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| My first days with Lexia |
I never doubted that motherhood would be a life-changing event, but as a pregnant woman, I was desperate to understand exactly what friends and colleagues had in mind when they envisioned my metamorphous.
The only explanations I ever got were general claims of parenthood begetting new depths of patience and love. Now that I've made it to the other side of pregnancy, with some time to reflect on being a mom, I'll walk you through an honest account of how parenthood is likely to change you ....FOREVER!
1) You'll learn to survive with less: The bad news is that parenthood equates to 'going with less'. Sleep is by far the biggest victim of this phenomena, but there are plenty of others. Prepare for less time, less expendable income, less energy and significantly less control over your day. The good news - you will surprise yourself by how well you adapt. The first weeks are extremely hard, but within a few months your physiological processes will adapt to your new reality. You'll figure out how to incorporate baby into your daily 'to do' list and eventually discover that you can thrive on a lot less sleep, time, opportunity than used to.
2) You may experience 'body pride': It's true that many women have a hard time managing post-partum weight, but there's another, less talked about phenomena you may experience - body pride.
My body today isn't any better than it was before I got pregnant, but I am much more delighted by it. I'm fascinated that it was able to nurture another human being from a microscopic egg through to a full-formed baby. How cool that my abdomen was able to triple in size, only to shrink back neatly to its pre-pregnancy shape!
While I will probably never be the kind of person to frolic carelessly in a bikini, I have a lot more love for my 'jiggly parts'. I am acutely aware that my body was exquisitely designed over thousands of years of evolution to carry and nurture children - not to be a coatrack for designer clothes on the catwalks of Milan.
3) End of boob modesty: Before my daughter was born, I was committed to breastfeeding but worried about how to do it discretely so I wouldn't feel desexualized in front of others. It seems crazy now, but I wasn't even comfortable with the idea of my husband watching me nurse.
The first few weeks of breastfeeding are tough. Lexia wanted to eat all the time, but usually fell asleep quickly on the breast. Responding to her continuous cries and trying to satiate her enough to get a few hours of peace became a full-team endeavour. Everyone close to me was subject to close-up views of my boobs. After a few short days of "turn away for a sec", I got over this modesty very quickly and haven't thought to be shy about breastfeeding once since.
While I never want to make anyone uncomfortable, I personally have no concern whatsoever tied to another human being getting a glimpse of a breast while I'm nursing. While breasts are lovely, feminine accessories, it's crystal clear to me that their primary purpose is to feed children. To forgo a single feeding for the sake of modesty, would be like not breathing because you find flared nostrils unflattering.
4) Your family ideals change: This change will take a different shape for every mom, but the common link is that your ideas about the 'perfect family' may prove radically different after your baby born.
Before Lexia, I couldn't relate to people who wanted more than two children. I'd witnessed the chaos of large families and wanted no part of it.
A few months after Lexia was born I started questioning that. For the first time in my life, I began to fantasize about having a 'big' family. I started to think that raising healthy, thriving children would be more satisfying that any other endeavour. I loved the idea of my kids having supportive siblings.
Had I married younger, if I was rich, if my husband was equally compelled to expand our broad, I might be the happy mother of three or four kids! Who knew?
For some people, the opposite will be true - you may start to appreciate the benefits of a small family and all the energy/resources it allows per child. After working for years to build your career, you may question if being a full-time working mother is the best way to live.
5) You'll be a different parent than you expected: While pregnant, I developed a short list of parenting philosophies I deemed sacred and uncompromisable. Chief among these were avoiding medical interventions during birth and not co-sleeping with my baby.
The first of these commitments was broken before my baby was even born (regretfully, I was induced and had a Caesarian). The second was broken my very first night home.
It turns out my new daughter was a colicky screamer. All night long, my husband I were caught in a laborious cycle of getting her to sleep (a 45 minute routine of nursing, rocking, swaddling and holding our breath) only to be woken up in high alert 15 minutes later when our sleeping beauty realized she was alone in her bassinet. This begat another 45 minute process to get our hysterical child back to bed. And so it went ... for six or seven cycles until the wee hours of the morning.
It might have been five in the morning when Lexia, after yet another short nap, screamed frantically for about the eighth time. This time, too tied and sore to run to her, my husband brought her to me in bed. I nursed her for little more than a minute, and she fell asleep. Too scared to move her, I made my husband promise he would stay awake while we slept, checking on us constantly to make sure I didn't roll on her or pull blankets over her. It was the only significant sleep I'd gotten since labour started three days before.
For the next few months, we tried to get Lexia into her bassinet, and later her crib. We won a number of battles, but our baby won the war. She has an uncanny, sometimes comical, always frustrating sixth sense about being left alone in her sleep.
The good news is that co-sleeping has been one of my favourite parts of motherhood. To cuddle up with my little girl at night, nursing and caressing her as we both drift off to sleep, is parental bliss. Just as Lexia seems to sense in her sleep if mommy is close by, I feel I sense that she's breathing and safe. There's nothing better than waking up for just a second, putting your hand out to feel your little one's rising and falling abdomen, and instantly falling back to sleep with the comfort of knowing your baby is safe.
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The life changes listed above mostly relate to how your perspectives on your body and outer life change when baby comes to town. For an insider's perspective on how your inner, psychological life is likely to change, see my next post!
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