How to lazy genius postpartum

#notesfromthetrenches

Spoiler alert: you can’t.

What I mean by that is that no matter what you do, how well you plan, how many tools you have in your belt, and how much support you have, you will at some point still find yourself crying in the bathroom, wondering what you did to your life and if the squalling human that you’ve been keeping alive with your body for three weeks has a return policy.

Spoiler: this does not make you a bad mom.

Postpartum is HARD.

I have a theory, and I’ve heard others say it too so it might not be my theory, that there are four phases of having a baby: getting pregnant, pregnancy, birth and postpartum. The theory is that most people are going to have at least one of those that threatens to take them out at the knees. For some it might be months of infertility treatments or repeated miscarriages. Perhaps for others it’s months of hyperemis gravidarum or a high risk pregnancy on bed rest. Birth might be traumatic and include unplanned surgery or life threatening complications. There’s a lot that can be hard!

For me it’s postpartum.

I won’t say that the first three stages are easy for me, because I don’t think they’re easy for anyone, and I put a lot of effort into ensuring I do what I can to take care of myself, but they’ve been pretty uncomplicated.

Where the wheels begin to fall off the bus is about 2 days postpartum when my milk comes in and I begin the exhausting task of “get milk from point A to point B and try to not get mastitis 40 million times”.

Postpartum with my 2 year old involved a trip to the ER for antibiotics, a botched tongue tie revision, and a series of events that led to me hand expressing milk into an IKEA bowl for several weeks to feed the baby. It probably took until almost four months for his torticollis to get resolved, his latch to be corrected and for us to be able to nurse without pain.

I’ve done some combination of triple feeding, bottle feeding and nursing with a nipple shield for every baby. Thank you genetic lottery trifecta of risk factors that makes the “natural” art of breastfeeding the equivalent of climbing Mt. Everest. Thankfully this latest experience has *only* involved mastitis four times in 2 weeks, my milk supply tanking, pumping around the clock to recover it and a mysterious bout with thrush (but why?) We’re still working on the whole “get the baby off the bottle thing” which means that about three times a day I try to guide a hungry bobble head baby into the correct position and help her to know what to do with her mouth.

The reality of my postpartum experiences is that the first six weeks after a baby is born revolve around milk. It’s easy to start to feel like you’re drowning in it.

How do you stay afloat?

*I imagine myself saying this in Bruce’s voice from “Finding Nemo”*

“I am a human being and not a mindless milk making machine. If I am to change this perception I must first change myself.”

I don’t have the answers, but I’m going to dare to offer a few guiding principles that have been rolling around in my head the last few weeks. If you’re not familiar with The Lazy Genius, I invite you to read the book, or check out her podcast. Kendra and I must be the same type of weird because I like the way this woman thinks.

While you certainly could apply all the book’s principles to this very unique time period, I think there are a few that are especially important:

Name what matters, Live in the season, Let people in, Start small, and Be kind to yourself.

1. Name what matters: No one can tell you what matters to YOU, but the main thing here is that not everything can matter at once. For example, staying on the same team as your husband might matter to you, which means that when your sleep deprived self wants to freak out at him about small things, you can remember that your relationship and working together matters more than being a petty control freak. Maybe you’ve decided that breastfeeding really matters to you, so going places where you’re not comfortable nursing can’t matter right now. Maybe you’re going to prioritize the relational needs of your kids over school and your to-do list, so it means spending time to play “chess” with the four year old even when it makes you feel a little dead inside and the laundry doesn’t get folded. In order for the big things to matter, a lot of the small stuff can’t matter right now (see: your exact control freak tendencies being maintained).

2. Live in the Season. You’ve got to know that this is just a season. It’s not forever. Being on my 5th go round, I have the luxury of knowing there’s a few benchmarks I’ll reach. The first two weeks are totally different from the next four weeks, and you simply can’t even begin to compare one week after birth to six weeks after birth. The whole fourth trimester (roughly the first 12 weeks after baby is born) is it’s own season and for all the overachieving, performance driven, control freaks (hi, it’s me) who have a tendency to think that life should just continue on seamlessly but you know, with a baby, we need to remember that this - postpartum - is truly a blip on the radar in the grand scheme of things. Do. Not. Think. Too. Far. Ahead. Don’t you dare start trying to figure out how you’re going to manage an event that’s three weeks from now. You’re allowed to think about tomorrow, and maybe the end of the week. If that starts to feel overwhelming, back it up. Sometimes the goal is just to make it through the next feeding. You can live life in two hour increments for awhile. Just do the next thing. Then do it again. One day you’ll look up and figure out that you’ve made it out of the woods, I promise.

3. Start Small. Related to the above principle. Everything feels enormous, especially when you’ve got a sleep deprived hormone cocktail on board. You’ve got to make things smaller. Every time I add a child to the mix I’m paralyzed by the prospect of getting out the door with everyone. How will it all work? This week I’ll start doing a few things outside the house, but if you don’t feel ready? It’s ok. You’re allowed to not do them. My baby is almost four weeks old and yesterday I drove a car for the first time since she was born. After my oldest was born we took out of town guests to the Great Sand Dunes at one and a half weeks postpartum. It was a terrible, miserable idea and I want to go back and tell my 22 year old self to get back in bed. I was an anxious mess, my stitches hurt and I got mastitis when I came home. Don’t take the field trip. Go to your appointment if you must, then come home and get back in bed with your baby. If you feel a burning desire to leave the house, get grocery pickup and go through the coffee drive thru, then see you how feel. You know when you have the flu and you think you’re feeling better, so you take a shower and then you sleep for two hours because it turns our bathing is exhausting? Postpartum is like that. Baby steps.

4. Let people in. This is one I’ve had to work hard to do. It doesn’t come naturally to me. My bent is to always be the giver, not the taker. But the thing about community is that it’s reciprocal; people want to help, but you need to let them. I challenge you to say yes to every offer of help you can, pride be damned. Last week, a kind lady from our church whom I don’t know very well texted to offer help after hearing that I was still struggling with mastitis. I felt so silly - of course I didn’t strictly need the help as by the time she came I was feeling better. I could have done it by myself. But it was nice to have someone hold the baby while I did school with my older kids, and when she asked if there was something she could do before she left I asked her to vacuum (!!!). I don’t know if I can explain how large of a departure this is from my usual M.O. Not only did I not clean before she came over, I asked her to help me clean.

   Another uncomfortable step was putting together a detailed list of foods and recipes I could safely eat so people could provide our family meals. It felt so extra and every voice in my head tried to tell me I was high maintenance and needy for giving people all this information. I really thought people would think I was ridiculous. Instead I had so many friends thank me for allowing them in and giving them a way to easily help.

   Even more important than letting people help with your chores, let people in to how you’re actually doing mentally and physically. If you start to feel a little dark and cloudy, please say something. I wish I would have known that intrusive thoughts didn’t mean I was a bad mom, but did mean I was struggling with postpartum anxiety. If you struggle with hormones, or your birth trauma puts you in a tailspin, or you can’t sleep even when the baby does and you don’t know why your heart won’t stop racing, don’t go it alone. I’ve done the postpartum depression, the crippling anxiety, and the panic attacks and I wish I would have known to ask for help sooner. You’re not a bad mom. You’re not a bad person. You can love your baby and still feel like shit. You can be the most faithful Christian and read your Bible every day and still be a depressed, anxious mess who needs extra support at an incredibly vulnerable time. If you’re sitting in the bottom of a hole, let someone crawl down there with you before you dig it deeper.

5. Be Kind to Yourself. You just gave birth to a human being that you grew with your body. Your body is adjusting to the largest hormone shift in human experience. You’re keeping another human alive with your body. So when you look in the mirror at 11 AM and you’re still wearing the milky clothes you slept in, with crazy hair, here’s what I’d say (and what I did say when this exact thing happened today). It’s ok. Your kids are alive and everyone ate breakfast. You even got some schoolwork done! You’re doing great. Go gently. Lower the expectations. Lower them again. Lean in to the small victories - the baby latched on one side today and transferred milk? Throw a party! You made it out of the house with 5 kids for the first time and everyone survived? Amazing!

   I wish I could say this came naturally, but I was born with eyes that easily see what went wrong and every way I’m failing. I have to remember to talk to myself like I’m my own friend. Part of being kind to myself is prioritizing physical needs. This means that protein and quality food aren’t optional. It means I diligently take the supplements my doctor and I agreed on to help with postpartum mood. It means I’m trying to take things easier than I think I need to and letting hard feelings be allowed. You can love your baby, be a wonderful mom and admit that the newborn phase isn’t your favorite (though a newborn napping on your chest is arguably one of life’s most wonderful things).

   You’re doing a good job. Your body is a good body. It’s ok that this isn’t perfect. It’s ok that it’s a process.

And remember that in this special phase of life, everything will take twice as long, so if for example, you start a blog post on Sunday, you might finish it three days later, and though you might want to tie things up in neat tidy bows, there’s also a chance that done is good enough and you’ll press “publish” anyway, before collapsing into bed and praying for a stretch of sleep longer than three hours.

Some seasons are just like that.