When you talk about the first six weeks of motherhood, the first rule is to know your audience.
Don’t tell a woman who suffered crippling post-natal depression that you’ve never known such joy. Don’t tell your mother’s group that you’ve had more sleep than you expected. Don’t tell a pregnant woman that, for you, breastfeeding was harder than childbirth and don’t tell someone who has chosen not to have children that life is immeasurably better with your baby in it.
This self-censoring, shaping your story to suit your audience, ultimately makes telling the truth - or rather your truth - very difficult.
Of course, there is no universal truth about the first six weeks. My early postpartum experience says nothing about yours or hers or his. Enjoying the postpartum period is not earned. It in no way reflects whether you’re a ‘good’ mother or a ‘bad’ one. It has a lot to do with luck. A fair bit to do with the baby you get handed. A bunch to do with hormones. Some things make it easier - a community, a straightforward recovery, a positive experience in the hospital and/or with midwives. And some things make it harder - a traumatic birth, isolation, lack of access to services, and a predisposition to mental illness.
Have you noticed yet? That I’ve begun to waffle? I’ve offered two hundred words of preamble before I say anything about my experience.
Side note: If you're in the newborn phase of parenthood like Jessie, you might enjoy listening to our new baby sleep audio series here.
And why share my experience at all? What does it matter? It is just one story. One that will inevitably make some women feel good and some women feel like shit. Such is the nature of any woman speaking honestly about pregnancy, birth or motherhood.
When I was pregnant, I started to believe that having a baby just might ruin my life.
People would jokingly quip “Sleep while you can!”
They told me nothing would ever be the same. I heard about the loss of identity. My algorithm sensed my fears before they were even fully formed, and delivered me endless content about women who regretted becoming mothers, horrific births, new mums hysterically crying in the middle of the night, another mum saying “if you think the newborn period is hard, wait until they’re a toddler…” followed by hundreds of comments including “my son is 17 and this is the worst age yet.”
I began to wonder if our shift towards vulnerability and candidly sharing the realities of motherhood, a pendulum swing which is undeniably a positive thing, had tipped the scales too far in one direction. Did people have anything good to say about motherhood, I wanted to shout at my phone. If the only word anyone used to describe it was “hard” then, remind me, why were we all doing it?
Antenatal depression made me numb. Postnatal depression felt inevitable. At times it was as though I was being made to walk the plank, ready to sink into the depths of the ocean.
And so. Here is my messy, complicated, whole truth about the first six weeks after having a baby. The six weeks most people will say are the hardest of your life.
Of course, it is mandated that you begin with the difficult parts. The word ‘hard’ is accurate. Breastfeeding, for me, has been a minefield. Hundreds and hundreds of hours of nursing my baby resulted in four weeks of virtually no weight gain. I have never worked so hard at something I’ve failed at. Six weeks in, we seem to have turned a corner. I’m tired, I’ll admit. Although I will say, the insomnia of pregnancy was worse. The day after birth I had a big cry. I hadn’t slept in days and felt like I might never sleep again. The feelings have been big. At times too big. They don’t seem to fit inside my body. I’ve had to say no to work opportunities I’d have loved to do otherwise.
But have these six weeks been the hardest of my life?
No.
The part I’ve hesitated to say out loud is that they’ve been the best six weeks I’ve ever had.
I can try to describe it to you, but as writer and actor Robert Delaney puts it: “Listen, of course you’re nervous but here’s the deal: you’re ready for all the bad stuff. You’ve been very tired before. You’ve been in pain before. You’ve been worried about money before. You’ve felt like an incapable moron before. So you’ll be fine with the difficult parts! You’re already a pro. What you’re NOT ready for is the wonderful parts. NOTHING can prepare you for how amazing this will be. There is no practice for that.”
I could not have been prepared for how much I love this little person. How watching shadows with her at 2am is magical. I love the cuddles and the kisses and how she has just started to smile up at me. I look forward to bath time. My husband and I have laughed far more than we’ve cried, staring for hours at her silly tiny face, sleeping with her eyes wide open. I have not experienced a loss of identity but a shift in identity, and I like this one considerably more. I feel like a Real Grown Up for the first time, proud and accomplished and even at times responsible. My life does not feel ‘over’. I can barely comprehend how much I have to look forward to; giggles and family holidays and first words and first steps.
I am not naïve enough to think that the first six weeks represent the long road ahead that is motherhood. Everyone struggles with and enjoys different stages. When I’ve let myself admit how much I’ve enjoyed the newborn bubble, I’ve been met with “Its early days” or “Just you wait”. And perhaps they’re right.
But if we’re going to talk about the truth of the first six weeks, I’d like it on the record that there are parts that are fucking glorious.
For some, it is the darkest period of their life, for others, it is the brightest and for most, it is probably a mix of the two.
In order to tell the truth, let’s embrace all of it.
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Jessie Stephens is an Executive Editor and co-host of Mamamia’s flagship podcast, Mamamia Out Loud. She is currently on maternity leave.
Feature Image: Supplied.
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