The dark side

It’s all very well talking about cooing babies, and how I love to cuddle up with my new daughter all day long. She is just about the most beautiful thing I have ever seen and I love her to pieces, but the truth is that the postpartum period is tricky even under the best of circumstances. I’m in the mood for a bit of complaining, so, a la Shakespeare, let me count the ways in which it sucks.

One: Weight. This morning I finally plucked up the courage to step on the scales, and though a lady does not reveal these things, let’s just say it wasn’t good. I have about two stone to lose before I reach my pre-pregnancy weight. I know it can be done as I have been there before, but it is depressing to think of the weeks and the months until I can go back into my old clothes and feel half-attractive again. In the meantime it’s more hideous maternity clothes and baggy tracksuit bottoms for me.

Two: Baby blues. Although I wouldn’t say I’m clinically depressed, there’s no denying the not-altogether-benign effect of the hormones. Generally I feel okay during the day, but most nights I’m gripped by old worries and anxieties that I thought had long disappeared. And let’s face it, even without my imagination running wild, there are plenty of things to be sad about: the fact that my husband has returned to work while I have to stay home for a long time yet, the fact that my childless friends are, predictably, keeping their distance, the fact that I’m pathologically unable to make friends with people with children.
Of course, there is also the misery that, whilst not strictly mine, floats around in the world, ready to be picked up by my sadness radar. I choked up with tears last night when I accidentally stumbled upon a forum post by a mother whose baby was stillborn. She had posted a picture of herself holding her dead baby, with a pink blanket around it. I cannot so much as think about it without crying.

Three: Sleep. Remember sleep? I don’t. Okay, okay, I’m exaggerating here. Melissa is not a bad sleeper and I probably get my eight hours a day one day or another. Nevertheless, with a baby, there’s no true rest. None of that “I’m going to sleep until the morning”. I’m on permanent duty and every hour of sleep is a bonus, a privilege, no longer a right. At any moment I might be woken up for a breastfeeding session (this is not so bad as I can do it whilst sleeping, more or less) or worse, for a session of holding Melissa upright and patting her back, praying to God that she will burp and go back to sleep.

Four: Physical condition. Birth is really hard on your body. Really. I had an easy birth: spontaneous, fast, no stitches, no complications whatsoever. I thought that was it. Done and dusted. But the tiredness has followed me around like a shadow. I often feel spaced out and faint. I cannot so much as walk ten minutes straight without starting to feel really weak. I have gone through all the usual misfortunes of new mothers: cracked, bleeding nipples, extremely painful engorgement, seemingly endless bleeding- just when I thought I had cheated periods for nine months, it turns out they were just waiting there, to come out all at once-, night sweats. Sometimes I wonder if I will ever be able to leave the house again, do some shopping, have a coffee in town and still feel normal. Such small dreams.

Still, I think I would go through it again. Love is too small a word to describe how I feel towards my children. And one day, not too far from now, I will be working and writing and going on nights out again, just like I did before.