First Month Reflections

Allowing, patience, laughter, and awe in newborn care

One month ago, I birthed my daughter, C. Giving birth was the most intense, awe-inspiring, experience of my life. I achieved my goal to be unmedicated (with the exception of Pitocin administered to stop bleeding after birthing the placenta), which required absolute presence and focus from both me and my husband. The 19ish hours of intense labor (not including the period-like cramping I experienced for the first 12ish hours) culminated in an hour and a half of pushing where I felt my entire body take over and rip open. Still connected to me, with the cord pulsing, witnessing another human take her first breath was the greatest honor of my life. Her tiny body expelled from my abdomen, left jelly-like, the structure of a waterbed.

I felt empty, with a new vacancy inside me. Over the next several weeks, my organs would slowly move back to their pre-pregnancy space and my uterus would contract back to its pre-pregnancy size. 

Allowing.

On the first night after giving birth, I woke up in the middle of the night with chills, shaking uncontrollably. Apparently this is common due to the post-birth hormonal swing, which is triggered immediately upon the baby exiting the womb. I went into pregnancy knowing that my hormones shifted, causing a whole slew of symptoms while I was pregnant – almost daily nosebleeds, nausea and COVID-level fatigue during my first trimester, breasts that seemed to double in size, and a sensation called lightning crotch (google it). But rarely do other women talk about their postpartum experience. After a baby is born, the attention, for the most part, is on the baby. Most of the time, when people ask how everything is going, they want to know about baby care (i.e., how baby is sleeping, how baby is eating, whether baby likes the bath, etc.), not about my night sweats, chills, first week anxiety nightmares, hourly emotional swings, fear of sneezing due to a recovering perineal tear, or how my lochia is looking. 

We focus so much on the pregnancy and the birth. We read books, take hypnobirthing classes, celebrate at baby showers, and attend dozens of appointments. But postpartum expectations are rarely featured.

After we got home from the hospital, my middle-of-the-night shaking subsided, but I continued to have night sweats for the rest of the week. The sweating was broken up by nursing C and anxiety-related nightmares. 

During the day, especially for the first week, the emotional swings led me to cry multiple times per day. During one shower, I had a flashback to the pushing phase of C’s birth, looking in the mirror set up in front of me so I could watch her head come out more with each push. I started sobbing, allowed the water to run over me, and didn’t hold back. I knew these emotions needed releasing. 

Besides the hormonal shift, I had just gone through the most intense experience of my life. I needed to integrate. I’m not sure I fully have. How do you fully integrate the experience of watching a human enter the world, holding her as she takes her first breath without falling into an existential crisis? I tried to journal, but hardly had energy (or time) to hold a pen. I retold the birth story during therapy, of course crying, and I suspect this topic will be a focus of many future sessions. The only person who knew what I had gone through was my husband, who also characterized the birth of our daughter as the most intense experience of his life. I leaned on him for support, expressed when I felt emotional and allowed myself to cry as he held me. My eyes become blurry and wet as I write this, the experience still so recent, wondering if it will ever not trigger tears. Other than tears while I reflected on C’s birth, I cried when I thought about how she used to be inside my body, now empty. I cried when she screamed, watching her face scrunch and turn red caused true pain in my body. I cried (and still do) when I imagined what our dog Tabor felt like, afraid that this new screaming human would take his place in the family. I cried looking at C’s beautiful tiny face, wondering how this face and little body was inside me just days ago. And I cried for no reason at all.

Throughout these emotional swings, I practiced RAIN (recognize, allow, investigate, nurture). I recognized the emotion coming on and allowed it to present itself. I asked myself where I felt it in my body and I nurtured myself by asking for a hug or placing my hand on my heart. Tara Brach is famous for this practice and I had attended her week-long silent meditation retreat just a few months earlier, with C inside me.

I have been practicing allowing for years now, previously holding back for fear of emotions driving me mad, losing control. Before I began to do “the work” or meditate, I brushed my emotions aside, claimed that I was “fine,” but then an explosion would hit once my body reached its limit. 

Pregnancy, birth, postpartum recovery, and generally caring for a newborn has been the ultimate practice of allowing.

During the birth, I allowed each contraction to come, knowing they were productive, helping move my baby down. For the most part, I let go of resistance. I did not resist the pain; I allowed it. I allowed my body to take over during the pushing phase. I allowed myself to experience a mix of intense relief and emotion when C was placed on my chest, still connected to me through her pulsating cord. 

During the initial period of postpartum recovery, I allowed the emotions to come in waves. I embraced wearing mesh underwear and building, what I called, a bologna sandwich (lay out a pad four times larger than the largest maxi pad you’ve seen, place a pad-shaped ice pack on top – the bread, followed by witch hazel round pads – the bologna, and a perineal healing spray – the condiment). I gave in to the discomfort in walking and avoided going up and down stairs, strategizing what I may need for the next several hours or asking for help. 

Within a couple weeks, my waddling turned to walking, I cried fewer times per day, the bologna sandwich was no longer necessary, and I transitioned to a normal sized maxi pad. I allowed myself to rest even when I felt the societal pressure to start moving my body (the harmful “bounce back” messaging is a topic for another post). 

The second week and fourth week ended with a bout of inflammatory mastitis. I allowed the frustration and defeat as I overcame a fever, body aches, chills, and an extremely sore boob, all while caring for a newborn. I allowed the anxiety and fear as I questioned whether something was wrong with my breasts, whether I was doing something wrong despite C nursing well, having a good latch, and gaining weight.

I allowed the challenges of cluster feeding. I felt like a milk factory, my time completely dependent on when C needed to eat – every 45 minutes to one hour. Feeling defeated when I thought she wasn’t getting enough to eat; that I was not making enough milk. 

I allowed it all and also knew these feelings were fleeting. They came in waves and if I allowed it, the wave would retreat. 

Patience.

During each cluster feeding session, I sat down interrupted. Thinking I had at least another hour to shower or refuel or answer a text or empty the dishwasher or perhaps nap, I unhooked my bra, shhh’d C as she approached my breast, told her “it’s coming,” and watched as she gaped at me, shifting her head side to side, her nose leading her toward my nipple. Instant calm as soon as she latched, my shoulders released down, and I exhaled. This routine happens multiple times per day, typically in the evening, but in week 3, this happened from noon until 8pm. Every. Single. Day. Hardly getting more than thirty minutes in between feeds, this cycle required utmost patience. I reminded myself she was going through a growth spurt and stayed kind to myself even when I doubted my milk supply and wondered if I was leaving my baby hungry. Patience. Knowing this phase will pass.

Right now, C is too young to put herself to sleep. Meaning, we cannot just place her in her crib and expect her to fall asleep on her own. We must rock her, soothe her, play white noise for her, bounce her, sing to her, change her rocking position dozens of times, walk in circles with her, shift from sitting in her glider to standing, back and forth, back and forth. Dizzying rocking. Nausea-inducing bouncing. Sometimes her eyes stay wide for over an hour, just staring at the sliver of light in between the doorframe and the door. Or the sliver of moonlight streaming in from closed shutters. I turn her face toward me, beg her to close her eyes, all the while reminding myself that the world is new. She is seeing this sliver of light for what very well may be the first time. Regulating her own nervous system is impossible and after her 12th or 16th or 21st day earthside, she remains wide-eyed just as I do when I toss and turn in bed for hours during a week with too much going on. Patience.     

Laughter.

Yesterday, I wrote a song for C as I bounced her repeatedly during her “witching hour” – a period of crying inconsolably, often in the evening, for no apparent reason. Witching hour should be plural. Typically, during these hours, C is also cluster feeding, then after unlatching, she immediately starts crying. Maybe she has gas? Maybe she wants more milk? Maybe she needs her diaper changed? Nothing works. Only bouncing. Aggressively. 

Little Miss C turns into a witch from 6 to 8pm, I whisper in a sing-songy voice, when she puts her witch hat on and does a little magic to make her a fussy girl. My eyes shift between C and Jonathan, who is sitting on the couch watching my spark of creative genius. But mama loves witches so it's ok. At this point, I’ve gone nuts. I can hardly get the words out because I’m laughing so hard. C stops crying and stares at me. Either she also thinks I’ve lost my mind or, I choose to believe, my song actually does contain a bit of magic and maybe I turn into a witch too. We’re connected after all.   

At some point during week two, I am sitting on top of my sitz bath on the toilet. A glorious 10 to 15 minutes of relaxation where I allow the herbal steam to heal my torn perineum. I hear Jonathan exclaim in the next room, “Oh, oh, oh! No! Oh man, oh man!” As Jonathan changed C, she proceeded to urinate on the changing table (this happens often, but usually we catch it with a diaper), defecate bubbling milk poop also on the changing table, and projectile spit up (maybe throw up) on the shutters. All simultaneously. The mixture of pee, spit up, and poop is all over her onesie. Jonathan needed to perform surgery and cut her onesie off to avoid bacteria spreading to C’s mouth, nose, eyes, and ears. I laughed so hard, the water began spilling out of my sitz bath and onto the bathroom floor. This is why it makes no sense to spend much money on newborn clothes. 

Laughter has kept us sane during this newborn phase. We laugh as C belches loudly after eating. We laugh as C, in the ten seconds between removing one diaper and placing another one down, projectile poops two feet beyond the changing pad. We laugh as we watch C become mesmerized by the banister on the stairs, something about the shadow or contrast totally captivating her. We laugh with pride as she lifts her head for ten seconds during tummy time. And we laugh at C’s involuntary movements and facial expressions, pretending like she is actually reacting to our funny faces.   

Awe.

Awe is the reason this is all worth it. Awe on so many levels.

I am in awe when she is in my arms and I think about how she was inside my body, and then came out of it.

I am in awe at the sounds she makes in her sleep. 

When I think about how her body knows how to sneeze, or cough, or bear down to poop, or stretch after being unswaddled, or root to find a nipple when she’s hungry. Everything instinctual.

When I look inside her mouth as she screams, mouth wide open, and I see her tiny tongue vibrating. In awe of the sound coming out of her lungs, and in awe that this tongue (really, any body part) was created out of nothing, perfectly formed and functioning, and now all fitting inside her teeny body. 

When I watch Jonathan hold her, sweetly call her squisho (squishy), musho (mushy), or nuggo (nugget), kiss her cheek and then, if he hasn’t shaved, apologize to her for “dad’s rough kisses” as she whines.

When I reflect back on her birth and the capability of my body. Awe at my body for creating the nourishment C needs. Awe when I feel the pins and needles “let down” right at the two to three hour mark, my body synced with C’s hunger. 

When I look at C’s face and see Jonathan’s. Or my own. When I notice her hair forming a slight mohawk, just like Jonathan’s baby hair.

When I think about how she’s gained over 10% of her body weight in just one month. And grown ½ an inch. 

When I know she’s healthy. Miraculously. So many things have to go right for her to be healthy.

It is this awe that carries me through the periods of frustration, exhaustion, anxiety, or negative self-talk. It carries me through the witching hours, the projectile poops, the cluster feeds, the bouts of mastitis, the emotional swings, the night sweats, the mesh underwear, the maxi pads. It is 8am as I finish writing, watching her sleep during her first nap of the day, her face turned toward me, cheeks too heavy and almost resting on her shoulders, her belly moving up and down with her breath, her tiny body shifting, grunts escaping her mouth that is shaped like her dad’s, loved unlike any other type of love. All bringing me to tears yet again.   

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Of course, a few photos:

And a few photos from my labor:

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