One mother finding her way back
The day after I gave birth to my second daughter, a woman came into my hospital room to collect information for the birth certificate. I spouted out the stats she needed but then stopped in my tracks when she asked for my occupation. Who/what was I now? I honestly didn’t know how to answer that question. I looked to my mom in the chair next to my bed and down to the open hospital gown with a new little creature attached to my body, and so much of who I’ve been flashed through my brainscape. My mouth hung open.
I went through a whole breaking down of my SELF when my first child was born. The metamorphosis into motherhood was not as easy and blissful as I imagined it would be. I wasn’t ready for the flood of hormones, the cluster feeding, the excruciating pain from breastfeeding, the moments I’d pass my baby to my husband and cry into the rug on the floor for a few minutes before I took my insatiable child back into my arms. Not once, not twice, but three times I made myself a pot of French pressed coffee without boiling the water first and didn’t realize it until I took a cold sip from my mug. There was so much turmoil as I figured out how to be a mother and still be myself.
I am the person who has her *stuff* together. The reliable friend. The one other people call when they are breaking down. I didn’t know how to accept this new vulnerability. I was insanely jealous of my husband going out into the world for work when I couldn’t figure out how to go out the front door by myself. To even use the toilet, a basic need, I had to first make sure another human would be safe in our separation. I know I suffered from post-partum depression. But I didn’t tell my doctor. I needed to hold myself together. I needed to continue to be the strong person everyone knew me to be. And I loved my baby more than I had ever loved anything, so it was all so confusing. There was a quiet implosion only the people closest to me saw. My husband held me every night and let me cry into him and feel cared for after a full day of completely caring for someone else. I’ll never forget that feeling.
It took a long time for me to find my way back to myself. I haven’t written another novel like I thought I would. It just hasn’t happened. But I have also accepted that because I’ve been busy nurturing one of the fiercest and silliest of souls in my daughter. She has broken me, and I have loved her intensely through it all. I was back into a writing groove two years after her birth when I got pregnant again. So, when faced with this occupation question, I suddenly felt like a complete fraud even thinking about claiming to be a writer. I didn’t know if I’d fall apart the same way I did before.
It has been different the second time though. The growing pains aren’t there as I feel my way forward with my new baby. Don’t get me wrong: there have been raging hormones, and scabs on my nipples (I almost didn’t write that, but you may as well know), and a garden I planted that I suddenly couldn’t water anymore riddling me with guilt, and a toddler feeling big things as she watched her mother care for someone else. Mothers shed so much of themselves for their children. Identity is a continual challenge for me through all of this. But now I am made of the strongest scar tissue from all the breaking and all the loving. After I closed my gaping mouth in that hospital room, I said, “Author.” That’s what I do. It will occupy my time again at some point. When the word came out of my mouth, my mom smiled at me. It felt good to claim that little part of myself as I welcomed my new baby into the world. I will give my whole self to her. And I will also write another book.
To anyone else struggling,
I see you. It’s OK not to know yourself after you give birth.
I got through it with support from my husband and a few amazing friends. I will never be the same person I was before, and I am stronger for it. I am so many things. A mother. A teacher. A writer. A lover. A dreamer. And some days a person struggling to bring hot coffee to my lips. Let’s talk about it.