Three Months Postpartum: Out of the Trenches

Now I look at her and my heart clenches with a fierce, desperate love.

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The early days blur together now, as if they belonged to another life - one ruled by the clock and the cry, by that constant, feral alertness that comes from keeping a tiny, fragile human alive.

The first weeks were trenches, and I don’t use the metaphor lightly. I remember the way my body felt paralysed with fear, how the walls closed in each afternoon when the sun dipped, and how every task felt like moving through mud.

Now I look at her and my heart clenches with a fierce, desperate love. I can’t quite explain what I feel—this bone-deep tenderness goes beyond words. All I want to write about now is myself and her, the two of us suspended in this strange, luminous bubble of time. I’ve heard that babies believe they are still part of their mothers until about six months old. I wonder if it’s true. There’s something profoundly poetic in that idea. I think about object permanence. Do I cease to exist for her when she can’t see me? Does she remember me, or does the world simply blink in and out of being with each turn of her head?

Cliches are cliches because they are true. It does go by so fast. Time is slipping through my fingers, and I can barely remember the newborn days. Sometimes I catch myself longing for those impossible nights. There was something holy about them, something raw and unfiltered in the way we existed together, skin to skin, both of us new to this world we’d built. I didn’t know then that the exhaustion would fade but that the ache would stay - the ache of knowing she’ll never be that small again, that each version of her disappears the moment the next one arrives.

She was so tiny I could hold her with one hand, breastfeeding, while making lunch or drinking coffee. Now she is heavier, with the curious head moving in all directions and chunky legs, so sweet it takes all my power not to squeeze them in a moment of cute aggression. She now doesn’t want a boob, she wants to hold her own bottle even thought I am not quite sure she fully grasps she has hands. She likes her baby gym. She likes looking out of the window.

One of my desks is now a changing table. I am not entirely sure how it happened but an actual changing table became a storage: pillows, blankets, little Angelcare bath seat we used once, Najell carrier Bean didn’t care for, bags full of tiny clothes. What should I do with it? Do I sell it? Do I put it in the storage in case we decide to have another baby? Do i give it to a girlfriend? Do I know someone who is about to have a baby? A lot of the clothes hasn’t been worn even once. Bean was tiny and then, suddenly, tiny yet so big, and nothing fit. Each morning she is a fraction heavier, a touch wiser, a little farther from the newborn who fit in the crook of my arm, half-asleep to the world.

Every day she seems a little more like herself. I can see her curiosity forming its own gravity: the way her eyes follow the light across the room, the way she studies the shadows on the wall. Sometimes she laughs at nothing I can see, a bubbling, startled sound. I catch glimpses of who she might become, but they vanish as quickly as they appear. For now, she’s all instinct and wonder, pure presence.

I wonder if the worry will ever go away or if I am destined for the rest of my life to be on the edge of my seat. Is she eating enough? Is she sleeping enough? Is she too hot or too cold? Am I failing her in one way or another? It will never go away, will it? I believe it will only change shape. It will shift from is she breathing? to is she happy? From is she safe in my arms? to will she be safe in the world?

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Fredrik sings a lot to her. I try joining in one day.

‘Old Macdonald had a farm,’ he sings.

‘And on a farm there was a wool,’ I sing.

‘Don’t listen to mommy,’ he says covering her ears. ‘There are no wolves on a farm.’

We go outside every day. Bean doesn’t like the stroller but she loves the carrier, and I love caring her. She is warm and squishy, and holding her close I feel as if she might still be inside me, as if we are one. We do the same route every day. In the mornings, we go to the big park where I get coffee and sometimes a strudel from a small truck, beware of walling chestnuts written boldly and scarily, then I stand for a bit on a hill overlooking Prague. If the weather is nice, you can see practically to the end of the city. In the evenings, we go to a small park. You can do one lap in about ten minutes, and we do three or four laps if it’s the last nap of the day.

Other days we walk a bit further to a villa neighbourhood. I imagine owning a house, I even have a dream one, with butter yellow walls, big garden and a huge balcony: it belongs to the city and seems to be unoccupied. I know even if it went on sale the price would be astronomical but a girl can dream. And I do. I dream of a garden and a big warm kitchen. I imagine us planting rhododendrons and strawberries, thyme and tomato, and later baking pies from the fruits of our labour, flowers in vases scattered around the house.

I imagine her older, toddling barefoot through that garden, her hands stained with berry juice, laughter tangled in the air. The fantasy feels almost tactile - the smell of thyme on my fingers, the hum of bees drifting lazily around the rhododendrons, the warm weight of the sun on our shoulders.

I daydream too much.

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Any other relationship like this would be considered abusive. You are getting screamed at for no reason, the little creature sleep deprives you and makes you unable to leave the house. But not this one. Brodsky wrote that one’s love is always greater than oneself and I finally understand what it means.

Sometimes she mumbles with suck conviction, I believe I understand what she is saying. ‘Milk is almost ready,’ I reply. ‘I love you too. Of course I do, how can you even ask.’

The days of glorious two-three hours naps are over. Perhaps they will come again. Perhaps not. It gets so much easier when you stop resisting, when you take each bit of the day as it comes. Morning melts into afternoon, afternoon melts into evening, evening slowly melts into night. Days so far exist in two hour cycles. Nights are better. Sometimes she wakes up only once. Other times — thrice. I am no longer pathologically sleep-deprived but still disoriented. Will I ever not be?

I gently place my nipple in her mouth. She doesn’t take it. Her lips firmly press together. But it’s enough to initiate a letdown. I grab a burp clothes and stuff it in my bra. I don’t want to drench her in my milk.

She is the most beautiful, most divine thing I have ever seen. I want to cry looking at her sleeping peacefully in my arms, watching the rise and fall of her chest, that small proof of life that still undoes me. I hold her for a bit longer, her whole body pressed against my chest. I put her in her crib. She bubbles for a few seconds but stays asleep.

‘I love you,’ I say. ‘I love you. I love you. I love you.’

One Month Postpartum: Cry When the Baby Cries

Two Months Postpartum: Advice I Would Give Myself (And You)

Books that helped me survive the first months:

• Cribsheet: A Data-Driven Guide to Better, More Relaxed Parenting, from Birth to Preschool by Emily Oster
  This book feels like a breath of fresh air in the sea of conflicting parenting advice. Oster’s data-driven approach helps cut through the noise. It doesn’t make parenting easy, but it does make it feel less overwhelming, which honestly is priceless. I know some people consider her controvertial, but I have enjoyed Oster ever since Expecting Better.

• Bringing Up Bébé: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting by Pamela Druckerman
  I loved this book for its cultural observations as much as its parenting insights. It’s witty and fun. I loved chapter on sleep and can’t wait for Bean to “start doing her nights.”

• Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son’s First Year by Anne Lamott
  Raw, funny, and honest. Lamott captures the messiness of the first year with such sharp humor and vulnerability that I felt less alone just reading it. It’s a companion. Like having a friend who admits it’s hard, swears a little, but keeps showing up anyway.