#postpartum

#postpartum

I gave birth to a baby girl a few weeks ago, and my mom has been coming to help every week for a full day. She's wonderful with my newborn: she changes diapers like a pro, she is great at getting her to stop crying, and she is respectful of rules that were different from when she had her kids (like the fact that babies are supposed to sleep on their backs, without blankets and stuffed animals in the crib).

I was absolutely thrilled to become a mother and I loved taking care of my baby. At the same time, though, some of those late nights breastfeeding her during those first six months were some of the loneliest and most desperate hours of my life. I had never been so tired. In the dark of my daughter's nursery, it sometimes felt like I was the only awake adult on the planet.

I was settling into one of those airport activity tables with high stools and electric outlets at my flight's gate, waiting for the agent to announce boarding, when I felt a gathering storm at the apex of my butt cheeks. This was my last flight after being away from home on a book tour in May. For the past two weeks, I hadn't left my chair much, due to all the posting, podcasting, writing, and tense, nervous scrolling that releasing a book involves.

She's happy, healthy, and everything we could've hoped for. I had a vaginal birth at 36 weeks with just a bit of tearing, nothing too major, thankfully, and recovery has been going pretty well so far," she prefaces in her post on the Mommit subreddit. She notes that she's missing "intimacy" with her husband, noting the last time they had sex was when she was 32 weeks pregnant.

"First of all, I just want to say, I just had a baby and I have a lot of brain fog," she said. "So, I haven't slept in seven months, so if I repeat myself, I'm sorry. Like, interrupt me and tell me I'm off track."

"When we give birth, we're like, wow, the emotions, the hormones, everything," she said. "You realize that you need a strong support system with you. You need help. You need people to love on you and make sure that you're okay."

Hours after Princess Diana gave birth, she walked out onto the steps of the Lindo Wing, the private maternity ward of St. Mary's Hospital in London, where she was met with photographers from around the world. As she introduced Prince William, then a couple years later, Prince Harry, she looked radiant, with flawless makeup and flowing gowns. It was a portrait of maternal serenity.

It wasn't helpful. It didn't make me feel any better about my situation, nor did it make me feel stronger. All it did was make me feel guilty. Guilty that I had given my daughter this man as a father, guilty that I had fallen for his tricks when clearly everybody else knew he was bad news, guilty that I was bad at picking partners.

I was standing in the kitchen, unshowered, my 5-week-old baby in the bouncy seat at my feet as I washed dishes, and my toddler rolling cars up and down the back of my legs, when my husband hinted that he wanted to have sex.

Postpartum represents a relational stress test, highlighting pre-existing vulnerabilities and strengths within couples as they transition to parenthood.

"Hey, you know what's f----- up? The phrase 'bounce back after pregnancy.' Here's the problem: Every single person I've seen grow a human being and pop 'em out have rebounded in their own time."

We struggled to conceive for a long time, and when we finally got pregnant, I was so scared something would happen that we were never really intimate.