America Has It Wrong For Postpartum

Bringing humans into the world is an experience that is widely under acknowledged.

Society tells us, “Oh, you had the baby!? 6-8 weeks from now you should go back to normal.”

An ENTIRE HUMAN BEING was grown inside this woman and then brought earth side in one of the most intense experiences imaginable. She literally created and birthed life, has a dinner plate sized wound inside of her, but society tells us that with in 6-8 weeks, she should snap back to normal.

I’m calling absolute bullshit on this and opening up a conversation that needs to be had.

I’m 17 months postpartum and still fumbling.

The most bizarre thing happened to me. My hair has radically changed. It went from being curly to mostly straight.

I cut my hair a few weeks back because for a long time now, the bottom was curly but the top was straight. I figured it was just long and the weight of all the hair was weighing down my curls.

No, my curls have just disappeared. Gone.

Now, I have super short, mostly straight, with an awkward wave, hair.

I remember my Nan always telling me that her hair used to be curly, and after having her kids, it turned straight.

I low key didn’t believe her or thought it was because of poor nutrition or lack of prenatals  or something.

Well, evidently not, and here I am living this existence myself. Mourning the sudden loss of my old self in this cosmetic way.

Since before Ben’s birth, I have been in a very strange phase of life. I feel like a different person. Truly a new me was birthed when I conceived Ben, and I have been trying to get my bearings for over 2 years.

It’s a wild experience. I have found myself not recognizing myself, and this radical change is now a visual representation on the outside of what’s going on inside of me.

Just like I don’t really know what to do with my hair anymore, I had been feeling that I don’t know what to do with myself.

I’ve been fighting it. I’ve been changing my nutrition, doing detoxes, asking for advice, doing healing work, crying, yelling, fighting the situation.

I’m at a loss. The only thing left is to surrender.

I surrender to the chaos inside me and the chaos that is my newly straight-ish hair.

I can’t resist anymore. I need to lean into it and get curious. God has something for me here, and I am ready to glean the wisdom from the situation placed before me.

I am ready to understand the meaning of this sacred rebirth that comes to every woman each time she brings new life into this world.

However, I also have something to offer the world.

Absolutely no one told me how insane of an experience it is to bring humans into the world. No one told me that it would completely reshape me as a human and reek absolute havoc on my body, mind, and spirit. No one told me that it’s like a rebirth for the mom too.

Becoming a new mother to each and every new child a mother births is sacred, beautiful, scary, hard, confusing, exhausting etc.

With each new child, a mom shifts radically.

An entire new me has been birthed, oddly even more now with Ben then Eli (my first.)

Moms need community.

Moms need support.

Moms need to be held with tenderness and understanding.

Moms need other moms to share their stories and unite around the sacredness of this intense experience and journey.

We need safe spaces to talk about our experiences and the absolute chaos that becomes of our emotions and bodies.

We need to start this conversation. It has been long over due.