The reality of postpartum

Postpartum remains in my mind as a beautifully haunted stage of my life. The newborn bubble is undeniably beautiful and hazy in all the best, softest ways.

But the experience of the mother is far more complex. Postpartum found me both healing and learning, achieving and resting.

I will never forget the shock I experienced the first time I learned that while I nursed on one side milk would spill freely from the other. (Call me naive but I really didn’t know much about how breastfeeding actually worked).

It feels like the perfect metaphor for motherhood honestly: All that work to get a successful, perfect latch, finally the triumph of a solid let down and amongst that relief and that win — a loss in another arena. Wasted effort and grit spilling from the other nipple. Peace, comfort, nutrition, being lent to your infant on one side while the other side creates a mess for you.

It is motherhood, but it is especially postpartum.

There are so many pieces of my motherhood that were sewn together in secret. Those late nights full of hungry newborn cries; change the diaper, feed the baby, burp the baby, hope you both go back to sleep. How many nights did the routine break down because of a blow out or spit up that soaked a sleeper or tummy troubles that begged to be held and comforted all night long?

How many nights did I take all those pivots and shifts in stride and lend endless grace, only to wake the next morning and have no grace to offer myself?

How many times did I wake up and examine the mess as if it was a moral failure? I frequently judged my soft belly and sunken eyes with disdain as if it was evidence I was shrinking, instead of evidence I was rising to the occasion.

So the story goes, I set out to document a true postpartum stage. A REAL mother amongst the mess. A mother who sits boldly inside the mess lending the comfort her tiny baby needed. Among the items strewn about; burp cloths, diaper cream, wipes, soiled onesies — she created comfort, safety, and stillness.