Postpartum is a nasty little beast, and I've only been back in the ring for two days. I'm fairly certain I legitimately blocked out most of my labor with RB and the early days of newborn life. It wasn't on purpose, but it's gotta be common. That's the only way anyone ever decides to have more than one kid.
There's so many hard things happening in such a short window. If we stayed conscious of the true experience of it, there'd likely be a lot less reproduction in this world.
My body went from producing hormones to support a second life inside me to flat lining those hormones. Now it's producing different hormones to continue supporting this second life but outside my body instead. I'd liken it to bungie jumping. One minute you're on the bridge mentally preparing, the next you're flying toward the ground, your faith and a stretchy cord the only two things keeping you unharmed. Suddenly, you're yanked back up only to fall again. Rinse and repeat until the laws of inertia subside. Alone and as close to free-falling as you can get without actually doing it.
They call it baby blues. That's such an offensively bullshit way to describe it. Baby blues. This isn't a fucking robin's egg. This is a life-changing, DNA-altering event. It's not the color one might paint a nursery. It's not a soft hue in a sunset. It's jarring, vivid, and consuming. It systematically siphons every energy reserve you've ever had. Overnight, it takes your bodily autonomy and the wheel of your mental health. It isolates you, undermines you. It leaves you crying for reasons you can and can't explain. It shortens your temper and perches on your back, ready to enter any situation available against your will.
All the while, you're walking through it. It's a bed of hot coals and you are soldiering forward, tears falling, ash flying, heart breaking. The baby on your chest is innocent and pure, and you're not able to live within this moment to truly enjoy it. You're elsewhere. You're worrying over dirty diapers, or lack there of. You're thinking about the people around you, desperate to support you, but trying to protect your delicate, ready-to-shatter feelings. You're watching people watch you, waiting for your next set of tears. You feel the white gloves of those that love you. If you're like me, you're missing your first born so much, it aches in your chest and clouds your mind. You're in between what was and what is, and you don't know how to put both feet firmly in the now.
Logically, I know my mind will heal as my body and hormones come closer to baseline. I know I will learn to balance the babies who depend on me. I will be back to laughing and the moments of insecurity will grow less frequent. Logically, I recognize I am only two days postpartum. I know that I am past the initial fall and that my bungie cord has yanked me back toward the sky. The more I fall, and allow myself to with grace, the more the height difference between each fall will shrink. I know these days, long nights, weeks, and months will go by faster than I can even begin to anticipate; I know that one day I will long to hold my son at both his and my most vulnerable state. I know that I am up to this challenge and I am qualified for the task at hand.
It's funny how I can know all these truths and still feel overwhelmed. I wish I was better at compartmentalizing, but there are times when I'm simply not capable. I want so badly to be in the future when I have figured some of this out. I want to feel like I'm a part of RB's and J's lives. Right now, it feels I just step out of one to enter the other. They have no bond, not yet - they've only just met. Our lives feel disjointed. Not to RB, and certainly not to J, but to me, they do.
I will spend the next 12 weeks of my maternity leave pulling these train tracks toward each other and building a cross-over. I will let myself cry when I need to, even though it really does irritate the hell out of me that I feel this way. I'm just, for lack of a better term, weepy. My eyes are sweating and there's not much I am able to do to bring them back to normal except let them sweat it out. Eventually they will, and my face will be dry more often than it is not. In between the hard moments, I will do my best to enjoy the new memories we are forming. I might not be able to to be the person I am or want to be in those moments - she will return with time. I am who I am, for now. I am an amoeba navigating uncharted territory. Some days I will appreciate the shape I have formed. Other days I probably won't. I'll try to be nice to myself regardless of the days. I'll try to be nice to those around me too. I won't always do a great job; such is human nature. But I will keep trying.
Maybe other women have very different postpartum experiences. I hope they do. I hope other mothers dealing with the hormonal and emotional fluctuations of new life don't feel they entered seas as rocky as I did. I know in my heart my experience isn't unique. There is strength in solidarity, but there's also a melancholy in knowing so many other women are in the same spot I am right now. On the couch, beautiful newborn in their arms, breasts aching, cramps ramping, cheeks damp, trying and feeling like they are falling short. Were one of them to tell me they felt they weren't absolutely excelling, I would tell them how wonderful they really are doing. How they grew and birthed the most perfect human who now completes their family. How they are ripping apart the muscle of themselves to be sewn back together into a superhuman version of who they once were. How they have done the one thing that both science and religion agree is a miracle. How they should be so proud of themselves. How I am so proud of them.
In this moment, I will try to be a friend to myself and heed these words, and in the hard moments I know will likely follow.
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