Giddy to be speaking at this event at Bergamot Station this Friday!
http://www.realitycheckla.org/events2014/
I’ll bet Sophia Loren’s boobs are so mad right now.
Taping a podcast with Dr. Elliot Berlin on Pregnancy Taboos, some of the more difficult things that happen postpartum came up. The birth of your baby begins with oxytocin fueled bliss, the introduction to the sweet one you have been carrying around for months upon months. Many couples take birthing classes to get ready for that moment, but few take parenting classes or know very much about what happens afterward. I dove into how you bleed for weeks, have the sweats worse than Rocky, your hormones crash to pre-pregnancy levels after being three times as high as they have ever been after the climax of birth (hello baby blues!) and then your hair starts to fall out in chinchilla clumps. The podcast co-host and one of the other guests were very pregnant at the time and the look of horror on their faces stopped me from elaborating.
One problem is that in our society most people don’t hear enough about the details of what really happens postpartum. Also, in our individualistic society most of us haven’t seen a birth, helped someone afterwards or taken care of a newborn until the newborn is our own. Even most of the doorstop-sized books you buy during pregnancy don’t write enough about the postpartum era. Maybe there is an extra chapter in the back on “Baby Care” which can seem anticlimactic after reading about the birth and is often breezed through or ignored.
Everything and everyone focuses on the pregnancy, labor and the birth.
When you’re expecting it’s where the glitz, grit and glamour is, and understandably so.
Growing and carrying a baby is a miracle; a huge responsibility with millions of new things to learn, discern and do. Labor and birth, that is where the uncertainty lies, so of course we are going to try and educate, empower ourselves and control as much as possible. Ironically if anything ever teaches you that you’re NOT in control, it’s this part of your life, especially the birth and how all of that goes down. But isn’t it backwards to focus mainly on what happens up until that point since afterwards is when you are actually in charge of taking care of your child? Not only that, your body is now healing from the birth and you are going through a huge life transition emotionally.
That may be true, but postpartum gets lost in the shuffle and by the time you’re in it, it’s too late to read many, if any, books. You’re too exhausted. You might be busy hosting people in your house and you’re up on your feet too much so you’re bleeding again. You feel the pressure to be posting cute baby and me photos but you feel pretty beat up. Overnight sometimes your baby goes from being the smoothest sweetie in the world to a goopy-eyed, red-cheeked, scaly-scalped sweet little one. You’re not sure why, Is this really normal?! you ask, and reading about it online is scary. Lastly, there’s an irrevocable break between who you were and who you are now. You go from the Special Person status of pregnancy to being another mom. At first people say how great you look after giving birth but then your weight loss plateaus. There will be days where all you do is drink, eat, breastfeed, and change diapers, over and over. It’s a challenge for someone who is used to be fabulous and efficient to do only four things in one day, dressed in your breastmilk-sprayed tank top and yoga pants ensemble.
It doesn’t have to be only rough going though, if you are in bed focusing on healing, feeding your sweet baby, and sleeping as much as possible because your partner, mom, aunt, sister or postpartum doula is catering to your needs for the weeks following the birth. Most other countries get this and have an infrastructure of support set up (for approximately 40 days postpartum) that is an intrinsic part of the culture. If you have support, then it still won’t be easy, but you’ll get through it with fewer tears and scars because you are being taken care of and being listened to as you’re learning how to take care of and bonding with your helpless, better-than-you-could-have-imagined, beloved bébé.
If you don’t have a family member who can be there all day (and ideally all night), then look into hiring a postpartum doula. They aren’t only for the rich and famous. You can ask your local midwives or birth communities if there are any new doulas who need to do their pro bono or at least majorly discounted hours. New doulas are fresh out of training and will be an energetic part of your support team.
More on the postpartum period future posts since it’s my passion, but for now this is a cry out to all of the pregnant mamas and future papas to actively plan now to get as MUCH postpartum support as possible. Especially if you had a baby in the NICU, a C-section, if your partner isn’t around, if your family isn’t around, if your family IS around but is not healthy/helpful, if you had a traumatic birth, if breastfeeding is very challenging or if your baby has special needs. That doesn’t let you off your own hook though if you don’t have any of those special considerations. EVERY new parent needs The Village, the committed All-Hands-On-Deck birth plus postpartum crew and ultimately the love and support of others who are there for YOU so you can be at your best while doing something auspicious in this world, taking care of the the littlest, most vulnerable and extremely lovable new member of your family.
At lunch with my friend Kenneth, we enjoyed our usual dose of highly personal conversations laced with laughter. Crunching on kale mercifully covered in parmesan (we tend to frequent hippie joints), I remember feeling grateful for our enduring friendship. I’m used to that feeling when I’m with Kenneth, not only because he is an altogether enjoyable person to be with, but also because he has had many of the basic physical movements we all take for granted each and every day taken away from him over the course of his young life. Unexpected however on this day, was his revelation on how he is now looking at life and even more shocking was, and is, my reaction.
He said that he now looks at life as if he is a river. We are all rivers, meant to go through life in a certain direction. That in itself sounds great, plus it matches the crystal encrusted dreamcatcher decor around us. He went on to say that his ultimate take on this river analogy is “Do what comes easy in life.”
“Wait, what?” I asked rather brusquely. He explained that as physical functions such as driving became even more difficult for him and subsequently impossible, he let them go and let them become part of his past with a lot of peace with this view. A river moves and goes with the flow, literally. A river has memories of the past and can be proud of them or learn from them but doesn’t try to go backwards. It can look at the trees up the hill and appreciate them and wonder what it must be like to be over there or be one of them, but if it tries to change and eek it’s way up it is going to be largely unsuccessful and seep down back to where it’s supposed to be. Okay, I thought at first, maybe he needs to look at things this way, not me, but knowing that my keen friend was onto something I tried on applying “Do what comes easiest” to my own life.
My initial reaction was a physical discomfort that is probably attached to my American DNA that screams
“Climb! Reach! Go for the goal! If it’s easy, it’s probably not worth it.”
Then I flipped it around to what feels more comfortable (at first) in my gut which is
“Do what comes hardest; do that which is most difficult!”
Only now that started to sound crazy too, and yet it is how I consciously and unconsciously wanted to live my life in many aspects. Only now every time my stress level rises because I haven’t finished something I need to do yet or haven’t followed through on something I really want to do, I imagine a river and seriously the stress is alleviated or at least mitigated. My favorite thing about the river analogy is that rivers aren’t stagnant or boring, they are gorgeous, dynamic and important. They nourish the life around them, they bounce, skip, they are playful and yet fulfill a serious purpose here on Earth. I will ALWAYS have hugely-exciting-earnest-random-serious-international-goofy-idealistic goals. The stress I have to achieve them on a daily basis however, is all but gone when I picture the River. I haven’t finished unpacking this analogy. It has been a jarring but helpful, and shall I say healthful, experience so far. I still bristle a bit when I imagine the concept of ‘doing what comes easiest’ but then I picture my River and appreciate the results.
Where is your River going? How is it going to get there? With stress, regret and clinching your wrists around what is ‘yours,’ or with an open mind and open hands?
I would love to change the title of this entry but nothing else quite nails it. I don’t want to seem like a crybaby; I have been complimented by strangers and friends alike for being generally calm and altogether zen in spite of having an active life with two kids under the age of 3. I never take what they say too seriously because I only have two children and my sister has 4, plus many other women have more difficult circumstances. Apples and oranges I know, I shouldn’t compare but I do.
Nobody sees me lose it and cry, and I mean weep, on some of the days when I am alone with both children at home. It doesn’t happen every day, but yes on those days when I am feeling isolated, exhausted and disappointed in myself I end up crying, shoulder shaking-style. It happens A LOT more than I bargained for when I first found out I was going to be a mama, even though I was aware that my hormones were going to go on a gigantic roller coaster ride and that my life would never be the same.
Now the good news, I didn’t cry once in July!
Pourquoi?
Quite simply because I had more hands on deck and the wellbeing of my children didn’t depend on just me for most of the day like it does at home.
We had the pleasure of traveling first to Canada to be with my parents and one of my outrageously delightful nieces and then we were off to France to spend time with my husband’s friends and family. There was almost always a grandparent around to go exploring with our energetic 2 1/2 year old, an aunt to take her to the pool and a cousin nearby to innately bounce up and down in front of our giggling 6 month old just when he began to need some more interactivity.
Now I’m back home in beloved Los Angeles, this gorgeous and complex city where I grew up. We have a sprawling metropolis brimming with fascinating people but it can be an isolating place to live. Most of my friends, family and fellow doulas live a long drive away and all of them are very busy with their own careers and families. I am making more friends in the neighborhood but it is still a schedule bender to find out when we can get together, and as parenting goes it’s not an all-hands-on-deck situation unless you have help or live with your extended family. When I have new friends over I busy myself to clean, get tea and food together and I certainly wouldn’t ask them to do me any favors; the type of help that I wouldn’t hesitate to ask my family for.
So what to do? As I grow farther postpartum and grow in my skills of mothering two I will cry less often. Also I feel so healthy when I take care of myself in the form of making sticky honey face masks, bike rides to the store, walking our dog Gromette, having a Girls Night Out and of course a Date Night avec mon amour. The things I do to feel feminine, fun and vibrant all in turn help my children because it’s quite simple: how I’m doing is how they are doing, and how they are doing is how I’m doing.
Cheers to the coming months, may we all have as many hands on deck as possible and may our tears turn into rejoicing!
