaping guilt on myself for wanting to go to the corner store for a drink by myself for once.
It all gets easier Sallie, and better. But please teach your baby to fall alseep on her own at night when she is 6 months because we didn’t and boy are we paying for it now at 1 year!
Thank you so much for your open and honest post! I am not ready to have children yet (I’m 22 and very much single), but I have bookmarked your post for when I will need your advice and wisdom. Thank you!!!
thank you. what you have said is SO true. Our boyo is 16 months now and there are still things that make me happy and sad about the whole thing. Yes, I love him so much, but there are things that I wish we still had. But they’ll come back…at least that’s what me mom says. 🙂
Good words. Some births for me have required much more “introspection” afterwards (read, JOY and also grief) — and others were “easier.” But I think it is so true that having a baby takes so much time and energy afterwards for processing.
You brought tears to my eyes with your mention of the dishwashing.
Susan (mama to 8)
Actually, I’m a mama to 8, not a mama to 🙂 though someimes they do make me :).
Susan
My husband worked in a traditional job always, so those early weeks of my first child’s liefe were quite an adjustment to being relatively stuck in the house just me and her. My husband loved being home over the weekends because he was at work all week – I remember one weekend when our baby was about 6-8 weeks old feeling so cabin-fevery that I begged to just do something together to get out of the house. We took a lovely drive to see the fall colors.
Just a thought about the dishes time – is their space in your kitchen for a chair so that the person who was feeding the baby could sit in there with her and talk with the one doing the dishes? Then both of you would feel more of the companionship and Caroline would benefit from hearing the voices.
Great post! I remember feeling guilty for feeling sad and numb and getting angry and other things. I love my 3 girls to death, but each one was an adjustment.
Sallie,
This is such good advice for new moms. I had many of the same feelings you have had.
And, not to scare ya, but we’re now 6 years past the birth of our first and I still have some of these issues.
But it goes without saying, the good outweighs the bad by far 🙂
Every day gets a bit easier and a bit more like “life as normal.” I can totally understand what you were talking about the dishes—I had a hard time going from “just us” to more than that! But in time, it is second nature and you don’t even hardly remember the before the baby days!!!
I love and appreciate your HONESTY.
Thank you so much for this honest post. We are expecting our first in late January after 5 years of marriage. It took me so long to conceive (3 years) that I worry that I won’t be able to complain about anything after the baby comes. =)
I experienced the grieving the old life process when I got married. The morning after our wedding, I woke up and started sobbing. I was so happy to be married, but I was sad because the old life that I had loved was gone forever, and I had just realized that being a child of my parent’s household was really over. Fortunately, I was able to articulate this in a way that my husband understood, and he wasn’t offended. =) But it’s a relief to know that it’s ok to grieve our childless marriage in the same way if I need to. Your honesty is refreshing to me, and I appreciate your insight.
Thank you for this post. My husband and I are expecting our first and your post reminded me to cherish the time we have together before the baby comes. I know that there are many wonderful and exciting things in the future, but it is good to remember that the lovely season we are in now will only last for a short while.
Dear Sallie,
We are just about to have Pumpkin’s first birthday. He is a blessing beyond words. He really is a delightful baby boy. Even with how wonderful he is, being his Mommy is tough.
Yes, things are very different than they were before. Yes, sometimes I just want to be ME. That’s okay. It doesn’t mean I love him any less. Part of being his Mommy means that I must be all that God has created me to be. I did not end, just because Pumpkin’s life began.
I find that just as I think I’ve got a handle on this Mommy thing, something new comes along. It has been a year of adjustments, both easy and hard, good and bad. I wouldn’t want to change a thing, except to pray that I glorify God better each day.
BTW~ Be prepared for a wild hormonal ride for several MONTHS, not weeks, as your body adjusts and things level out. It’s fine and completely normal. Take the time to cry, pray and take a nap if you can. It always helps me!
Wow, Sallie. I’m so glad that you found that article!
Having had four pregnancies and three live births, I can tell you that what is experiences can be different every time.
Being prepared, or at least open to expressing how change might affect us, is SO helpful.
My youngest is 22. God knew the ’empty nest’ was going to be difficult for me, so he sent along a grandchild.
He is GOOD, like that.
Wonderful post, Sallie! I hope a lot of women doing searches on post partum will come across your wise and practical thoughts. Most of us will relate very well!
(BTW, I had my 6 week post surgical appointment today after hysterectomy. We went to the hospital at the same time. I have found there is a lot they don’t really talk about that you go through after this surgery too, and I don’t know if I would be able to put it into words like you have. Physically everything is just fine, but it messes with your head! lol )
Christie
Yes and this is what you call change. Nothing will ever be the same again. Should one morn? Heck No. The new change is a pleasant one. My goodness, why is everything so dramatic with you? If you miss talking with David as you do the dishes, have him sit in the kitchen with the baby and talk with you. Why dwell on the past, when the present is so much better.
I have eight kids. Seven of them had births that I was very satisfied with, but not the last one. My mother passed away when my 7th child was 6-months-old. I was shocked when I discovered I was pregnant, as if it would be impossible to have a child with my mother gone. I was emotionally and physically overloaded during my pregnancy: we were getting our house ready to sell (I spent all of my spare time painting); my husband was trying to start a new business; I came down with a sinus infection the week before I delivered, which left me with a horrible cough and trouble breathing – not good conditions for laboring.
My birth was not at all according to my plans or experiences with the other babies. I was very disappointed, and actually mourned the birth I could/should have had for months. It was a big adjustment and a grieving process. Some people may think that’s silly, but birth and parenting are very emotional processes (not to mention driven by some very powerful hormones).
What?! I cannot believe that someone said that!I am at home today feeling quite unwell and am blessed that my mother in law is able to look afte Daniel for me. We are going through a trying time at the moment and although he is almost two there are still times that I miss my ‘freedom and finances’. I have to accept it and as you said, get on with it.But it is not always easy.
May God bless you three as you grow as a family.
By the way Ellen, I cried on the way back from our honey moon and on my first night in our new home….my popor husband!
Sallie,
I don’t find you dramatic in the least. I find you open and honest! And what a relief it is after reading or listening to people who are either too dramatic (everything is terrible/noone understands what they are going through) or Super Mom (those who are nothing but delighted and thrilled with every part of pregnancy and parenting). Having children is not easy. It is a blessing….but I never feel like you don’t see that side of it! You and your husband obviously feel blessed by Caroline’s presence and it shows!
And I think, through your honesty, it shows even stronger. Nothing good or valuable is without cost. We all know this. You just remind us of it! I too, have felt a bit of this regret. My daughter is two weeks old now. I love her so much! I forgot how sweet newborns were! (My middle child is almost 6)My husband and I are just drinking her up!
But I sometimes really want to snuggle with my husband and my daughter is demanding! (What newborn isn’t?) I miss our times together after the older kids have gone to bed where we used to sit out on the front porch and talk. Or go to bed early and read books together. Now it seems my daughter has to nurse every ten minutes during these times. I think it would be unnatural to not miss that!
We knew it was coming. We were prepared for it. We wouldn’t trade it for anything…..but we do miss it!
Thank you for your post. It’s an encouragement. And keep deleting those negative comments. You don’t need to dwell on them! 😀
What a wonderful post! When I had my first child, I went through a lot of the same emotions you did (or still are…). I felt guilty because my friends and sister-in-law who also had young babies seemed so much more happy than I was. It took me a while to realize that I wasn’t a bad mom just because it took me time to adjust to my wonderful new son. I’m now expecting my third, but my older two are 10 and 7. So I am preparing myself for what will surely be a big adjustment since my children are so independent already.
Thanks for all you share and Caroline really is a little beauty!
We miss a few things, too. However, eventually, they get old enough to make new traditions with. At 2, they can “help†you wash. At 3 1/2, their help washing is actually helpful. At 3, they can “help†dry. By 4, their drying might actually get the dishes dry. At 2 or 3, they can put away dishes (yes, even the breakable ones!), check this out if you want to get motivated to train up your children to help: http://www.mommylife.net/archives/2006/10/larger_families.html.
At 18 months, they can hand you the clothes out of the dryer so you don’t have to hurt your back (yes, you can train them to give you one thing at a time.) It’s a slow process, but they love it.
We watch Little House “The Girls†and The Waltons “The Boys†together some evenings. Dad and the kids have a tradition of dancing around together while the credits music is playing. (I’m their audience.)
Remove the period and that link will work: http://www.mommylife.net/archives/2006/10/larger_families.html
Ladies – Thank you so much for your kind and encouraging words. I’m glad this post has blessed others.
Julie and Ellen – I wish I had a dollar for every time David and I have talked about the “even good change is change and stressful” over the past several years. I remember when we were engaged and David started moving his stuff into my apartment in preparation for the wedding. It must have been about a month before we got married. There was one Sunday evening he brought some things over and I just started sobbing. I was thrilled to be getting married and I wanted him there, but it was change. Thankfully I had a friend to talk to on the phone and she helped me sort through what I was feeling. But, Ellen, I can SO relate to what you wrote. We are blessed to be married to understanding men, aren’t we?
Tracy – Thank you for the suggestion. We actually do have a small table and chairs in the kitchen so we could do that instead of feeding her in the other room. 🙂
Trudy Jo – I would like to respectfully suggest that if you find my blogging and views on life to be “dramatic” and not enjoyable that you simply not come here. There are lots of ladies who blog and you might find some other blogs that you enjoy more. 🙂
I am so glad I was not the only Christian woman to feel a little sad when I became a mom. I was so sore (tore really bad)and tired. I felt like I was a different person. I was so blessed to have my loving husband. I can’t imagine women who become moms by themselves or with an unloving spouse.
I also cried every night of my honeymoon. My poor husband. lol!
Thank you SO much for this post! Like Lindsay, I don’t have children yet, but I have bookmarked this post for when I do and sent it to a few friends who do have new children. I really appreciate your honesty.
I am late reading this–browsing after following a link from Meredith at Like Merchant Ships–but just wanted to comment that I think it is so great you brought this topic up in such a honest way. What great advice for future new mamas, especially first time moms. I wish I’d come across something like this when my first was a newborn almost three years ago. I was happy yet overwhelmed he was finally with us (it took 2 1/2 years to conceive him and we didn’t have the point of view that you & your husband did) and so exhausted physically and emotionally, in large part from trying to be strong, and continually grateful and happy for “everyone else” along with tiredness from long back labor, bad tear and serious nursing difficulties. Becoming my son’s mama is the best learning/growing/loving experience I’ve ever had but I still wouldn’t wish the particular details on my worst enemy, lol. Now we are looking forward to our second child this summer and I will do many things differently, especially embracing the concept of a fourth trimester, with the same hormonal roller coaster rides, intense emotions and physical challenges as pregnancy.