The past couple months have been wild! That’s the word that has kept coming to mind since out daughter Heidi got here… wild. There are a few things no one told me about motherhood that I want to share, not only to remember myself, but to look back on as a little refresher when and if we have another baby.
Heidi came into this world and I was in shock. I just gathered the courage to watch our birth video for the first time when she turned two months old and I was pushing, pushing, pushing – completely overwhelmed with the physical takeover of it all – and then suddenly she was here, and I was crying, saying over and over again, “She’s here! Oh my God! She’s here!” and then I was asked to stand up, get out of the tub, walk over to the bed, and next thing I knew I was completely naked and I had this little baby latched onto me. WHAT had just happened?!
Heidi’s birthday was the most exciting and surreal day of our lives. Birthing her was both the most “in” and “out” of body experience I’ve ever had. But bringing her home… that was also its own extremely jarring experience. I spent months preparing for labor and childbirth but hardly gave a second thought to what things would be like once our baby came home with us. There’s truly so much you can’t fully know until you’re in it. However, I wonder if hearing any of these things beforehand might have helped the transition feel a little smoother.
If you’re reading this and thinking, “Hey, I DID tell her that…!” Well, I must not have remembered and I definitely wish I had! Trust me, I know now!
If you’re reading this as a soon-to-be mama… I hope these shed some light on what to expect in the coming weeks of taking care of a newborn. It’s honestly the best thing ever and it goes by SO FAST… so even in the tough moments, try to soak it all in… your baby will only be THIS tiny in THIS moment and will never be so folded up on your chest again… it makes the hard stuff so sweet and so worth it.
Here are 7 things no one told me about motherhood that I wish I’d known before bringing our baby home!
7 things no one told me about motherhood
- POSTPARTUM RECOVERY MIGHT HURT WORSE THAN LABOR DID.
I was really unprepared for this part of childbirth. I’ve wondered if I just had a more difficult physical recovery than most moms do because no one told me how much it would hurt just to WALK and PEE for literally two weeks. Every time I went to the bathroom, I would have two peri bottles in hand, filled up with warm water, ready to be furiously sprayed all over me before, during, and after going to the bathroom. It BURNED! I had the normal perineal tears (I had a second degree tear with four stitches), but I also had lacerations up top, so it just burned everywhere down there. I didn’t see this part coming at all! I thought the peri bottles were for washing myself off so I wouldn’t have to wipe… which yes, they are used for that. But the main purpose for me in those first two weeks was to try to lessen the feeling of being on fire down there every time I sat on the toilet. And it hurt just to sit on that hard seat!
I didn’t expect that I would be in pain while walking, too. I was in bed for a solid week, only standing up to hobble to the bathroom and back. There were a few days I stood to take pictures of Heidi, or to change her a few times, and I would pay for it later that night and the next day. The downward pressure of everything just pressing down there from my standing was not pleasant. The best way I could describe it to people was like I’d sat on a hard wooden chair for 12 hours straight, then stood up and tried to walk. Yeah… ouch.
I had an unmedicated birth and except for transition and pushing (which was the shortest part of labor), nothing really hurt that much at all. I was in a lot more discomfort during bathroom trips and sitting in bed after baby than I was throughout the majority of labor. There were times I was moaning in the bathroom just like I did in labor! I’m wondering why so many of my friends are scared of childbirth but not at all of what comes after… I’d argue that for me, it should have been flipped! Labor was so short and extremely manageable compared to the days on end of my painful recovery with a newborn to take care of. It just shocked me, emotionally and physically. I really wasn’t prepared. I think having a family member staying with us (like if my mom was still here) would have helped SO MUCH. If you’re able to have a relative’s help (and COVID quarantine/social distancing isn’t a thing…), definitely take someone up on that offer! You might not feel 100% physically well for a few days, and it’s tough having a human depending on you to care for them while you’re not feeling your best. You’ll get through it and be stronger for it, but any and all help should be welcomed with open arms! - MASSAGE, MASSAGE, MASSAGE YOUR BOOBIES. NO, SERIOUSLY… MASSAGE THEM.
Oh man… this would have saved me a LOT of trouble and a LOT of pain.
I thought the postpartum “down there” recovery was bad… and then the clogged milk duct and resulting infected abscess arrived.
I had been told repeatedly that I might have supply issues, that I might not make enough milk for my baby, and that I needed to have formula on hand for “just in case.”
I only had one mom share with me that she actually had an oversupply issue, and I think I struggled to wrap my head around that after being told dozens of times that I needed to hope and pray I made enough milk. It turned out I had a major oversupply problem. Heidi would latch on and within minutes be spitting up (like, a lot…) from getting way too much milk from me. I could only feed her from one breast and no longer than 2-3 minutes at most and even still, she would be spitting up everywhere. She even choked if I didn’t 1) hold her up vertically during feedings, and 2) trigger my “aggressive” letdown before letting her latch on. All of this was a little overwhelming, but I had no idea what was still to come.
At our 3 week appointment with our midwife, I remember saying I think I might have a clogged duct. Now, I HAD been told on Heidi’s birthday to massage my boobs in general! But to me, this sounded like an “optional” thing. I didn’t realize I should have been making sure to do it every day, especially with my oversupply issue.
I wish I had been told that I absolutely needed to do it, or I might end up in the emergency room getting IV antibiotics and getting a drain placed through a tube sewn to my the skin of breast. Ugh. And yes, it was as awful as it sounds.
I get it… no mom wants to scare another mom out of having kids! It’s the best thing life has to offer! And let me preface this by saying what happened to me was very uncommon… but now I tell every soon-to-be mom that asks me about breastfeeding to make SURE she massages her boobs!
By massaging daily, I would have caught the tiny little clogged duct long before it turned into a golf ball-sized cyst, which then grew to be the size of an orange, which then became infected and needed a very unpleasant surgical procedure. I had no idea breastfeeding could land me in the hospital. It’s the last place I wanted to be during a global pandemic with a four week old baby at home. It was awful leaving her back home to have to be fed her first bottle while I was gone… and it was so scary being in the ER with this “medical mystery” cyst in my breast. It took days to get an official diagnosis of what was actually going on, and those days were extremely painful. Far, far worse than childbirth… even the pushing part. I’ll never forget the way I screamed as I fed Heidi. Seriously, a mother’s love.
Again, I don’t want to scare any future moms. I want to instead say there’s no need to be scared when you’re PREPARED!
Meet with a lactation consultant before you have your baby and learn all about how to love and care for your breasts while they transition into becoming a food source for another human being. It’s as equally natural as it is mysterious. Having another woman’s guidance through it will make all the difference. Oh, and… massage your boobs. :) Be careful you aren’t holding your breast down in the same spot every time you feed and thereby creating a blockage… and take some sunflower lecithin to prevent clogged ducts! - THERE WILL BE SO MANY TARGET RUNS.
For some reason, I thought we had so much baby stuff BEFORE we bought all the baby stuff after Heidi got here. Haha!! Hahaha. I’m only laughing because we just had no clue!!! I thought I was just “choosing minimalism,” which, sure. There’s a time and place and person for that. Minimalism takes WORK! And the last thing you want with a new baby is extra work!!!
We needed more swaddles, more diapers, more onesies, more bassinet sheets, more towels, more baby lotion, different baby soap, a swing, a bouncer… the list goes on!! Like many things in life, some of these items were simply a matter of convenience. Could we have rocked Heidi constantly instead of using the swing? Sure! But remember how painful it was just for me to STAND UP? Justin was exhausted from being the only mobile parent of the two of us! After doing something like three loads of laundry in a 24 hour time period… we realized we needed some extra material on hand to save us.
So, ask for those Target gift cards, mama! They will come in handy when you’re up at 3am changing the bassinet sheets for the 4th time that night! (Okay, that only happened because we didn’t think to lay a burp cloth down under Heidi’s head to catch the spit up… #protip.)
Also… you probably want to have a good handful of NEWBORN SIZE sleepers, onesies, diapers, and zip up swaddles… even though we were convinced we’d have a big baby, Heidi was in newborn sized everything until she was 9 weeks old. :) - IT’S REALLY HARD TO LEARN EVERYTHING FOR THE FIRST TIME WITH A SCREAMING BABY IN HAND.
Why didn’t we practice dressing a baby doll?!
We got to the birth center in labor at 11:30am and we were back home later that night by midnight. Heidi was born in the tub at 5:27pm and had major meconium staining… needless to say, I was desperate for a shower the second we walked through our front door. Heidi was sleeping and I thought, this is great! I’ll just hop in the shower and go to bed and get some much needed and well deserved sleep after giving birth to this human being.
I wasn’t in the shower for more than two minutes before Justin burst through the bathroom door announcing Heidi was screaming, crying, and throwing up, all at the same time. Oh man. I wish I could go back and give the both of us a hug!
This is where having that family member with us would have been really helpful. It was well past midnight… we were both so emotionally and physically exhausted… and we were scared.
Was this throw up normal? Why was there so much? Was it supposed to look like that? Is she hungry? Tired? How do we tell if she peed and needs a new diaper? (No one told us the line turns BLUE if the diaper is wet… we didn’t know until two days in.) How do we change her without hurting her? Can we pull her arms and legs through the holes like that? How do we change her if she won’t put her legs down? WHY is she spitting up so much?!
This was all so overwhelming! I was crying, Heidi was crying, and I was absolutely terrified.
I had NO IDEA how to do ANY of this!!
I kept spouting off the “5 S’s” like they were Scripture. “Swaddle her! SWING her!! SHUSH her, Justin!!!” It’s kind of hilarious now to look back on. But I’m so sad for us at the same time. A lot of this would have been so much easier and so much less stressful had we had someone there with us to help. Usually, that’s the mom’s mom… and my mom’s not here anymore, and Heidi being born smack dab in the middle of the COVID lockdowns certainly didn’t help. I hesitated to have anyone there that we didn’t absolutely need just in case they were exposing Heidi to this “deadly” virus. It was just a messy time in the world to welcome a newborn, and my own personal life factors didn’t make things any easier. But we made it through. We survived! We’re stronger for it.
We figured out how to dress her, change her, and keep her bassinet sheets clean for longer than 20 minutes at a time. We learned her favorite ways to be comforted and how to quiet her crying (if all else fails, she’ll always nurse)! We got into the groove of things and started to feel like we had the upper hand against this beast called parenthood. But it took time. It took weeks. We had to be extremely patient with each other, even in the midst of being the most tired, scared, stressed, and overwhelmed we’d ever been. It was hard… but we got through. We knew we would, it just all felt a little more impossible than I expected it to at the beginning. Next time, we’ll know exactly what we’re doing when it comes to newborn care… and I’m excited for a hopefully much smoother transition into newborn life again! - THOSE FIRST COUPLE WEEKS MIGHT FEEL LIKE THEY STRETCH ON FOREVER.
The first sixteen or so days with Heidi were just… endless. The days were long. The nights were even longer. The sun would set and I’d feel absolute dread over what lay ahead of me. I just wanted to sleep, and keep sleeping…! But those days were gone. (For now.)
I think this time must have just naturally felt so long because we were literally awake for longer than we were used to… right? Haha. Maybe it was that on top of feeling like everything was go, go, go for those first couple weeks. We’d change her, I’d feed her, we’d change her again, she’d spit up, we’d change her clothes, we’d try to rock her to sleep, I’d feed her again, she’d spit up, we’d change her… the cycle just continued over and over again for days on end. Whew. I’m getting sleepy just remembering what it was like!
The thing is… it really WAS only the first couple weeks. We’d heard several times, “Those first two weeks are rough.” I kept wondering, “Is there a switch we flip at fifteen days and everything is just suddenly EASIER?! Can you guys elaborate a bit? Cause we’re struggling over here!!”
No, a switch doesn’t get flipped… but… our baby really did settle into more of a routine as the weeks went on. When she first got here, she wouldn’t sleep for longer than 1.5-2 hours at night… maybe one single 3 hour stretch in there from 2 to 5am. But by 5 weeks, Heidi was sleeping 8 hours a night!
I kept saying, “This goes by so quickly” in the tough moments and it really did help. There were days when I doubted just how quickly it would pass. Yet we now find ourselves already missing when Heidi was a tiny little folded up, 6 pound babe. She’s double that size now… and I find myself thinking back so fondly on those first couple weeks when we were so worn out but falling so deeply in love with our daughter. It’s nothing short of magic. Though the hard moments were long, the time really was so short, and I know it sounds crazy, but… we miss it already, and we can’t wait to do it again. - YOU CAN BE BOTH EXTREMELY HAPPY AND EXTREMELY SAD AT THE SAME TIME. Those first couple weeks, I’d sit up in bed, groggy and sleepy eyed, tears streaming down my face, holding Heidi to my chest, rocking her back and forth, wondering why the heck we did this to ourselves.
I’d start singing to calm her, and then I’d feel so much love well up inside of me that it overwhelmed me. My sad/scared/lonely tears would transition into happy ones, and I’d sit there feeling so undeserving of the joy of holding this perfect and precious little baby that I made in my arms.
How could I love her so much and be the happiest I’ve ever been, yet also feel so much heaviness?
The hormone fluctuation is real. I’d been warned there would be a change in my emotions as things leveled back out in my body on a chemical level. I didn’t know this, but it’s completely normal to have some postpartum depression symptoms in the form of “baby blues” those first couple weeks after having a baby. I felt like my hormones were still changing up to 6 weeks after giving birth! But one day I woke up and realized I hadn’t cried in quite some time, and suddenly everything felt that much more normal again.
We were shell-shocked when Heidi got here. Where did our life go? Who were we outside of that fun young couple we’d been together for the last 10 years? Would we ever feel free again?
We really, really missed our old life in those first few days. The transition into parenthood is just so sudden. Sure, you have 9 months of pregnancy to “get ready,” but you really can’t fully prepare for what it feels like. You just have to live it. And when the time comes, it’s okay to be sad and to miss what’s now gone.
But that feeling doesn’t last. At least, it didn’t for us.
(If you’re a new mama and it does last longer than those first couple weeks, make sure you talk to someone and get all the love, help, and support you deserve.)
There’s still maybe a moment here and there where I long for the simplicity of it all… just dropping everything to go absolutely anywhere “without a care.” Then I look at Heidi and instantly feel so full of love. I remember to try not to glorify the past, making it seem more ideal than it really was.
On the 4th of July this past weekend, we had our FIRST time not constantly having our eyes on Heidi since she got here. We were outside and she was inside with grandma and Aunt Becky, and for a couple hours we got to just relax and be ourselves again… and guess what? The second we got home, we wished we had been hanging out with Heidi instead!
Parenthood changes you in ways you can’t begin to anticipate or ever fully understand. We thought we missed our “carefree” fun and young days until we got it back for just a few hours… and then all we wanted to be Heidi’s parents again! I wish I had photos with her and had watched some fireworks with her… but we needed that “us” time. I can’t believe for 10 weeks we haven’t had a single break in watching her. Whew.
Hopefully next time around, I’m a little more comfortable with having people in our home (Lord willing COVID isn’t a thing!) and we can have family come stay with us to help give us a break far earlier than 10 weeks in. I’m convinced that would have really helped the transition for us. Maybe I wouldn’t have been quite as sad and quite as shell-shocked… but even with the up and down emotions, I would go back and relive those first few weeks again just to hold Heidi’s 6 pound 11 ounce self again. There are seriously so many magical moments mixed in with the hard ones. I wouldn’t change a single second. - YOU MIGHT FEEL REALLY, REALLY LONELY… BUT YOU AREN’T ALONE.
In those hard moments full of tears, I found myself thinking, “You’re completely alone in this. How can your friends relate to you now? When’s the last time _____ called? They don’t want to bother you. You don’t have anything in common with them anymore. How can you even be friends moving forward? They just have no concept of what your life is like now!”
Ugh, how toxic are those thoughts?! I knew they weren’t true, but they felt very real in those first few weeks as a new mom… like my old friends were also now gone with my “old life.”
If you’re a friend to a new mama… would you do me a favor? Would you pick up your phone and keep texting her? Even if she doesn’t always answer… even if her replies take days to come in… she is there. She misses you. She sees when you call or text her and it brings so much light and joy and normalcy to her day. Keep reaching out to her. Tell her how great she’s doing. Don’t stop talking to your friend just because she just became a mom.
I’m so thankful my friends cared enough to give me space to heal. My personality is very private and I generally want that space. They know me well! But I found myself so desperately longing to connect with the people who anchored me to myself and everything I knew while so much change was taking place in my mind, body, heart, and every day life. I missed my friends, so I let them know I did. All the FaceTime calls, text message threads, and funny Instagram memes gave me so much life those first few hard, painful weeks. I pressed into the uncomfortable vulnerability, choosing to connect instead of withdraw, and it made all the difference for me in my postpartum recovery.
I didn’t expect to feel as alone as I did… but I made sure to remind myself in those moments of loneliness that I wasn’t alone. That there were so many people that loved me and wanted to walk alongside me through the good, the bad, and the ugly!
Becoming a mom is TOUGH WORK. So many people told me it would be “hard.” I’m not sure the word hard really relays how it all felt, but it’s a lighthearted enough word to avoid causing unwarranted fear! I think it’s just something you have to experience yourself before you can really know. But if I’m going to tell someone it will be hard, I’m also going to tell them what they can do about it. (I got a few of these tips from a few moms beforehand and I’m so thankful I did!)
Make sure you have support in every area you can think of. Meals? Hands on help? Target runs? Food delivery gift cards? Breastfeeding support? Postpartum recovery help? Make a list of the people you can count on for each of these things and pull that list OUT those first couple weeks!! Care just as much about creating an exhaustive support circle as you do completing your baby registry.
Buy all the comfy clothes and postpartum recovery supplies. Peri bottles, Frida padscicles, ibuprofen, Dermoplast, Always disposable underwear… all the things! Buy more than you think you need. This is the time to have extra supplies on hand. You can always gift what you don’t use or save for next time!
Freeze a ton of energy balls and have lots of snacks on hand. If you can manage to prep some crockpot freezer meals like beef stew and taco soup, you’ll love yourself SO MUCH for it later.
And last but not least… give yourself a ton of grace. You aren’t supposed to know how to do any of this. It’s okay to be completely clueless. You’re learning as you go, and so is your baby. These tearful moments will someday be looked back on fondly… so take a deep breath and let all the stress, tension, and overwhelm go. You will get through this! This time really is so, so short. Reach out to loved ones and let them help you. Not because you aren’t good enough… or because you’re falling short… or because you can’t care for your baby yourself… but because you deserve to rest. You’ve grown this little person in you and now you’re continuing to love and care for them outside of you… and now everyone gets to come alongside you to do that. Press into it. Embrace the places where you feel the weakest. Lean into the unknown and let all the fear go.
You’re doing a great job, mama.
