The Truth About Postpartum
I remember the feeling the moment I found out I was pregnant. It started with a wave of excitement and ended with a surge of sheer terror that at some point in the near future this baby needed to make its way out of my body. So here’s what I want to be very careful of: if you’re pregnant for the first time, it’s not my goal to scare you any more than you already are. Delivery day is the biggest “game day” of a woman’s life, and I respect the amount of stress that comes with that.
With that being said, I also believe that a big part of the Postpartum Depression epidemic (or PPD as I often refer to it), is the unrealistic expectations we have for those first few months after baby comes. So, give me a couple minutes of your day to walk through the realities of what you can expect for life immediately following birth, and I’ll even throw in some recommendations for how you can best prepare for it.
I recently asked a group of women how they would describe the first few weeks postpartum in one word. The responses I got included: intense, blur, exhausting, confusing, unexpected. Interesting that not a single one referred to the precious bliss of a newborn. It’s not that the precious moments don’t exist. They do, but the moments of feeling completely overwhelmed and uncertain in those first few weeks tend to outweigh the spurts of euphoria.
When I was pregnant I felt like the majority of postpartum talk was focused on the lack of sleep after baby comes. Mix that with newborn cuddles, and I felt totally confident that I could handle it. After all, I had gone most of my college career without sleep. I had trained for this. I was ready.
Imagine my surprise then, when we got home from the hospital and real life hit. And it hit hard.
I want you to imagine that you’ve been in a terrible car accident. Your whole body aches. It’s exhausted. It feels like it just fought a battle for your life. Perfect. This is how you feel after labor. Now imagine that during that car accident you suffered internal bleeding which required emergency abdominal surgery. Your core is cut open, stitched back up, and you’re basically incapable of using your core muscles for the next 1-2 months. You still have all the aches and pains and exhaustion from the trauma of the car accident itself, but it’s paired with basically being unable to move (it’s amazing how much your core does). Awesome. This is where you’ll be if your labor results in a c-section like mine did.
Now, you’re in stable condition after your car accident so you get checked out of the hospital to go home and heal. But wait! The medical staff hands you a newborn baby that is now entirely your responsibility. You’ve never met this baby before. You don’t know who they are, what they need, how they communicate. You don’t know their schedule, when they need sleep, when they need to eat, how much sleep or food they need. That’s all to be determined. But they’re relying on you for life. And the only way they can tell you they need something is through a heart-wrenching wail.
So, off you go to your house, achey, exhausted, feeling the trauma of the last few days events, and with dependent stranger in hand. The picture of being set up for success!
Once you get home you suddenly feel a weird mix of worlds. You’re walking into a familiar place but your life seems oddly unfamiliar. You’re not the same person you were only a few days ago. You’ve got to learn how to function in this space in recovery and with this new little human.
Everything feels awkward and unsure. Nursing isn’t going right. It hurts more than you think it’s supposed to. You don’t know if your baby is getting enough. And it’s terrifying because they literally need it to survive.
The baby cries when it’s left alone, so I guess you’re learning how to do everything one-handed as you hold the baby in your arms. One handed dishes. One handed laundry. One handed cooking. You aren’t sure when to shower. How do people get anything done?
Every task has become exponentially more challenging. Peeing burns. Pooping is terrifying. A run to the grocery store means dressing baby, feeding baby, loading baby in a car seat, loading the car seat and stroller into the car, unloading a stroller, loading a car seat into the stroller, and then doing it all again to pack up and head back home.
People were right. The baby isn’t sleeping. Well, that’s not totally accurate. The baby sleeps great during the day, but then it’s up all night. Which I guess would work if you could sleep all day too, but realistically that’s not happening.
Meanwhile your hormones are plummeting. They’re trying to transition from pregnant hormones to regular hormones and it’s happening a whole heck of a lot quicker than you’d prefer. Can’t our bodies ease into this? I guess not.
On top of all of it you are suddenly isolated from your pre-baby life. You are relatively confined to your house minus a few walks around the neighborhood as your body heals and your baby adjusts to life outside the womb. Every few days a friend will stop over and you’ll get a reminder of what life is like in the outside world. They’ll ask how things are going and you’ll smile through sunken, exhausted eyes and you’ll say they’re going well. You want to socialize but you also kind of just want to sleep.
Sounds a little intense, doesn’t it? Certainly more intense than baby snuggles and a thrown off sleep schedule. It’s crazy and it’s not talked about, but it’s something you should be prepared for.
I remember in those first 4 weeks with our first kid, thinking I had waited my whole life to be a mom and now I wasn’t sure if I was cut out for it. It was so incredibly challenging when you added it all up together. The priceless newborn snuggles truly pulled me through. But after 4 weeks we started to hit our stride. My body started feeling significantly better. I started to understand my baby’s needs more. We were starting to get on a schedule. We were getting out of the house more.
Four weeks seems like nothing now, but when you’re in the trenches it feels like a lifetime. The best thing you can do is be ready for it and give yourself every bit of grace you have to offer. Have conversations with your husband, family, and friends beforehand.
Designate someone to set up a meal train for you when baby comes (one-handed cooking seriously sucks). If you have family nearby, designate days and times that they are scheduled to be at your house to help out. If you have family out of town, ask them to come to town to help for as long as they can in those first few weeks.
Let people know you’re excited for the baby, but remind them that you will need help recovering too. Tell your friends and family to bring food when they come visit and to do a chore or two while they’re there. Hand off the baby and go sleep or shower. Invite friends to go on walks together so you can get outdoors and socialize at the same time.
Have these conversations beforehand. They’re always easier before you’re in the thick of it, and that way your support system knows their roles before baby ever arrives and life gets turned upside down.
Lastly, don’t be ashamed to speak up. If someone asks you how it’s going, and it’s truly not going well, tell them. It doesn’t make you a bad mother. It’s actually completely normal, and by admitting to it, you open up the door to get the support that you need.
Trust me, I have the worst superwoman complex. I like being capable of handling anything and everything. But goodness, postpartum is not the time for that. There’s no prize at the end for doing it all. Keep your sanity. Take off your cape. They weren’t kidding when they said it takes a village.