“So many tears!” I said.
“So many tears!” she echoed.
I was buying a baby shower gift in a cute boutique filled with muslin blankets that cost far more than is reasonable (given they will be soon be stained with newborn poop and puke), and the soft, warm colours and pillowy fabrics that, if we’re honest, belie the truth of early motherhood.
The thirty-something blonde, be-spectacled shopkeeper was reminiscing about that seldom-discussed period - the fourth trimester, the postpartum period - and not in a good way.
“Those early months knocked me on my f*cking ass,” she said, as she processed my payment, in words contradicting her sweet, tidy, put-together demeanor.
I concurred. With gusto.
I’ve been known to say I’d rather give birth once a week for three months than have to live those first three months with my infant. Granted - I had an easy ride when it came to the births of my two kids, but the months following were all bleeding nipples, howling babies, postpartum depression (undiagnosed at the time), and a desperation for sleep bordering on insanity. None of which is all that foreign to most mothers.
Yes, postpartum knocks (most of us) on our f*cking asses with a ferocity that the glorification of pregnancy, fertility, cute baby bumps and fancy-pram and convertible-cot ads don’t prepare you for, until you experience it for yourself… all then it’s all post-birth maxi pads and leaking everything and empty jelly belly and never showered and always hungry and crusty something in your hair. And, yes, for those lucky enough, moments of sheer ecstasy and love (but let’s not perpetuate the myth that that’s a ubiquitous experience, because it isn’t).
This reflection started me thinking about how many of us tend to approach pregnancy and early motherhood in North America.
We’ve got the current trends of the gender-reveal party (which I’ll refrain from criticizing here) and the baby-moon. There are, of course, baby showers, which have been a thing for a really long time. The first two might be considered fun ways to mark the milestones leading up to baby’s birth, and the latter is arguably helpful in that the mom-to-be is “showered” with gifts (given she’s willing to entertain the “guess the poop” game and diaper cake).
But in my case, at least, the “stuff” that came at my baby shower, for the most part, consisted of over-priced teeny tiny garments that stained too soon and were outgrown in mere weeks, or weren’t of use to me. (No, I didn’t use a single nursing cape. Breastfeeding was an endeavour that took all my coordination and concentration to accomplish that early on I learned that “caping” that sh*t was only making things worse, and I adopted a “f*ck-it” attitude and became a whip-the-boob-out-of-the-top type for all the years I went on to nurse.)
Basically, I didn’t really use or need most of what I got at that baby shower. And mostly, I’ve been left scratching my head, suspicious that baby showers have really - in many cases - become stress-inducing attempts to produce a Pinterest-worthy event swaddled in consumerism and the latest Goop-y solution to the realities of birth (cervical balm anyone?).
But in all seriousness, what I could really use was a shower.
The kind with warm water and soap.
In the weeks following the birth of my child.
By myself.
For longer than 90 frantic seconds while an infant in a bassinet on the floor next to the toilet wails and makes me cry and leak all at the same time until I step out of said shower dripping wet to pick the infant up and put her to my breast before sitting on the lid of the toilet, still crying, with my still-slippery-soapy body getting suds all over the place.
There’s no glamour there. Smashed is the glowing fantasy of the quintessential “mother” and the puckered angelic lips and rosy cheeks of the Gerber-baby.
But there are moments I remember, moments that stand out like shimmering dream-scapes amid the fog of those postpartum months…
...A large batch of Earl Grey scones baked by a best friend* who would top up my supply every week or so.
...The company of other women at my first La Leche League meeting - women who didn’t bat an eye when I took my top off and bawled at the sight of my cracked nipples, women who cradled my newborn like their own and gently gave me kind words of sympathy and encouragement.
...A visit from a neighbour who cooed at my infant while I took a bath for a luxurious forty-five minutes.
...Five jars of frozen soup lined up in my freezer, prepared by my PhD supervisor who, when she had her babies forty years earlier, had needed exactly the same thing.
And so, I ask myself, isn’t it time that we take a different approach to supporting moms. That we shift our spending, shift our focus, or at least lend our attention to and invest our money in the part of early motherhood that knocks every one of us on our f*cking asses, whether the baby is our first or our fourth?
Make soup.
Make scones.
Coo at an infant.
Give a new mom a hug (if she wants it).
And if you can’t do some of these things, find or pay someone who can.
Gift the new moms in your life with support when they really need it.
If you’re a new mom, ask your friends and colleagues and neighbours and in-laws to put down the hand-sewn sustainably-sourced silk-spun fairy-dust-infused sleep-sack and put their money toward a nutritious postpartum meal service, house-cleaning, child-minding,... whatever it is that you really need that could not only help you survive the fourth trimester, but *gasp* dare I say, thrive?
Together, let’s start a movement that changes the narrative of the postpartum period from one characterized by “so many tears” to,... well… something better.
Dr. Kristen Liesch
CO-CEO, Tidal Equality
Mom of Two
*Thanks, Ampei