I Didn’t Feel The Warm Fuzzies

I wanted a baby so bad and for so long. I had gone to hell and back to have my son in my life. The failed number of IVF transfers, still I didn’t stop. Emergency surgery and hospitalisation when I’d got pregnant, I still didn’t stop. And there he was, in my arms, wrapped up warm and safe. But I just didn’t feel it straight away. I just didn’t feel it. I looked down at him, a baby in my arms and it literally was just that; a baby in my arms. The tiredness, exhaustion, anger and loneliness, perhaps a feeling of anti-climax. I didn’t fight to feel anything else, the exploding love and the rush, I didn’t even question it.

I hadn’t dared shared this with anyone, but I remember really well carrying this shame in my heart, a heavy weight wishing someone would take it from me by telling me that I’m not a bad mother and that they too had felt that way. I hadn’t come across anyone come across anyone in my circle who had felt this way, you can imagine how that seemed to make me feel even worse and so isolated. I was doing so well in the pregnancy. I had got pregnant, I’d got through my trimesters well and healthy and I had the birth I had wanted, but still something felt so wrong, like I had failed.

Even though I took the best possible care of my son, change of nappies and feeds on time, a warm safe space for the sweet post milk nap, the right amount of stimulation and development appropriate activities planned, but this feeling of guilt and disconnect lingered.

Reflecting back after doing a lot of digging, I have come to understand perhaps why my entry into motherhood was as tough as it was. I wont be delving into the science of what happens immediately post birth, but that said, it definitely played a part in how I felt afterwards. The exhaustion after birth is REAL, no matter how quick or long the birth took, the physical strength needed to push a baby out coupled with the restlessness that can be present in the last trimester is huge.

The emotional energy that is needed to traverse birth can be very demanding too. I remember only too well how excited I was to meet my baby. When my waters broke in the middle of a shopping center, I was back home cool as a cucumber under the shower, taking my sweet time, but as soon as we got into the car to make the journey over to the hospital, something shifted and I remember feeling vulnerable while at the same time ecstatic. This shifted again as soon as I had birthed, there were lots of questions and I was jolted back into staying in control and being vigilant.

Perhaps this is the part we have been conditioned into socially and culturally, staying in control and being onto of it all. I was desperate for someone to give me permission to let go, to surrender into the fatigue and exhaustion, I had made the journey and I just wanted to rest. I wonder if the doula I had worked with would have been allowed into the birthing suite, would have felt different- probably YES.

I held a lot of rigid expectation from my first birth, I believed if the birth went as I had wanted it to that I would already be winning the game- unfortunately, I learnt the hard way that it does not work like that. I believed that as soon as the baby came, that I would feel the strong pull and connection, that I would be fully present and available from the minute he was placed in my arms, that I would recover quick and be running the show as expected as soon as it got home.

Had I have had some kind of support in place, I am very sure that my experience would not have been the same as it was. The support could have looked like a perinatal specialist, a doula for the postpartum, designated family and friends who would be supporting me after the birth. Thankfully we are hearing and seeing more support in place, like doulas and how mothers and families are sharing their experience postpartum with support in place. The multiple benefits for physical healing and emotional healing for the mother.

That said, the support does not end there. The transition into motherhood is long and tough but with that comes the endless opportunity for psychological and personal growth. The feeling of guilt and disconnect that lingered a year and eighteen months into my postpartum was my calling to face beliefs that I had adopted as mine but which had really belonged to society and the culture I had been raised and living in. The landscape of motherhood is a patriarchal one and entering into the role of Mother can be a calling to questions the rules and expectations we live by in our role of Mother and as women.

Motherhood comes with a lot of uncomfortable feelings, these gentle nudges to get curious, to soften and to perhaps invite more compassion for ourselves.

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Stay gentle with yourself.