I still remember the first week we came home from the hospital. I had my first baby in my arms, Serena, the one we had been excited about for months, and I was absolutely miserable.
Physical Changes
Vaginal Pain and Bleeding
Although I was mentally prepared for the pain of giving birth, which was surprisingly less painful than I thought with the help of amazing medical technology called the epidural, I was not prepared for the pain after birth, especially in the first 2 weeks. I had a tear during the labor and got sewed up like a ripped shirt. After that, I bled every time I went to the bathroom, pee or poo, which really scared me. I gave birth already, but if I’m bleeding was there still something wrong? I was told the bleeding was normal, but how long am I going to be bleeding for? I remember looking at the toilet bowl of blood after the first week and crying. My hormones were already out of whack after giving birth, and this was just too much. I had no idea that I was going to have to wear a big-ass “mommy diaper” to contain the bleeding and sit in a sitz bath with Epsom salt to ease the pain.
I was on my phone constantly looking for anything to ease the pain — perineal sprays, ice packs, and donut pillows for hemorrhoids, while taking painkillers every few hours. I had never done so much Amazon shopping in my life. It hurt to sit, and it hurt to walk, but guess what?…I had to sit to breastfeed the baby or pump breast milk half hour to an hour at a time and walk to rock her so she’d stop crying and sleep. It was physically and emotionally draining and exhausting because all I wanted to do was lay and rest, and I couldn’t!
Lack Of Sleep
I would take care of her until she went to sleep, and then stay up to midnight to pump milk, so my husband, Bryan, could use that for the 3-4am feeding. I would wake up for the next 7-8am feeding and breastfeed her. However, even though Bryan and I would take turns doing shifts, it was very hard to sleep through the night when my baby was crying. Baby cries were like police sirens to me, and my mommy hormones were firing everywhere.
Nipple Pain From Breastfeeding
On top of the vaginal pains, my nipples were gnawed raw. I know some babies and moms have issues latching, but my little hamster never had a problem finding my nipples from the first few minutes after birth. I was horrified at how painful it was. She sucked the shit out of it…why so hard, baby?
More Amazon items to find…nipple butter, nipple cream, nipple shields, soothing gel pads. At one point, my nipples were raw and cracked with some pinkish blood in the milk. Obviously, I favored pumping breast milk to breastfeeding because why the f*** would anyone breastfeed when the slightest graze from my t-shirt felt like sandpaper on my nipples. It was just so sensitive, so mostly I opted for walking around the apartment topless and keeping the blinds down to cover all the windows in the first 2 weeks. I pretty much lived like a vampire.
Why did God make the woman give birth and breastfeed? I’m literally hurting everywhere! And I’m still not getting enough sleep. The first week after giving birth, I was sure that choosing motherhood was a mistake. There was no way I was going to survive this.
I’m Still Big!
Maybe this was silly of me, but I thought that my stomach got big because there is a baby in it. Once the baby comes out, shouldn’t I look the same as I did before I was pregnant? Nope! After giving birth, I looked like I was 3 months pregnant. In fact, my mom and my sister both made a comment on separate occasions, “you still look pregnant,” after I gave birth. I cried. I just didn’t feel like myself. My body felt like it was not mine, and I couldn’t control anything that was happening to me.
Mental Changes
Loss of Independence
And I don’t know why but I was horrified that I’d never be able to hop in my car and go to Target again without thinking of someone else. It’s odd what goes through your mind as a first-time mom. It was strange living a life that no longer revolved around my wants and needs, but around the needs of someone else.
Feeling Overwhelmed
Before I gave birth, I thought, “How hard could it be? So many people do it. Multiple times!” After giving birth to a newborn, I thought, “I can’t believe there are so many moms in the world. It’s fucking hard!”
Jennifer Pham
I knew being a parent would be hard, but I didn’t know how hard it would be. Before I gave birth, I thought, “How hard could it be? So many people do it. Multiple times!” After giving birth to a newborn, I thought, “I can’t believe there are so many moms in the world. It’s fucking hard!” My mommy friends who gave birth before me reassured me that it would get better. “WHEN?!!” I demanded to know. “WHEN does it get better?!” They said 4 weeks. Alright, Jennifer, just stick it out for a few more weeks.
Well, I stuck it out…not sure if I had a choice, but I stuck it out, and it got better.
- After 1 week, I wasn’t bleeding in the bathroom anymore.
- After 2 weeks, I was off pain killers for the vaginal pain.
- After 4 weeks, my nipples got used to the abuse of breastfeeding, and then I started to prefer breastfeeding over pumping (didn’t want to have to assemble, disassemble, wash parts anymore).
- After 2.5 months, I started breastfeeding in bed.
- After 3 months, she was sleeping through the night. (I hear this is on the earlier side and different for different babies.)
Relationship Changes
Before, my husband, Bryan, and I were a very independent couple. We did many things together, but we had our separate activities. He would play his tennis or run or whatever physical or social activity he came up with. If he was busy, I’d just find my own thing to do, which could be having dinner with a friend, learning something on Udemy, working on a website, or reading a book-club book.
Resenting my partner because it felt unfair
After giving birth, everything just felt so unfair. I’m in pain on top and on bottom, and this guy is running with the run club while I watch an endlessly crying baby?! In my mind, “You didn’t carry the baby for 9 months, you weren’t in labor for 10 hours, your body didn’t transform in the last year…the least you can do is the diapers, right?… maybe all of them for the next 9 months would be nice? After all, your daughter did rip my vagina.” Needless to say, he didn’t want to do all the diapers because seriously, who would? Every time he left for another workout, I hated him. He thought that because I wasn’t taking painkillers and could walk comfortably after 2 weeks, I was good to go, and he told me he would be going back to work. He took vacations longer than 2 weeks, and all of a sudden he was in a rush to get back to work?! I wasn’t ready, and I hated him some more.
I couldn’t advocate for myself because I didn’t know what I needed
I didn’t know how to advocate for myself. It was both our first time, and I just didn’t know what I needed or wanted or what was normal or not. I just needed help. It was so hard and exhausting to watch the baby by myself. If I brushed my teeth and showered before noon, it a good day. This baby was literally a crying and pooping machine, and it was sooo exhausting to be a caregiver for someone else when I was so used to my freedom.
Then as soon as he got home from work, I wanted him to take her immediately because he went to work and got a break from the baby. Now I want my break. However, when I went back to work, I realized that you need some downtime after work before taking on the baby, my other job that is unpaid and actually costing me more money.
Advocate for myself and compromise
Through many ongoing conversations, I learned to advocate for myself more, about what is working for me and what is not working for me, and we eventually compromised. The most important compromise for us was keeping workouts to the mornings. Initially, when Bryan went back to work, he was trying to prove that he could still be a dad and work out, so he would go to work and then exercise after, which made me feel like a single mom with him being gone all day to night. At least if he kept workouts to the morning, it was less noticeable since Serena and I were mostly sleeping.
The first step to advocating for myself was figuring out what helped me feel like me again, what activities reset me. The hard part of being was a mom was that I didn’t feel like me anymore. When I was in.a bad mood, I snapped at Bryan and then we are all in a bad mood.
Some activities that helped me reset
- walking outside
- hiking
- drinking coffee or milk tea at a shop
- massages
- catching up with friends over food or coffee and having uninterrupted conversations
- playing tennis
- reading books
The truth is a lot of times, I didn’t know what I wanted, but my mind just sizzled like bulgogi on a Korean hot plate, with the feeling of parenthood not being fair and how I can never go out again by myself.
This is not really true because I am really lucky that he has always been encouraging of me seeing friends and family, and even more so now that I am a mom. He supports me as a mom and offers to watch her if I go out. He is positive and affectionate on a daily basis because he prioritizes his workouts and meeting with friends/family, and I’m moody because I put tasks and chores above workouts and quality time with friends/family. I have a hard time prioritizing myself, when my mind is always wrapped up around her and how much she needs me that I can’t leave. If I leave, will he be able to feed her and change her to my standards? Will he know what to feed her?
Learn to let go and trust my partner
I learned that the best thing to do is just to let go and trust him. It’s ok if he doesn’t change diapers as often as me or immediately when she gets wet, and it’s ok that he might not feed her exactly all the nutritious things I want her to eat. He will make sure that she is taken care of to the best of his ability, and she will be ok. Also, the more opportunities he has to watch her himself, the better he will get at it as anything that comes with practice. Things will get done, maybe not exactly as I would do them, but he will make sure they happen.
On top of supporting me as a mom, he also supports me as a working mom in the childcare that I’m comfortable with, whether that is a nanny or daycare, and whatever job that makes me happy, whether that is remote or in-office.
Parental Love — A Love Unlike Any Other
I wrote this reflection, so I’d remember what it felt like to have a newborn baby while I can still remember, but truthfully, the pain feels like a lifetime ago. As a mom, you just forget all the pain, and then you want another child because it’s literally so magical. It’s wild. How can that be?! At the time when she was born, I felt like it was the hardest thing of my life and the worst mistake I ever made to have a child, but now it’s truly the best.
There’s a saying in Vietnamese (or maybe Chinese?) that love from a parent to a child flows down like a waterfall or a tear. It always goes from top to bottom, but never in reverse. A parent will always love a child more than a child can ever love a parent. When you watch your baby learn to turn, to sit up, to eat solids, to crawl, to stand on furniture all for the first time, there is a new wonder in everything. Life transforms like a TV screen from black-and-white to color, as if you’re experiencing all these things again for the first time. It’s really magical.
I’m so grateful to have a healthy baby girl. She smiles, and it lights up my day. She sleeps in my arms, and it warms my heart. She shakes her head no, and it makes me giggle. She dances to musical toys, moves in bed 360 degrees, tilts her head when we are on our phones to get our attention, yells for more food, does the yoga downward dog pose and a thousand other quirky things that make me laugh. I used to think of Bryan as the person who is the “sunshine in my pocket,” but Serena is my one true love and the light of my life. Even if I am not blessed with another child, she is so perfect and more than enough.
[Update: I wrote most of this when Serena turned 1. Now I have a second child, Huntington. I knew some of what to expect, and Bryan and I still clashed but less than the firs time. I was able to advocate for myself earlier on. Progress!]
What’s Your Experience After Giving Birth?
If you’re a mom too, I’d love to hear about your experience after giving birth. What did you expect, and what surprised you? What was the most overwhelming for you? What things made you cry? How did your relationship with your partner change? Drop a comment below.
