A snapshot of my life at nine months postpartum

Photo by Stephen Andrews

Dear reader,

Let me start by saying that YOU mean a lot to me, although I haven’t been in touch much lately. If you’re reading this, I appreciate you for still being here.

This newsletter about being honest is now admittedly a place where I openly lie - on my About page it says you’ll receive about four new posts a month, when in reality I’ve only managed to write one post over the last four months.

I want to apologize for that.

At nine months postpartum, I’m still figuring out how to do anything other than take care of my son’s and my own basic needs. Every day the cycle repeats - sleep, eat, clean up, play, sleep, eat, clean up, play - go shopping so we don’t run out of food - eat, clean up, play, sleep.

Ah, but that’s not all I do. I also change a lot of diapers, and his clothes about three times a day, and do a lot of laundry too. Oh, and did I mention nursing?

These days of early motherhood are filled with so many thankless tasks - the mundane kind that pile up, repeat every day, are never finished, and don’t garner much appreciation or sense of accomplishment. And so I live in this strange space of feeling like I do nothing every day - while simultaneously, arguably, doing the most important thing.

Now, the little one is sleeping, and somehow I’ve managed to write this. Before starting, I sat at my desk for 20 minutes or so, wondering what on Earth I should do now; how the heck I should use what little time I may have left before he wakes up; which of my many open to dos to tackle first; staring at a desk covered in stuff from my various home projects over the last few weeks. Doom piles upon doom piles. Should I clean up the house? Finally organize my desk? Or just watch TV again?

In choosing to write this I had to actively choose to NOT clean up the house, or my desk, and just sit in the mess and write anyway. I would call that an accomplishment for today. I was raised to always ‘work first, play later’, only to find out later in life that that doesn’t really work - the work is NEVER done. If you always try to get it done first, before allowing yourself to play, relax - you’ll never make time for fun. And for me, writing this newsletter is probably the best thing I could do for myself right now.

So anyway, I find myself wondering lately…. how can there be time for what used to be *my life* before kid(s)?

As a feminist, I grew up believing I could have it all. Be a successful career woman, but also a great mom. Stay at home with the kids, have an amazing relationship with an equal partner, and plenty of time for myself too. Now I wonder if any of that is actually feasible, or if the reality is that we have to pick just one.

I am still a feminist. But also I imagine life was simpler back in the days where women could be expected to take care of the kids/home and that was it. It’s not so much about the pressure I feel from society to do so and so. It’s more about the pressure I put on myself to do everything I’m passionate about - everything I’ve ever dreamed of - all while also taking on this new ever so important job of mother. But being a mother, in my experience so far, is all-consuming. So again, how could there be time for anything else?

I would love to write more. I would love to get back into writing poetry, to sit at coffee shops alone with my laptop and let myself have space to dream and think and just be and see what comes to me. I’d love to let there be, once again, more going on in my brain besides thoughts like, “What should J eat for lunch today?” “When was that doctors appointment again?”

But at nine months postpartum, I am a new human. By body is completely changed - by brain rewired to think of him, his needs and his safety and not much else. It’s as if by design, my capacity, or my focus has been biologically altered to block out everything else so that taking care of my baby is the only imperative.

I know this won’t last forever. I know someday the diapers will end, and the little man will be able to feed himself, or at least not fling his food all over the floor at mealtime. I know one day he won’t cry for me to hold him - the separation anxiety he feels now when I leave the room will be gone. I know someday he will be grown, or at least bigger, and I will begin to get myself back.

But for now, I’m all in.

Basking in the love (and the desperation) of it all <3

Chelsea