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A new mother is a tired mother! People talk about the joys of motherhood but no one tells you how rough it gets. Here's what this new mom has to share about her rocky road to parenthood.
A new mother is a tired mother! People talk about the joys of motherhood but no one tells you how rough it gets. Here’s what this new mom has to share about her rocky road to parenthood.
Alright, so, I’ve finally decided to stop the pretense. I am going to bare my soul, tell the truth, irrespective of the consequences and the repercussions. These thoughts have been churning in my mind for a long time now, but I have always been taught to be positive, optimistic and to look at the brighter side of things. I have never exactly understood why! So here goes.
Yes! Under the cover and façade of an optimistic, forever-smiling person lurks a dark heart filled with pessimism. I love being sad, I love being miserable, I love being blue and listening to sad songs! I love spending time always observing and over-analysing all the negative thoughts in my mind and trying to figure out how are they helping me build my character.
In spite of spending years walking the walk of infertility (my experiences are heaped to the brim with those negatives, almost a Garden of Eden for a person like me), I held my head high. As I saw all my friends fall pregnant – literally a ‘fall’ like falling into a ditch and disappearing from sight for many years – I convinced myself that I was meant to achieve many things other than the honour badge of motherhood. The optimist in me kicked into over-drive and the pessimist in me felt sorry for all those lovely out-of-sight women.
This rare-optimist helped me tide on for a few years, until suddenly, out-of-the-blue, when me and my husband had finally decided to take a good clean break from this ‘baby making fiasco’ and enjoy our DINK (double-income-no-kids) life to the fullest, bang! I was punched in the stomach by the shock of staring, quite unbelievably, at those two red lines, making even my saint-like husband react with a, “No way.”
Just like that, as I saw myself falling into that ditch, I bid the optimist a hearty goodbye and clutched the pessimist’s hand. I have never heard anybody, any of my friends, my families, nobody speak in negative terms about early motherhood and so, like thousands and thousands of women before me, I looked at all of it with rosy glasses. I was so sure about myself, strutting with pride that my body could carry this pregnancy all the way to the end. I had the entire idealistic plan and timetable ready for how I would be bringing up my child and was completely excited and could hardly wait for the baby to be born. I knew my husband would support and help me a 100% and my excitement knew no bounds! And then the baby was born.
I have never heard anybody, any of my friends, my families, nobody speak in negative terms about early motherhood and so, like thousands and thousands of women before me, I looked at all of it with rosy glasses.
Seriously! Why don’t women look out for each other and prepare the first-time-mother-to-be for what is really going to hit her? I had no clue what early motherhood would take out of me. How can a bundle so small, tiny, so delicate, so helpless and so totally beautiful make me cry, whimper, faint, and actually fold my hands and beg for some mercy on my soul? How can a person who is just a few days old have so much attitude and have the skills of telling me exactly what he wants with just a cry? How can this teeny-tiny bundle get so quickly used to my arms and how can he tell that he likes it better when mom walks and not when mom sits down? How can he tell, even in his deep sleep, that mom is going to lie down now and rest, so I better wake up quickly? How does he do all this and how am I understanding all this on just 2 hours of sleep? Before I knew it, I had been reduced to the level of a slave.
Gone were my beautiful, stain-free clothes; replaced instead with ratty tattered clothes; gone was the jewelry or the make up as I had turned into this boggy-eyed, messy haired, smelly street urchin-like person, who’s heart was completely wrapped around this little 8-pound Mr.Attitude, a woman who now breathed and lived to only be there for him. Yes, I was sitting in that ditch; me and my pessimism sitting next to each other and habitually analysing every misery, quite unaware of the optimism hovering over us and generously showering us with happiness.
Yes, remember I said I will bare it all? And bare I did, even then; all day, every day, day and night, day in and day out, in privacy and sometimes the family getting to watch the show as I tried to cover myself and my son decided that he specially likes a good ventilation. That is the one time in life when you wonder why hasn’t nature given this ‘abundant joy’ to the husbands as well, so that they would be able to help too.
Whether I was sleepy or tired or sometimes almost dead with fatigue, my breasts and my baby had developed their own relationship, which surpassed even my own self. One cry and the breasts would literally ache for the baby. Nobody can prepare a new mother for the feeling of bone-deep fatigue that early nursing can bring with it; yet also the feeling of relief once the baby starts to suckle and with it, the complete, deep, soul-touching pride that you are nourishing this little human being, helping them grow; the marvelous feeling that you cannot love any other person more and the amazing comfort when you pull that baby closer to you and sniff more of that new-baby smell and plant a kiss on their soft heads; and in the later months while nursing when the baby learns to look up at you and smile happily, like you are the only person in this whole wide world they love so much; even though you know that that angle isn’t doing any justice to you; that is when you are thankful that only you have the breasts and hence, this special bond.
Nobody had prepared me for this either and I was really mad about it! I hadn’t read in ‘What to Expect When You are Expecting’ that early fatherhood is going to make my husband quit his maturity. In movies, they always depict the new daddy as being sweet, doting, smiling and so with-it. What the hell happened here? Where were the “I love you for having my baby,” or the “Are you doing okay? Can I get you something?”
All I saw was a big baby having more hormonal tantrums than me, when, on paper, it was suppose to be me with the post-partum depression. But now it had started feeling more like post-partum-partition, with him standing on the other end, far far away and just snapping all the time with “Oh my God, stop his crying. Just nurse him!” and me snapping back with, “Why don’t you do it and see how it feels to have a baby practically hanging off you all the time?” Gone were the sweet talks, the hand holding, the romance and the sex, replaced with, “Oh! Please don’t touch me. I need my space” or the “God, you reek!” and all this in between n number of complaints of how I’m not handling the baby right.
Johnson & Johnson is very wise in saying, “Having a baby changes everything.” It definitely and completely changes your relationship with your spouse and the adjustment period is really tough. It is like a prolonged earthquake in your relationship and it really tests the sturdiness of the foundation. But when you sit together and see the toothless smile of your creation, you forget the bitterness for a few minutes and realize that it’s worth it! And when you have passed through this ‘Test of Fire’ and you come out, your husband looks at you with a whole new respect, and you look at him with the resignation of knowing that motherhood has taught you that you are going to be handling this ‘big baby’ too for the rest of your life.
It definitely and completely changes your relationship with your spouse and the adjustment period is really tough. It is like a prolonged earthquake in your relationship and it really tests the sturdiness of the foundation.
I honestly never knew I had so many negative traits in me. My son taught me that, by very quickly and effectively picking up all my negative traits and throwing them right back at me. While handling the terrible twos and the troublesome threes, I have felt like I am fighting with a darker version of myself, and losing the battle hopelessly! I never knew that my language had gotten so rough, my negotiation skills were totally lacking, my patience and my temper were so short lived, and worst of all, that I had started snapping at my poor spouse with such regularity.
When my son started using the same tone and words while addressing his father and I reprimanded him with, “You cannot talk to daddy that way, only I can,” and he, very innocently asked me, “Why?” it was like an eye-opener. Why can I talk that way? Do I feel an entitlement just because I have been through the rough times of early motherhood or, without knowing and meaning to, I have started taking everything and everyone for granted? Do I feel like they all owe me something because I have worked so hard for them? And that is when it hits you about how motherhood has changed you thoroughly as a person!
I never knew that my language had gotten so rough, my negotiation skills were totally lacking, my patience and my temper were so short lived, and worst of all, that I had started snapping at my poor spouse with such regularity.
The innocence and fascination that I see in my now four-year-old son is a daily reminder of the wonders of life and nature. By forcing me to set an example for his sake, he is constantly teaching me to be the person I always hope to be, not the person that I have changed into. He is a constant reminder that it pays to be good, patient, sweet, understanding and nice to others. In short, motherhood has taught me that it really pays to be optimistic, after all!
First published at the author’s blog
A doctor by profession and a freelance editor/writer by choice, I have a dream of filling up one entire book shelf with the books written by me, and the with the ones I have read more...
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Neena was the sole caregiver of Amma and though one would think that Amma was dependent on her, Neena felt otherwise.
Neena inhaled the aroma that emanated from the pan and took a deep breath. The aroma of cumin interspersed with butter transported her back to the modest kitchen in her native village. She could picture her father standing in the kitchen wearing his white crisp kurta as he made delectable concoctions for his only daughter.
Neena grew up in a home where both her parents worked together in tandem to keep the house up and running. She had a blissful childhood in her modest two-room house. The house was small but every nook and cranny gave her memories of a lifetime. Neena’s young heart imagined that her life would follow the same cheerful course. But how wrong she was!
When she was sixteen, the catastrophic clutches of destiny snatched away her parents. They passed away in a road accident and Neena was devastated. Relatives thronged her now gloomy house and soon it was decided that she should be married off.
Women today don’t want to be in a partnership that complicates their lives further. They need an equal partner with whom they can figure out life as a team, playing by each other’s strengths.
We all are familiar with that one annoying aunty who is more interested in our marital status than in the dessert counter at a wedding. But these aunties have somehow become obsolete now. Now they are replaced by men we have in our lives. Friends, family, and even work colleagues. It’s the men who are worried about why we are not saying yes to one among their clans. What is wrong with us? Aren’t we scared of dying alone? Like them?
A recent interaction with a guy friend of mine turned sour when he lectured me about how I would regret not getting married at the right time. He lectured that every event in our lives needs to be completed within a certain timeframe set by society else we are doomed. I wasn’t angry. I was just disappointed to realize that annoying aunties are rapidly doubling in our society. And they don’t just appear at weddings or family functions anymore. They are everywhere. They are the real pandemic.
Let’s examine this a little closer.
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