Retrieving yourself after childbirth
About a year after my second daughter was born, when I was still in the throes of the spiritual rupture that was going on in my life and still in the babymommy fusion stage of motherhood (that I didn’t yet know was both normal and appropriate) – my oldest sister asked me, “What do you like to do, just for you?”
I was totally stumped. Me, the woman who loved her friends and dancing and nature and music and yoga and writing and singing and learning and healing and running and sunshine and snow and trees and food and life. Me, that woman – had no answer. Because I wasn’t that woman right then. I had lost touch with the me when I fused with my baby, and I was still there in that lost space, floating in that netherworld where I felt so out of touch with both the “regular” world and with the “regular” me that now felt foreign and strange. And so far away. I thought for what felt like a very long time before I came up with one answer. My answer felt so small and silly and banal. I was immediately embarrassed when I said it, but it was true, and my sister accepted it without any indication she thought it was as unimportant and unworthy as I did.
I told her, “I guess I like organizing the house to make it feel nicer?”
I even stated it as a question, that’s how unsure I was of anything that I enjoyed. I was unsure of the joy and even more unsure of the I.
That was my first step towards recognizing my self as an individual outside of the babymommy fusion state and my first step towards recognizing and reclaiming that self. That was a little early for me to fully separate from my child, and my complete cluelessness on the topic of my own wants and joys was a sign of that. But, as the separation started to happen, I realized that my answer hadn’t been dumb or silly or embarrassing. I genuinely DID find joy in reorganizing, in decluttering, in putting things in their own containers so they were contained and not spilling out into each other and into the rest of my life. My first step was to clear space within the chaos. To create literal boundaries between things, since I had been living fused for what felt like a very long time. Which, when I look at it now, was a very wise and necessary step forward.
Today, almost four years out from the birth of my second child, I can list what feels like endless sources of joy. The separation has happened for my sweet mommybaby and for my babymommy self, and we are thriving. My child is thriving in their individual world, where separation from me is not only ok, but needed and wonderful. And I am thriving in my world, where individuation is both necessary and joyful. But it all started with that first step. That first time I dipped my toe into what it feels like to be me. What I need to be me.
And, let me tell you, I would have felt a lot more normal and less like the one dysfunctional mom on the planet who can’t get it together had I known what I know now – that we are supposed to fuse with our babies in the postpartum period. And guess what, the postpartum period lasts about two to three years, not the few months or even six weeks our production and consumption driven society would lead you to believe.
So be gentle with yourselves, mamas. Give yourself grace for not knowing who you are. This is what is supposed to happen. You will get a chance to reclaim and retrieve your selves, and I hope you feel no guilt about doing that part, either. You are supposed to fuse, and you are also supposed to separate. It is what is best for you and for your family. And don’t let our society tell you that you need to go back to work or get your body back or get back to anything at all. There is no back – there is only forward, getting to know and growing into the iteration of you that has evolved through this profound transformation of birth and motherhood.