In the days after I gave birth, I sat on the couch, wincing in pain as my baby’s latch lacerated my nipples. The phone didn’t stop ringing, and I hoped someone would call to ask me how I was holding up, since my daughter’s birth hadn’t exactly gone to plan. But no, instead everyone was desperate to know one thing: “When can we come see the baby?” “When can we come over and give the little cherub a cuddle?”
After a grueling 44-hour labor, I had hemorrhaged half of my overall blood volume. It would be several years before my official diagnosis of PTSD would make itself known, yet even in the immediate aftermath of my daughter’s birth, it was already clear that the postpartum period was not a kindly beast.
The extent and speed of my hemorrhage had left the obstetrician with no other option than to carry out bimanual uterine compressions. The procedure saved my life but left me with physical issues I’m still dealing with today, nearly eight years later.
So when I came home with my daughter, I was far from recovered. Aside from the physical pain pulsing through me, there was also the overall body weakness to contend with. I couldn’t walk up the stairs without stopping halfway to avoid passing out, as my resting heart rate was twice what it should have been, and I was constantly breathless and exhausted.
As I adjusted my daughter’s latch for the hundredth time, I remember glancing past the array of pastel pink teddy bear cards displayed on the windowsill and settling my gaze on several bunches of flowers that had been left by the door, still wrapped and starting to wilt from neglect.
Physically, I felt solidarity with the dehydrated and lifeless flowers; emotionally, I found myself in a state of sheer terror and shock. My disbelief and grief at what had happened and what could have happened were followed by immense guilt, because I had a healthy baby, after all; I was one of the lucky ones.
And so I buried my sadness deep down, since I had a nagging suspicion that lucky mothers with healthy babies were not supposed to wallow. Instead of focusing on healing and recovery, I followed the new-mom script to the letter. In my first three days postpartum, I’d already hosted 11 visitors and was meticulously scheduling in five more as soon as was logistically possible.
I smiled as faces smiled at my daughter. I clasped my hands as their hands held her perfect body against their own. I chatted, over and over, about her beautiful eyes and her rolls of baby fat. I said thank you for the teddy bears, for the balloons, for the flowers, and for the cards.
And yet I needed none of these things, and neither did my daughter.
What I needed was safety, security, and sleep. I needed the safety of a space in which to voice the grief I felt about the way my birthing experience had panned out. I needed the security of only my most intimate humans tending to my wounds and nourishing my body with their tender care and understanding. I needed to rest and, wherever possible, to sleep. Plus, I needed to learn how to breastfeed without trying to hide my nipples for fear of offending one of the relatives.
And really, my baby just needed my body. The only home she’d ever known, she needed my skin, my breasts, my scent, and my voice. We needed to get to know each other on the outside, where the sounds were louder and the sensations sharper. We needed to find our groove together, slowly and quietly.
The invisibility of new motherhood is something that many of us can relate to, and nowhere does it make itself more apparent than those first few days and weeks postpartum. Childbirth is intense and exhausting, and in the days of fresh motherhood, we find ourselves at our most vulnerable. It is only now, with the security blanket of hindsight wrapped tightly around my shoulders, that I can peek out and say: I needed more. As a whole, moms need more during the postpartum period: we need, at the very least, to feel seen.
Of course, my daughter and I are privileged that she received such a warm welcome to the world. We are lucky that so many people wanted to celebrate her very existence. Yet these celebrations felt misplaced and insensitive somehow … they seemed to be too much, too soon.
In hindsight, I wonder how different my postpartum experience could have been if our well-wishers might have asked us if we needed a little time for bonding, a meal, or maybe even a listening ear, as opposed to the question that rang out from the telephone every time it called us to attention: “When can we come see the baby?”