What Your Friends and Family Won’t Tell You About Motherhood // Columbus, Ohio Maternity Photographer
As a maternity and newborn photographer in Columbus, Ohio, I get to talk with a lot of expecting mamas about their experience of new motherhood.
One recent conversation sent me down a rabbit hole of contemplating and journaling about my experience. I want to share some of that here, because I think all too often we’re expected to be nothing but thankful for the gift of motherhood, which makes the guilt, loneliness, anxiety and isolation feel all the more oppressive when it inevitably comes.
Motherhood is the closest we humans can get to experiencing metamorphosis.
The life you lived as a non-mother will become unrecognizable - maybe not permanently, but for a long while afterwards. I write this not to disparage the experience (because it’s been every bit as beautiful and joyful and magical as it has been hard), but because I was wholly unprepared for the reality of it and I wish someone had told it to me straight.
Now, obviously our experiences are going to vary widely depending on our life circumstances, familial support, access to physical and mental health, etc, HOWEVER, after sharing my most difficult times with countless moms over the years, I also know my hardships were not in any way unique. Full disclosure: I had/have a supportive spouse, friends and family and two healthy babies, and holy moly did I struggle.
Let me tell you a bit about who I was before kids. I was adventurous and spontaneous. I got engaged to my husband a few short weeks after meeting him. We got married and moved to Maine to volunteer with Americorps, and then settled in North Carolina for several years. I loved to travel, go to concerts, dine out, and laugh with friends late into the night. I was an artist (back then I was a hairstlyist, and although photography had always been a hobby, I was more interested in painting during my free time, which I had loads of because: no kids.)
Fast forward to after I had my first baby. Are you wondering which things I wasn’t expecting while I was expecting (ha!)? The things I didn’t learn about in all of my research and baby preparation classes? Good, because that’s what I want to focus on here.
I truly thought that after becoming a mom I would just incorporate my baby into my lifestyle. Boy, was I mistaken. What I didn’t know was that my baby would make all the rules, and I would soon find my life and myself unrecognizable. I guarded the little free time and personal space I had left with such ferocity that it made me come across as selfish and unyielding (which I was). Yet at the same time I felt deeply lonely and isolated. I thought that having a baby would magically bring everyone closer together, and while it did strengthen some of my relationships, others remained the same or worse, faded away entirely. My husband and I became passing ships in the night, trading off night feedings and naps.
I suffered from such extreme insomnia that I felt I had to go to bed as soon as the baby did, or I would lose my opportunity for sleep (which wouldn’t come anyway). This meant not staying up to hang out with friends or my husband after bedtime, let alone trying to have time for myself. My insomnia lasted for YEARS (I still suffer from it, but have found tools to reduce it’s severity), in part because my first child didn’t sleep through the night consistently until age five, so I’d lay in bed anxiously awaiting her wake-ups. Years of that pattern left me in a state of permanent sleep deprivation, which for me was by far the most challenging part of new motherhood. Sleep is important, y’all. My mind and body fall apart without it.
The second most-challenging issue for me was breastfeeding.
As ignorant as it may sound, I wasn’t aware that some mothers might have a desire to nurse their baby but be physically unable to. That, in fact, it’s quite common. But because not enough people talk about it, it’s assumed that breastfeeding comes naturally.
I wanted to breastfeed, so much so that I put my mind and body under immense trauma to make it happen. It put me in so much physical pain that as feeding time came near, I would begin to tense and hyperventilate in anticipation. I would let out an audible gasp of pain every time my baby latched on. I allowed this nonsense to go on for six weeks before breaking to bottle-feed the baby and allow my body to heal. During that time I was able to pump, and eventually found a combination of nursing/bottle feeding with formula that suited me.
I DEEPLY REGRET that I didn’t just switch over to formula from the beginning. So much of our time in early motherhood is spent feeding the baby, which meant I spent several hours each day in pain and feeling resentful, guilty, not-good-enough, not “natural.” I didn’t have the clarity or mental strength to realize how important it was to take care of MYSELF too. A happier mom = a happier baby, and a baby that’s fed, whether it be by bottle or breast, is a dang happy baby. So - if you plan to nurse, that’s awesome, but maybe allow the possibility that you may not be able to, and work on being okay with that BEFORE the baby arrives.
Whew - okay, I know all of that was intense. (Also, I understand from friends that my sleep issues were relatively extreme, so don’t let that part scare you.) My point in sharing this is that you just don’t know how things will change post-motherhood - it’s one of the greatest lessons in giving up control and accepting what is. I think, seven years in, that I am finally on the other side of my metamorphosis.
Obviously I will continue to grow and change along with my children, and new hardships will come along that I’ll have to navigate, but I finally feel like myself again. Not my old self, although I catch glimpses of her more and more often, but a self that feels solid, predictable, recognizable, fully human, and has a bit of that adventurous spark back. For a long time I felt a little like I wasn’t real, and I know now that it’s because I was in survival mode.
If you are going through a similar experience to what I’ve shared here, please know that it does get easier. People with older kids would always joke with me about “little kids, little problems; big kids, big problems.” Well, no. By the time your kids have “big” problems you’ll have sorted yourself out, gotten your confidence back, gone to therapy or gotten on an anti-depressant (hallelujah). You’ll be sleeping again, you’ll have friends again, and your kids will be wiping their own butts, so you’ll have the mental space and energy to help them navigate those big problems.
I feel a tiny smidge guilty about writing this entire piece and not extolling all the virtues of motherhood alongside it. But that is not the point. Your days will absolutely contain immense joy, magic and wonder that’s derived from your children, and… you can find those stories anywhere. My hope in writing this piece is that it will help a new mom will feel more prepared to navigate the inevitable hardships that come along with a seismic life-shift. If you are going through some of these exact feelings, know that you aren’t alone and kiss those guilty feelings goodbye: they aren’t serving you.
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