There are a lot of things I DON'T want this post to be.
I DON'T want it to be an endorsement for having kids as a way to level up.
I DON'T want it to be a negation of all my past Brunette Superwoman revelations.
I DON'T want it to be a post that ages badly because I'm so new and naive in the world of parenting.
But lately...it kind of feels like Brunette Superwoman has actually shown up.
It took me years (and blog posts like this and this) to come to terms with the fact that my life won't magically be taken over and completed by a super version of myself. My life will only ever be lived by me, as fumbling and inconsistent and non-super as I am.
But a couple of months ago, I took Baby Elle for a walk outside by myself. I assembled the stroller, got her into it, and walked around with the human I had created. My body felt good. The baby wasn't crying. I was doing something I'd seen mothers do for years and thought, "Wow. Look how together she is."
Now, was I together? Not...really. But I HAD done something that really intimidated me, and I had just DONE it. I hadn't dithered about it. I hadn't let myself get overwhelmed or down. I had decided that it would be good for us to go for a walk, and I had made it happen without any help. I was living my tiny dream, and it made me feel so strong. Empowered.
That was mostly an isolated incident. Life has felt very overwhelming on the day-to-day. There is always laundry and dishes and never quick enough lunch food and I've actually had to write "brush my teeth" on my to-do list.
But recently, I had to have a postpartum procedure to deal with some scar tissue. It involved being chemically cauterized down there with silver nitrate. I was very aware that it was going to hurt. A few months ago, a procedure like that would have kept me up at night for—at minimum—a week before the appointment. I would've been panicking to Gabe daily and sweating on the way to the obgyn.
However, none of that was the case. I made the appointment myself, had completely normal days leading up to it, drove myself to the appointment, did not sweat in the waiting room, and endured without making a sound.
Did it hurt a lot? Oh yeah. But since becoming a mother, there's just...there's like, a LOT that sucks. There's a LOT that's hard, a LOT that I don't want to do—and I just have to do it anyway. Giving birth was hard. Healing postpartum was hard. Nursing was hard. Getting no sleep was hard. Giving up virtually all my "me time" is hard. Accepting that I'll often be covered in spit up is hard. Not reacting in anger when my child head butts me is hard. Smiling and saying, "that happens sometimes" when she poops all over the new diaper, changing table, and clothes mid-diaper change is hard.
And I just have to do it anyway.
Until the silver nitrate procedure, I hadn't noticed this; I hadn't been feeling like Brunette Superwoman, but as I sat on the crinkly paper with a blue sheet draped across my lap, I couldn't believe how nonchalant I felt. I wasn't scared of the pain. I certainly wasn't looking forward to it, but something about the last three months had BROKEN me in a way that unleashed a new level of It is What It Is.
And "broken me" is exactly what I mean. New parenthood shares some real similarities with torture, like sleep deprivation, sensory overload, loss of autonomy, and the sheer relentlessness of it all. There's a lot of trying really hard and failing. There's a lot of doing the right thing and haven't it make no difference at all. It kind of destroys you. It is trial by fire. It is leaping off a building and building your parachute on the way down. There is so much that I'm not afraid of anymore, because I've lived a lot more of "but did you die?" than I ever have before.
I will never, ever be the same again after the last three months, but I've had to put myself back together stronger. I don't mean that I'm an amazing parent, but that I'm STILL HERE, and that takes a lot some days.
In a way, Brunette Superwoman DID take over. I don't feel like I chose to become her as much as Old Me straight up died and something else rose from the ashes like a phoenix. Or like a really bedraggled duck trying its best.
If "Brunette Superwoman" is a character with perfect hair and muscles who has it all together, then I'm certainly not her. But if she's tough and brave and confident and willing to face the impossible for someone she loves, then, guys...
She may have arrived.
~ Stephanie
It's Monday. You wake up refreshed and feel encouraged about the day. You get a short workout in and start the work day before the baby is up. When the baby wakes up, she's happy you play on the floor mat (although you don't do tummy time, which makes you feel guilty), then feed her.
She spits up what looks like the whole feed, but you're refreshed and the day is new so it's okay. You sing to her and clean it up and it's okay.
You get her dressed. The outfit doesn't quite fit, but it's okay. There's a tag on the inside that you think might itch her side, but we'll see.
She starts crying on your stroller walk. She never cries on walks, so that's weird. Hopefully not a bad omen about the day. You have to stop moving to soothe her several times, hoping the neighbors aren't hearing her and judging you for being a bad mother. You wish you'd brought a paci, but it never occurred to you. She never cries on walks so you've never needed one.
She falls asleep in the stroller, which is good. Jerks with loud trucks start their engines and leave for work. Lawn care workers mow grass right next to your baby's ear. Kids on summer break scream and laugh in their yards. Every noise puts you on edge. Don't people know there's a baby in a fragile slumber nearby?
Back inside, it takes forever for the baby to fall back asleep in the swing for her first real nap, and she wakes up after an hour when she usually naps 1.5–2.5 hours.
Bummed, you go get her and discover she's had a blowout through her pants and onesie. Poor baby. Is that why she woke up? Would she go back to sleep if she was comfortable again?
You change her. Lots of poop lots of places. You'll have to deal with the poopy outfit later because she's screaming. Now that she's awake, she wants to eat. It's just as well. If she'd kept to her usual schedule, you'd be trying to feed her during the meeting your supervisor rescheduled for noon.
You nurse her, then have to walk around with her for fifteen minutes while keeping her upright so she won't spit up. She hates being upright, so she cries and squirms. She spits up three times anyway. Each time, it makes a splashing sound as it hits the floor.
While doing laps around the house, you notice all the things you can't do or haven't done. The recycling is full. The calendar hasn't been turned to the new month. The Windex is still sitting by the back door because you were using it to shoot houseflies that couldn't be reached with the flyswatter last week. Your laptop battery is dying. You'll need it for the meeting with your supervisor. Must remember to untangle the cord from the pile in the corner before then. The poopy clothes and poopy changing table are on your route too. So is the bedroom mirror, where you see your bare stomach, which is bigger and squishier than it's ever been. It looks worse than it did six weeks ago. There's dust and dirt and a carpet fuzz on the living room wood floor, even though your husband vacuumed fourteen hours ago. There's the book club book you haven't started, but it doesn't matter because you realized after the fact that it was the wrong one.
All throughout these laps, the baby spits up. It's on your arm, her "clean" clothes, and the floor in many places, which you mop up with your foot and a burp cloth as you go.
Your wrists hurt from trying to hold a baby who does not want to be held upright. You reposition to try to get some relief, but she hates the new position even more so you have to go back. You sing to her, hearing your voice get a little less joyful with each round of spit up, baby scream, baby head butt.
It's been fifteen minutes. She's been upright for long enough that she shouldn't spit up, but you know this isn't true. You used to even wait thirty minutes before letting her lie down, and that didn't make a difference either.
You lay her down on the mat (on her back, so you feel guilty about tummy time again, but you have to get on this meeting and she'll cry if you put her on her stomach) with her toys and get ready to hop on the meeting. But first you remember the poopy scene and go back through, wiping and sanitizing and throwing clothes into the washing machine. While you're out of the room, the baby starts crying.
After settling her, you click "join meeting" a couple of minutes late. The video preview shows you wearing the same shirt you wore yesterday, a decidedly unstylish messy bun, and giant red zit on your chin. You consider going camera off, but you're camera off so often these days, it seems wise to show your face when you can. Something about being camera off makes you worry that people think you aren't doing your job.
The meeting is fine, but halfway through the baby starts crying so you have to turn your camera off and finish it on the floor while giving theatrical slo-mo kisses to her tummy. She beams and squeals and you feel happy again. Then she spits up, partially digested milk soaking her collar and the nape of her neck on the way to the blanket underneath her.
The meeting finishes with your supervisor trying to give you heartfelt advice about how parenting and working at the same time requires sacrifice, and that you have to come to terms with the fact that you won't be snuggling your baby at all times.
After the meeting, the baby is falling asleep on the play mat and she's been awake for about 75 minutes, so you put her in the sleep sack, turn on the sound machine, and begin rocking her. Her paci falls out and she's immediately fully awake. You try to replace the paci but she spits it out and laughs. You know she has to be tired, so you sway with her in your arms, but she just stares at you with bright eyes, which kind of melts your heart but also fills you with despair because 1) if she doesn't go to sleep she's definitely going to get overtired and that's a nightmare, 2) if you try to force her to go to sleep she'll scream and that's also a nightmare, 3) you really need to get more work done.
She suddenly gets the hiccups.
You lay her down in the bassinet, awake, and lie on the bed beside her, reaching over the side to rub her belly. Your wrist hurts and your arm starts to fall asleep. She's still wide awake. You realize that all the restoration and hope you had this morning has been completely used up. You feel tired and bruised, the human embodiment of dark under-eye circles. You feel guilty because your baby deserves a joyful mother.
You decide to try the paci one more time, even though you're wary of her forming a habit of needing it to fall asleep. She gives three suckles and is out—only to be jolted away by a hiccup. This happens over and over for ten minutes. You're honestly shocked and thankful that she hasn't lost her mind because it looks super annoying to deal with. You pray the Holy Spirit down from Heaven and into her diaphragm, and by the mercy of the Lord, it works. The hiccups leave. She falls asleep.
It takes you a full two minutes to get off the bed, because it creaks and that might wake her up. When the last centimeter of your buttcheek leaves the mattress, the bed groans and the baby's eyes pop open. You begin to curse internally, despite being only two minutes removed from one of the most fervent prayer sessions of your life. The baby goes back to sleep.
It's lunchtime. You make yourself a protein shake because your nutrition goal this week is to prioritize protein at every meal. You eat a slice of pizza cold because the beep of the microwave buttons might wake up the baby and reheating on the stove takes too long and she might wake up any second.
You watch her on the baby monitor and try to see if she's breathing.
You eat your cold pizza, watch her on the baby monitor, and try to get some work done.
The baby is up forty minutes later. You move her to the changing table, which makes her cry. She settles during the diaper change, thankfully. You move her to her play mat, which makes her cry again. Does she hate being moved? Does it make her reflux flare up? Are you not supporting her correctly? Is something wrong with her body? She's been going to the chiropractor, and they haven't said anything felt wrong.
On the mat, she alternates between fussing and cooing and crying and smiling with seemingly no rhyme or reason. If you leave the mat to try to get work done, she fusses. It is difficult to think.
You pick her up and carry her to the couch. Maybe you can do some of your reading for work if you read it aloud to her in a sing-songy voice. It is unexpectedly challenging to comprehend Crime and Punishment when read like a nursery rhyme. It does settle the baby for a few minutes, but then she starts crying again and you realize it's time for her to eat.
You feed her. You walk around with her while she fusses. She spits up.
After fifteen minutes, you put her on the mat. You aren't supposed to have babies in "containers" for too long. When you told ChatGPT that she fussed a lot, it suggested a schedule where you rotate activities for her every 3–10 minutes. ChatGPT must have forgotten that you work.
Soon, it is time for her to nap again. You decide you will try to incorporate a slightly longer wind-down time. Maybe that will help her relax and prepare for sleep. You change her diaper, lay her on your bed, and read a book to her. She looks at the pictures calmly and suckles her paci. It seems to be going well.
When you put her in the sleep sack, she wiggles her arms and legs and smiles at you. It's nice that she's happy, but she's lost her sleepiness again. You talk quietly to her and do the rocking and shushing and put her in the bassinet. It's extra hard for her to keep the paci in her mouth this time and it takes extra long for her to fall asleep. You make shushing noises until your lips and tongue are dry.
With six minutes until your next meeting starts, she falls asleep. You manage to escape without the creaky bed waking her up this time.
While you're on the meeting, she wakes up to cry three different times. You can't decide if you should ignore her or tend to her, so you do some of both. The times you ignore her, she does eventually calm down, which reassures you that she's learning to soothe herself to some degree.
The meeting ends with you having several to-dos, some of which you wrote down, some of which you really hope the project manager will remind you about.
She's awake and crying when the meeting ends. It's 2pm, and the baby's mood usually goes steadily downhill from mid-afternoon until she goes to bed, so this has likely been the "best" part of your day.
You eat what the bag says is four servings of Trader Joe's strawberry and chocolate drizzle popcorn. A piece of chocolate falls on your current favorite shirt and leaves a brown smear. You just leave it.
You think about how quickly your energy dried up. You might wake up in the morning to find it restored again, but you know it will just evaporate and turn sour before the day is done, like it always does. Somehow that feels even worse, to know that it will come back only to die again.
It's just a season, you know. One day you'll miss when she was this little, and you genuinely try to enjoy it. You watch her little face as you nurse. You willingly show her and talk to her about everything in the house over and over on your fifteen-minute-upright walks. You try to smile with your eyes when you play with her.
But some days are just hard.
~ Stephanie
Last month, I posted the songs that had been going through my head postpartum, and it was a surprisingly accurate snapshot of life at the time. What didn't occur to me was that the phenomenon would continue, but with different songs. I now present to you Postpartum in Songs Part II, an update.
"Edelweiss" from The Sound of Music
Trigger Phrase: "You look happy to meet me."
A couple of weeks ago, Elle started smiling SO big whenever we get her out of her bassinet. She beams the biggest gummy smile and her eyes practically become stars. To be honest, it made me feel guilty at first, because there was NO way I could possibly deserve what I was seeing in her face. Like, she had to be mistaken or I'd somehow manipulated her into thinking I was amazing, because—excuse me?—I am actually the one who interrupts her post-milk naps to change her diaper and makes her burp when she hates it?
"The Middle" by Jimmy Eat World
Trigger Phrase: "It just takes some time, / Little girl, you're in the middle of the ride / Everything, everything'll be just fine, / Everything, everything'll be all right, all right."
What a testament to how much better things have felt lately! Now, my inner dialogue reassures me that "it just takes some time" rather than excoriating me for always making the wrong decision.
"Mother Knows Best" from Tangled
Trigger Phrase: "Mother's right here, Mother will protect you."
It is unfortunate the this song is sung ironically and by the movie's villain, but it still plays in my head when I say, "Momma's right here" to Elle, which is pretty often.
"Come Get Her" by Rae Sremmurd
Trigger Phrase: "Somebody come get her, she's dancing like a stripper."
Look, I don't choose the songs that get triggered. Many times a day, Gabe or I will say, "I'm gonna get her," either from her nap, for her next feeding, because she's crying, and when we do...I hear this song. I actually hear a joke version from a TikTok that says "somebody come GEET 'errrr," if that's any better.
"When the Rain Comes" by Third Day
Trigger Phrase: "I can't stop the rain / From falling down on you again / I can't stop the rain / But I will hold you 'til it goes away."
No matter how hard I try, there are a lot of things I can't stop for Elle: gas, spit up, the hiccups. However, I tell her that what I can do is hold her until whatever it is passes.
"My World" by Sick Puppies
Trigger Phrase: "Welcome to my world."
We recently bought a black and white contrast book for Elle, and it's called Hello, My World. Every time I see the book, it triggers this song.
"Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah" from Disney's (problematic) Song of the South
Trigger Phrase: "Zip-a-dee-doo-dah"
I've never seen Song of the South, but as I zipped up Elle's sleeper one day, I sang the line "ZIP-a-dee-doo-dah" to her and she loved it, so I sang that song about fifty times one morning and my brain is never gonna let it go.
"I Feel the Earth Move" by Carole King
Trigger Phase: "I feel the earth move under my feet."
Often, especially in the middle of the night, Elle falls asleep on my chest during her upright time. When it's time for me to move the nursing pillow and take her to change her diaper, I think about how it must feel to her, like the ground beneath her feet is shifting.
I'll be very interested to see if this continues.
~ Stephanie
Once again, recording some thoughts while Elle is napping. Any moment might be my last XD
Dysmorphia by Proxy
Sometimes when Elle is swaddled and in the crook of my arm, I genuinely feel like I see her as a toddler when I look down, and it's disturbing. It's like that part of Friends where Joey has a dream that he's holding a baby and sudden it's Ross's face staring up at him. Elle looks so different and so much older than she did at first.
The Irony
Gabe and I tried so hard to have a baby (like, I ate tinned oysters for months a few years ago) to now try so hard NOT to have a baby 😂 Like, I relish the times Gabe offers to give her a bottle so I can leave the house and pretend to be childless. We put her down at night and sneak upstairs and watch her on the monitor and BEG for her not to wake back up. I know this is totally normal, but it's still funny.
The Scrutinizing
And yet, we do watch her on the monitor. I have become more eagle-eyed than I thought possible as I zoom in and try to find a spot on the swaddle that moves so that I can be reassured that she's breathing.
The Cords
This is so random and unexpected, but the number of CORDS cluttering up our home has somehow quadrupled since having a baby. Chargers for our Kindles, our phones, her nightlight, her stroller fan, the baby monitor, Gabe's Nintendo Switch, my laptop as I work from the living room. I hate visual clutter and I hate tripping over things, so this has been...unfortunate.
Sticking to a Schedule
I used to think that parents who stuck rigidly to their child's routine might be coddling their child, who would need to know how to roll with life eventually. However, I have come to realize that ELL-OH-ELL, sticking to a schedule isn't even FOR the baby—it's for YOU, because if the baby's schedule is thrown off, it's not the baby who suffers, it is everyone within earshot, potentially for the whole rest of the day. It's like when I used to think that teachers who dismissed class early were doing it as a treat for the students, when, more often than not, the teacher wants class to be over at least as much.
Mantra
I didn't mean to create a mantra, but when Elle was a few weeks old, I would tell her how sweet she was and how beautiful she was, and it quickly occurred to me that I didn't want those to become the only (or even the default) adjectives we use for her. If our voices are going to become her first inner voice, I want her to have a more empowering impression of herself. I added some adjectives, and it became an actual habit of mine to chant to her that she is "so sweet and smart and strong and brave and beautiful."
The First Six-Hour Stretch
In comparing notes with other moms, I've learned that it is normal to fly awake in the middle of the night, realize your baby hasn't roused you in SIX HOURS?! and panic a little bit. Is this a good thing? Or is she DEAD? The good news is that Elle is fine, and will now sleep six hours at a time a couple of times a week. The bad news is that we have absolutely no clue what magic recipe is that yields these random restful blocks.
It turns out the people didn't lie: parenthood DOES get better, and a single one of Elle's smiles is payback enough.
Well, maybe two or three smiles.
~ Stephanie
I might be able to unpack any one of these and make separate posts, but I can't count on myself to find the time, so I'm just going to document some thoughts from the last few weeks in fragments :)
Losing Game
For a long stretch, motherhood just felt like a constant losing game. I could never make the right choice. If I let Elle keep sleeping, she woke up too hungry and I felt mean. If I woke her up to feed her, I felt mean for disturbing her sleep. If I changed her diaper before she ate, I was mean for delaying the milk she so desperately wanted. If I fed her first, I was mean for letting her eat in a soiled diaper. If she fell asleep while I kept her upright after nursing, I felt mean for waking her up to change her diaper. If I changed her diaper quicker, before she fell asleep, and she spit up on the changing table, I felt mean for rushing the process and "making" her spit up.
A Race
Everything also feels like a race. Can I finish my food before she wakes up? Will the chiropractor come in before she starts crying? Can I change her diaper before she spits up? Can we get home before it's time to nurse? How fast can I shower? How fast can I change her diaper? How fast can Gabe heat up the bottle?
Antithesis
Motherhood is forcing me to act contrary to myself in three particular ways: I must be slow, and gentle, and quiet. I have always been fairly fast and rough and loud. Every moment of every day, I must exercise myself in a way I never have before. It's exhausting, but the growth is unbelievable. I would not have thought I had it in me to control myself to this degree for this long.
Scary Sounds
Sounds that now send a pang of dismay through my body:
- Thud of a paci hitting the mattress: Elle will either keep sleeping or wake screaming
- Creak of our bedroom door opening: Gabe coming to wake me to nurse Elle
- Silence: Has Elle entered quiet sleep or is she dead?
It's Constant
I find myself forgetting that this is forever. There's no "until" with motherhood, unless it's "until I die," or—God actually forbid—she does. There are no days off; there is no "mute" button on her crying or "pause" button on her hungry tummy. Giving up isn't an option.
Every once in a while I'll notice a thought in the back of my mind that's something like "Okay, I'm done now, let's go back to regular life" and then I realize that that can't happen. This thought pattern makes me realize how few things I've forbid myself to quit lately. The fact that my brain automatically generates the thought, "This is difficult; I'm going to quit" feels like a lesson in character. Have I really become so quick to give up? So unaccustomed to exerting myself? Whether or not that's the case, I won't be quitting motherhood, and I know that will be good practice for other areas of my life too.
To Sum Up
It's been a lot. But it is getting better. Glancing over this post, I realize that it sounds negative, but that's not an accurate reflection of how life feels—anymore. I'm just catching up on the note in my phone that says "Blog," and most of the bullet points were added during weeks that felt more hard than good. However, Gabe and I have moved from staring at each other and talking about how we can never do this again to thinking that maybe we could. And that's progress.
Now that my phone's Blog note has been cleared out a bit, I think the next post will read less "suffering for the cause" and more "such a magical time," because it genuinely is :)
~Stephanie
