Text Messages I Write in My Head

The one about what I've been up to since we last spoke, aka postpartum life.

Oct 11, 2024

CW: motherhood, postpartum

Hi! Hello! It’s been a while. I’ve started this post so many times, and a month later, I’m finally here, at my kitchen counter, sending it. I feel like I’ve lived eight different lives since we last spoke, which was somehow in July. I could have written and sent 20 essays in that amount of time, but I didn’t, unless you count everything I wrote in my head that never made it to my computer or to your inboxes.

I live half of my life inside my head now.

Most of my days are spent with my tiny bestie while I’m still, luckily, on maternity leave. I love it so much, and yet a part of me is grappling to figure out how to pull back in the pieces of myself that I’ve had to let go of temporarily during this season… like writing. Instead, I’ve drafted endless text messages to friends in my head (that I often forget to actually type into my phone and send til hours or days have passed). Essays for this newsletter start and stop, as someone (you can guess who) starts crying because she inherited my hangry gene. I’ve thought about the creative project I had in the works before my daughter was born, considered lines I want to rewrite or details to weave in — all in my head. I’ve barely looked at anything on my laptop that isn’t a website with things to keep us alive (bless you, Target) since she arrived. I’d like to tell you that I’ve figured out how to multitask more seamlessly or became really excellent at time management, but that’s frankly not the case. I still haven’t figured out a way to make room for some of the things that make me feel most like me, beyond my daily workout (which is huge and feels like an achievement of its own). A story as old as time, I hear — trying to figure out this new version of yourself, the experience of matrescence, as I very recently learned.

Earlier this month, we crossed the three month mark — three months since my daughter was born. She finally seems like a real baby rather than the tiny and very cute potato she was when we brought her home from the hospital. Caring for her and, frankly, caring for myself, has consumed my life for the last 14 or so weeks. Every week has felt a bit more manageable than the previous one, thank goodness, and I feel like I’m slowly emerging from the dark.

The first six weeks were personally challenging for me, even with a “good” baby. Harder than I expected, hard in ways I didn’t even know to anticipate. I didn’t recognize my body, didn’t recognize my life, and was still processing my daughter’s delivery. Those weeks felt like a year on their own, even though they only totaled one and a half months. My daughter was (is) a true angel baby miracle and I love her with every fiber of my being, and yet I was struggling. It feels controversial to even admit that, because everyone tells you to savor every single moment, to soak in all of the newborn phase as a parent, and also to be grateful, always grateful no matter what (I’m hearing the epic Barbie movie speech in my head right now, anyone else?). But…I hated it? (Those first few weeks, I mean.) I didn’t know what I was doing (still don’t), I was still recovering from my c-section so I couldn’t drive myself anywhere or even take much more than a walk around the block, and candidly I didn’t know what to do with a baby all day, besides feed her and take photos of her perfect face. (Seriously, how do you play with a newborn? I still don’t know.) I eventually realized *everything* felt that way partially because I was so exhausted, and partially because I felt so unstimulated.

If it wasn’t obvious, I’m pretty sure I also had postpartum depression. I am so thankful that’s behind me at this point, and that it wasn’t worse. It was startling when I finally realized what I was experiencing, and it was not til around week six that I finally felt like the sun was back in the sky. It took me almost that long to finally feel a significant connection to my daughter, and to calling myself (without impostor syndrome) a mother. I have had some (ahem, a lot of) shame around that — like what was wrong with me that I didn’t instantly feel bonded to this human that was made Build-A-Bear-style inside my own body for 10 months? I loved her immediately, yes, but I wasn’t totally sure I felt the intrinsic connection or adoration I was *supposed to* have right away. And maybe that’s something I shouldn’t share on the internet (I’ve barely even told anyone IRL), but I know I’m not the only one that’s happened to, especially if you had a traumatic delivery. If that’s something that you’ve experienced too, I want you to know you’re not alone.

I’d love to tell you what else I’ve been up to the last few months, but it’s been a blur of firsts and learning on the job, and lack of sleep and cold coffee and trying to find a new normal. Probably the same song most new parents sing I would assume. Endless Googling when I should have been sleeping and reading Reddit threads from women who’d had c-sections to try and feel less alone in my recovery. And I spent far too much energy looking at people on the internet who gave birth around the same time as me, and comparing. Comparing how fast or slow I seemed to be recovering compared to them, wondering why I looked like I was knocking at death’s door in my first photos post-delivery with my baby instead of being a vision of perfectly curled hair and some sort of cherub-like glow like them. Frustrated that I looked more pregnant after having my baby than I did for most of my pregnancy, and that I needed to wear my husband’s sweatpants. Angry I had to have the c-section at all, which, turns out, is major abdominal surgery??? Literally had no idea and definitely did not feel remotely prepared for it or the recovery. Wondering if I was a wimp for not sticking to my plan and instead deciding to get an epidural after xyz hours of labor, a feeling that emerged after seeing influencers allegedly just breezing through labor on my Instagram feed. [Reader, there is NOTHING wrong with choosing to get an epidural, and nothing wrong with delivering your baby however the heck you want or however you are able to safely arrive at that finish line.]

Long story short, I felt broken.

It was a fantastic lesson to never compare yourself to anyone, though — not people on the internet and certainly not previous versions of yourself. That game is nothing but a surefire way to feel less-then. Comparison is the thief of joy, isn’t that what they all say?

On a related note, I hesitate to publish anything related to motherhood, and I fear I’m going to have a serious vulnerability hangover after I hit send on this post. There is so much noise when it comes to sharing anything related to be being a new mom, or parenting, or even postpartum. People will tell you their opinions whether you want to hear them or not, and remind you that you that they had it worse, or that what you’re feeling is not unique. And anything you say that isn’t awash in gratitude is interpreted as complaining or being ungrateful or underserving. With that in mind, I wasn’t going to write about my experience with motherhood at all, but these last few months have been so all-consuming, me bobbing in the middle of a sea and unmoored, that I needed to write to process. This is largely what’s been on my mind and heart for the last few weeks/months (well, that and the U.S. presidential election that’s in 25 days), and maybe that’s boring or annoying but it’s the truth. I’m not the same person I was before. Not totally. Physically, emotionally, mentally, I’ve changed. In some small ways and some big. And I imagine I’ll continue evolving.

I have observed myself trying to squeeze back into things from before my daughter arrived — from pairs of jeans to the type of readily available friend I was. But not everything fits. Sometimes I feel pulled in a million directions, and I find myself with FOMO over events and friend-hangs I’m too tired to attend even if I wanted to. I have witnessed myself say yes to things just so that I’d seem like I was exactly the same as I was before I became a parent, and could show up the same ways I always had — like hey, I didn’t fall into a blackhole! I’m still here for you and you and you! Nothing has changed other than that I’m now 100% responsible for making sure another human is healthy and well-adjusted and knows how to exist in this world. But otherwise, totally the same! It’s giving “I’m not a regular new mom, I’m a cool new mom” and it’s too exhausting to maintain. I’m learning to accept that I can’t do it all, and I can’t expect to be available in the same ways I was before July, before I had someone relying on me (which is such a gift — I don’t take it for granted for one second). Trying to balance who I was with who I am and who I want to be.

I’m working on it.

So Many Somethings

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