Thoughts on Being a New Mom

Briggs Allen Munger has arrived! And we are so grateful for his health, his dashingly handsome appearance, and his relatively generous sleep patterns. Born at 8 lbs 11oz and 20.5 inches long, he was born the exact average birth weight of his parents. He eats well, is rarely fussy, and is overall a really great baby.

Now on to motherhood. My reflections are in no way a scale of my love for Briggs, because I honestly couldn’t love him any more or less. He is my son, and when I let myself think about the implications of that statement, I am blown away with awe.

Still, being a new mom is dangerously difficult. I say dangerously in part because as a stable, privileged American mom with a great support network, I can actually say I understand the impetus behind mothers who commit tragic atrocities against their children in the throes of being new moms. I of course do not condone such actions, but I understand them now in a way my pre-baby self simply could not. If I think about my past week-and-a-half while simultaneously stripping away my support network, income privileges, education, sound mental health, environmental calm, etc., I am honestly not sure how I would have gotten through without dangerous thoughts.

I’m not attempting to be dramatic. Rather, I hope to draw attention to the moments of frustration—almost anger—I have recently experienced to highlight what often goes unsaid (by new mothers included) in the first weeks of being a mommy. First this- the congratulations are great, the words of encouragement appreciated, and the feel of a newborn in my arms is wonderful. But none of these override the exhaustion; the difficulty balancing care for self, infant care, and spousal inclusion; remembering to take meds; constantly second-guessing all the knowledge I so dutifully absorbed pre-baby; the fever, chills, light-headed feeling, and massive headache of mastitis; sore breasts (to the point of making showering a painful task); recovering from the bodily trauma of delivery, and trying to overlook all the housework that I so desperately wanted to complete.

If I were to think theoretically about this, I might say my experience confirms Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, in which an individual requires certain need thresholds be met in order to be motivated toward obtaining the next tier of needs. The foundational needs are as follows: food, sex, sleep, excretion, breathing, water, and homeostasis. I was meeting exactly three of the seven, although breathing was occasionally difficult, I needed to be reminded to eat, and despite the gallons of water I drank, I was slightly dehydrated for days.

And so my frustrations begin to make sense. I could not care adequately for myself, so the “joys of motherhood” that I so desperately wanted to experience eluded me. This is not to say that I didn’t have moments of joy, because I couldn’t help but discover joy in Briggs’ serene face after a feeding. He is truly remarkable, and it gives me pleasure holding him while he happily coos.

Even so, being a new mom is not romantic. It is not a time filled with rainbows and butterflies. It is a time when you fear pulling your stitches out maintaining basic bodily functions. It is a time when you lie awake at night, wondering if someone will pop into your room at 4am to take your blood pressure or ask what picture to use for the hospital birth announcement. It is a time your hormones overtake your body, causing you to cry when your husband reminds you to take your prenatal vitamin. It is a time when your nipples hurt so badly you think about ways to discipline your (innocent) newborn. It is a time that lasts for eternity, causing you to wonder if you will someday change out of your nursing nightgown? It is a time your body and mind are not quite in sync, and the process of aligning the two often turns into tears.

Perhaps new mothers have spoken about this dangerously difficult first few weeks and I have simply not listened. This is possible, because who wants to think their first week home with an adorable baby will be THAT difficult? Perhaps it’s not so difficult for every new mom, but I write this for myself, I write this for new moms who need to be validated in their experience, and I write this for the sake of truth-telling.

My first week of being a new mom was not awesome. There, I said it. Positive, happy-go-lucky Emily did not have a great week. Week two now, and I’m still in the throes of this experience, but I’m sleeping more, taking fewer meds, my stitched parts have healed, and I am more confident about how to handle various situations. Even so, Briggs and I are still working on his latching issues, I’m still fighting off mastitis, and those pesky hormones still arise to remind me of how well I cry.

I will save my moments of joy for another post. Rest assured I have them, and I’m becoming more confident that one day this whole mothering routine will suite me, but for now I’d like to keep this post focused on the difficult truth of my first week as a new mom- it wasn’t wonderful. Here’s to a better week two.