Womb to Bloom - Maternity & Beyond

Everything is changing. Your body seems to belong to someone else – almost like you’re the one borrowing it. Your emotions sometimes feel out of control – not to mention your waist and these amazing-expanding ankles.  Pregnancy can often feel more like an act in the circus than the beautiful, loving experience you’d hoped for.  Here’s what I know for sure: the women who love pregnancy, who are vibrant and glowing and happy, are the ones who learn how to surrender totally – physically and emotionally.  The trick is in letting go.

The physical surrender that’s required can seem easy at first glance.  After all, you don’t have a choice.  Your body will do exactly what it needs to do to grow a healthy, beautiful baby.  There’s no point in fighting it, so we don’t, right?

Nine months of pregnancy. Labor, c-section, delivery. Bundle of joy that “makes everything worth it.” “She’s wonderful.” “I can’t remember what life was like without him.” “Being a mother is just the best thing I’ve ever done.” “Having a child is the most fulfilling feeling in the world.”

Take it from me, it’s all true. Sometimes.

But it sure doesn’t seem like anyone talks about the other times. And that puts a lot of pressure on a new mom. You’re exhausted and frustrated and feel like you’re way behind on the learning curve. Meanwhile, everyone else is waxing poetic about the joys of motherhood. It’s enough to make you cry in the shower. Or in the rocking chair at 3:00 a.m. after two hours of rocking a screaming baby. Or in the car on the way to Target to buy diapers and formula.

After the newborn visits were over and everyone had come to ooh and aah over my little baby...After the crazy emotions, the highs and lows, of the pregnancy and delivery were over and done with… After my husband went back to work and my son went back to school and my mother went back to Texas...then the realities of being a stay-at-home mom set in.  As much as I adored my precious baby girl – a love that grew with every single moment, so much so that at times I thought I would burst with it all – I started to feel stifled and little and unfulfilled.

How could this be?  I was finally getting the chance to fulfill my lifelong dream of staying home with my children.  I knew on a deep level that staying home was important for my family; I could support my husband better, volunteer more with my son and be more involved in his school work, and I would have that precious time to bond with my baby girl and create the structure of our lives together.  So why did it all feel so wrong?

You’re sleep-deprived, your body is a foreign landscape, and everything in your life has been turned upside down. Welcome to parenthood! You may feel alone in your struggles, but rest assured that all of your new mom stresses are very common—and, better yet, fairly solvable.

New Mom Stress #1: “My husband is completely useless in the middle of the night!”

My friend, Stephanie, 32, had her first baby last year, and when her daughter was three weeks old, she called me in a rage. “The baby was up four times last night, and every time she started crying, Jay pretended to be asleep, so I had to get up with her every single time!” I let my pal vent for a while, but eventually I had to break it to her: her husband probably wasn’t pretending to be asleep.