Unheld in Motherhood

As a young mother, I stumbled through mental health issues, poverty, breastfeeding, and a rocky relationship. I learned to ask for help, forgive myself, and be okay with messy in order to get through it all. 

When my son, Raven first found his home in my womb, I was not ready to be a mother. The news came to me only a short year after the unexpected death of my own mother. My partner, Jaymes, and I were at a great point in our relationship but we had certainly never talked about having children together. I remember feeling terrified that he wouldn’t receive the news well, but when I showed him the positive test, he actually cracked a smile.

And just like that, the next chapter of our lives had begun. 

One thing was clear- my lifestyle was not set up to support a pregnancy. My relationship with food was based entirely on survival. I ran on espresso fumes and ate microwave burritos on the run, just to keep my head from spinning.

My relationship with my pre-pregnancy body? One of seething criticism. When I railed up against my grief or darkness, I would drive recklessly, light up a smoke, or plan my next bender, NEVER sitting with my emotions. Somehow, when I found out I was pregnant, I quit my decade old smoking habit, just like flipping a light switch.

Due to my newfound sobriety, early pregnancy was like coming home to myself, but all of the lights were burnt out and the floors littered. Over the next few weeks, I made many unlikely changes in my lifestyle. I was reading Ina May Gaskin books, nourishing my body and mind, rather than running from myself. I began to feel like an entirely different woman and even I almost couldn’t believe it.

Still, all of the technicalities of pregnancy stressed me to no end. My friends and family cheered me on from the very distant sidelines and Google would give me run of the mill advice. I remember feeling like this was the point at which one should call their mother for advice.

Her absence from this rite of passage continued to sting.

Even if I could have called her, I couldn’t imagine what she would say. Maybe she would have come with me to my ultrasound appointments and cried when we saw the little heartbeat on the screen, but she didn’t. And when I started researching the astronomical cost of a hospital birth in my area, I just decided we’d have our baby in the living room instead.

The rounder my belly grew, the louder my spirit spoke to me. I felt as if someone had turned up the volume knob on my soul- realizations, perspective, and forgiveness poured into me. I used this newfound clarity to set my intentions for our birth. Our wonderful midwife would often ask me “what do I feel comfortable with”, what do I need”? I felt so supported. I remember wondering if the women who had come before me had ever been asked what they'd like.

Raven was born in our sunny living room- just as we had planned. Labour was powerful and intense, everything I had ever hoped for. I watched beautiful mandalas behind my eyelids as he descended. Jaymes held me in all the right ways, and bore witness to a miracle that day, too. After everything settled, we snuggled into life with a newborn and it felt just like a dream. Of course, I was sore and sleep was illusive, but we all had each other.

With every day that passed after the birth, I grew increasingly uncomfortable with my dwindling savings. Though I needed to, I could not imagine going back to work at the mail processing plant. Just a couple of weeks before I was set to return, my supervisor to tell me that I was rescheduled to come back to work…. just after the weekend.

I stumbled my way through that conversation in shock. It was made clear that my job depended on my early return. Rage wrenched at my gut at that moment. Earlier, I had been thinking “Just 10 more days with this little angel before it all changes” and now it had become just 1.

That moment in early motherhood marked the beginning of me feeling unheld, by the world.

When I told Jaymes, he argued, said there must be something we can do, but I didn’t have any answers. To make matters worse, the position I was to fill required a lengthy training in another city, a few hours away. Here I was with my squirming newborn, who’d never left the safety of our home, packing him into the carseat, with continued responsibility of keeping a tiny human alive.

Like always, Jaymes tried to encouraged me to stand up for myself, to fight back, but I hardly had any fight left in me at that point.

I barely had the energy to drag myself to drive across the state for a job that treated me like a machine. Tears streamed down my face and my breasts leaked onto my shirt as I drove across the country highway that night. Luckily, the training passed by quickly, but I was stone cold and absolutely not willing to forgive society for their detached and heartless expectations.

My 10 month old woke every hour to nurse and I never seemed to get more than 4 hours of sleep at night.

When I tried to tell others that I was feeling increasingly worn down, they’d smile and tell me that’s just how babies are and advise me to just enjoy it.

They’d recommend a babysitter, a massage, a night out- all things that were out of my reach. My budget, patience, and heart were schedule proved to be a challenge. I showed up being stretched to their absolute limits.

I showed up ready to work, but my body and brain kept trying to float away to my babe all day long. I remember pumping in the back of our van on my first day back, clueless, spilling milk all over the upholstery, having and good cry, and returning to work- all in 15 minutes.

Over the next few months the only thing that got any easier was the routine of it all. I fell back at work. In motherhood, I grew accustomed to pumping at work in the only room with a lock- the restroom. The lighting was dim and the grout smelled terrible. I would put my noisy pump in the sink and sit on the loose toilet seat while I ate my lunch, since there wasn’t enough time to do both.

I knew how bizarre this all was then, but couldn’t see any other way. Sometimes, the judgement of my coworkers prevented me from pumping on schedule, especially when our workload was heavy. That was when the mastitis began. Over the course of my first year back at work I got mastitis six times.

At this point, affording child care was entirely out of the question for us and we didn’t have that type of dependable support from family.

Unheld again, by the world, Jaymes and I worked opposite shifts (and still are 5 years later). We saw each other only to hand off the baby and for a quick kiss. With the raw emotions of new parenthood coursing through our veins, the few minutes we had to spend together were simply not enough to connect. Our lack of communication turned into a deep hurt for us both, as we struggled separately.

With all of the stress, time spent with Raven began to feel like sandpaper on my nerves. I adored him more than any other person in the world but on the hard days, my patience and expectations for myself would go right out the window. If I felt particularly anxious while I was at work, I’d send a text to check in.

If Jaymes didn’t respond immediately, I’d drive myself into a frenzy worrying about the terrible things that could-have-almost-certainly-definitely happened.

I remember the feeling of holding my breath until he’s “x” numbers of months old, or until he just does “y”...as if then it was all going to be okay. Jaymes, of course, noticed my empathetic nature taking a turn for Monster Mama. He would remind me of our gentle parenting philosophy and my capacity to love, but all I could hear was judgement.

At the peak of my postpartum challenges, I feared that my kind heart had begun to curdle. I laid the eye rolls on heavy, insinuated blame with my tone, and completely lost my chill. In the dark of the night, I’d bounce my son back to sleep for what felt like an eternity, lie him down, and immediately hear the dog next door begin to bark incessantly, like it did every night.

My son’s eyes would shoot back open, followed shortly thereafter by his cry. With each shrill bark, I could feel my muscles tighten and harden like cement. I probably imagined a million ways to shut that dog up. I swore I’d kill it if it kept barking. It always did. I wrote letters in my head about how hard this all was.

I was afraid these feelings would last forever, but they didn’t. Just before Raven’s first birthday, I decided to take a pay cut and ditch the graveyard shifts. I agonized about how we’d afford things, but decided it was still in our best interest. This marked an epic epiphany for me the moment that I finally gave myself permission to take what I needed.

I’d always assumed that exhaustion was a badge of honor, and scars a point of pride. Instead I found that rest and forgiveness were better gifts to myself. I started sleeping for a few hours at a time and began to recognize myself again.

We started getting out of the house and I was reminded of all of my favorite things about being alive- the smell of damp spring soil or the feeling of riding a sticky ferris wheel under the moon, now even sweeter because I could share them with my son, his heart full of innocent wonder. Jaymes and I began having difficult conversations. He and so many others had been telling me to stop being so hard on myself, but those were only words to me until I felt the waves of mastitis misery roll over me, until I felt my eyelids heavy like lead, and heard that damn dog barking the whole night through.

I had to fight tooth and nail for my survival as a new mother. I was unheld by the world at large.

Now I am thriving, pouring over midwifery textbooks, attending births in the wee hours of the night- madly in love with my family and the sacredness of it all, but the truth is, my story should have been different. Our systems are failing us. Mothers from all walks of life are blistering under the pressure that’s growing in our society. As a whole, we’re awakening to the fact that comfort and balance in modern motherhood are becoming harder to find. I cannot think of anything more important than taking care of mothers. After all, all of this began with a mother.

~Lacy Larson