Seven Months Postpartum: Mothering the Mother
My birthday is coming up. I am turning 30, which to me feels like a threshold. It’s as if life, with all its unwritten rules, decides that the third decade is where things must solidify, become real in a way they haven’t before. I understand it’s ridiculous, it’s all in my head, but I am in my head, so what can I do about it. I had a list once, the kind you make in your mid-twenties with confident handwriting, of everything I would have figured out by now. The list was ambitious and specific and made a kind of sense at the time, drafted by a version of me who hadn’t yet learned how thoroughly life ignores your outlines, even if you manifest. Most of the list remains unfinished. It’s fine. The most important things came through.
Thirty feels loaded. Like a word you’ve said so many times it starts to sound strange—thirty, thirty, thirty—until it becomes less a number and more a mirror. I thought I would have a house by now. I though I’d publish a book.
I do not own a house and I did not publish a book. But I did become a mother.
Bean is seven months old. I am seven months a mother. Seven months of the most breathtaking, exhausting, identity-reshaping love I have ever known.
I put kefir in my coffee today by mistake, and a few days ago put formula in the filter instead of coffee. Clearly I am tired. Bean is, for the most part, a good sleeper. She still wakes up in the middle of the night; sometimes at 10, and then sleeps until morning; other times she wakes up at 5 ready to start the day. Some days she wakes up three or four times. We’ve had a few rough nights with teething. It comes and goes, but it’s generally, as far as baby sleep goes, okay. I don’t think my exhaustion comes from a lack of sleep, but rather from my inability to turn my mind off.
We spent the last month in Sweden. We went on walks along the coast a lot, in fact, so much that I got a dry blister on my foot, the kind you have to remove with a scalpel. I must take care of it urgently. Other than the blister, the walks were a godsend. The weather has been wonderful, Bean slept soundly in the pram, and the cool sea breeze cleared my head. There’s something about moving your body through open air, with nothing demanding your attention except the next step, that makes the mind go quiet in the best possible way. It’s very meditative. The walks in the city are great but not nearly as restorative.
My husband suggested that I go back home a couple of days earlier, ahead of them so I could have some time to myself before they arrive.
I didn’t say yes immediately. I said I’ll think about it. Could I actually do it? Leave? Get on a plane without Bean strapped to my chest, without the diaper bag, without scanning the overhead bins for the safest spot for her carrier? Could I sit in a window seat and watch the sea shrink below me and feel something other than panic? I had no doubts in his ability to care for our daughter but I decided against it. It just felt too much. We are back home now, all of us. I am glad.
I understand how incredibly lucky I am to have a husband who doesn’t help with the baby but parents the baby—plays with her, feeds her, rocks her to sleep, takes her on walks, reads to her, buys her toys and adorable clothes, and, perhaps, most importantly, takes care of her mother. I don’t take it for granted.
There’s a version of “self-care” that gets sold to new mothers that I find almost insulting, the bubble bath and the scented candle version, the fifteen-minute version, the version that fits neatly into a short nap window and asks very little of anyone. I mean, it’s better than nothing. But it’s not what I want.
Motherhood is so entirely oriented toward giving. Giving milk, giving time, giving attention, giving patience, giving your body, giving your sleep, giving your heart open and raw to another human being every single day. It restructures your entire relationship with the concept of self. And that restructuring is profound and meaningful and I would not trade it. But someone has to mother the mother.
It’s possible for me to carve out time for myself, but not exactly easy. I have never had a problem with my coffee being cold—I’ve heard it’s a common issue among new mothers. Bean can entertain herself long enough for me to drink my coffee hot. She can’t entertain herself long enough for me to finish writing a chapter or record a podcast, and it’s unfair to ask that of her. I don’t want to ask it of her. I want to be present. She is the most spectacular joy to be around. I know I am her mother, so it’s not worth much, but she is remarkably clever, funny, strong, fast, and naughty. She definitely knows the word “no,” and for her it means a challenge. She learned to pull to stand at six months and one week, and since then I haven’t had a single moment of not being alert while on duty.
It’s not only the issue of time but one of emotional capacity. My husband watches Bean plenty. She also goes to bed at 7. Theoretically, I could do a lot of work in these hours. In practice, during the day I choose to handle house tasks or some actual money-making work, and in the evening I am so exhausted that I just have a glass of wine, read a book, or watch a TV show. I used to write in the early mornings but now I don’t have it in me to wake up before my daughter.
I am not complaining about my circumstances. My circumstances are great. I am trying to figure out how to take care of myself better. I see necessary self-care at the moment as both a health/vanity project and deep emotional work. I don’t particularly have issues with the first one—there is always time for me to go for a massage or get my nails done, or book an appointment to remove a corn (!). But the latter is problematic in a way that requires actual effort on my part to exercise my creative ambition, and not just an extra hour of time.
I also need to get my blood-work done. I keep forgetting that.
The irony is not lost on me that I can articulate the problem clearly but cannot seem to solve it. I know what I need. I need to sit down, open a document, and write. I need to record the podcast episode I have been drafting in my head for months. The ideas are there. If anything, motherhood has made me more observant, more opinionated, more alive to the absurdity of everyday life. What’s missing is not inspiration or even time but the willingness to show up for myself.
It’s uncomfortable to admit that. I have always thought of myself as someone with a strong inner life, someone who creates because she has to, not because she finds the time. And yet here I am, choosing Netflix over my own voice most evenings, and calling it rest. It is rest. But it’s also the path of least resistance.
It has its place. I am not going to romanticise exhaustion (it feels weird to write this, I am not even that exhausted, just some) or pretend that forcing myself to write at 9pm after a full day of mothering and working is some kind of noble act. It isn’t. Some evenings, the wine and the TV show are exactly the right choice. The problem is when they become the only choice. When the default hardens into a habit, and the habit hardens into an identity, and suddenly I am a person who used to create.
I don’t want to be a person who used to create. So I am going to change that. I am going to take care of my physical and emotional needs. I don’t have a plan yet, which feels very unlike me. Usually I make lists. I love lists. But I think this particular problem resists optimisation. You can’t exactly schedule your way into creative courage.
I am writing this, which counts for something, I suppose.
I completely underestimated the energy required to look after a baby day after day. I started a couple of projects before giving birth thinking I could continue as soon as I came home from a hospital. Haha, I know, sweet summer child. It was three months ago and it’s just starting to get better. I am finding my ground. I am finding my groove. I am no longer afraid of every sound and my own shadow. I am writing lists after lists after lists. I feel burning desire to create things but am just finding energy to actually do anything about it.
Seven months in, I still feel exactly the same. I feel burning desire to create things but still no energy to do much about it.
Perhaps, finally getting that blood-work done would be a good start.