Matrescence
Content warning: this post, like motherhood, is a little too comfortable with bodily functions. Proceed with caution.
“There’s nothing else I can do,”
the anesthesiologist said, like he was reading from a script of Grey’s Anatomy. Except this wasn’t a TV show, and I was just learning I was going to have to deliver my baby unmedicated, which was very much not part of the birth plan.
I remember a few things about that moment.
First: I had the distinct thought that any woman acting out a childbirth scene is definitely not being dramatic enough. Feeling a shoulder and an elbow in the birthing canal warrants more screaming, more clawing, and more weeping/wailing/gnashing of teeth.
Second: Akrit was not counting fast enough.
As the designated “Counter of Pushes,” his job was to get me to ten on each push. Let’s just say he was doing his job like someone who had never pushed a baby unmedicated out of a birth canal before. Which is fair. And also—read the room. Count faster.
After what felt like forever, but was actually about 40 minutes, I felt the so-called “Ring of Fire” as my daughter’s head crested through her living quarters.
I was exhausted by the time the nurse placed my daughter on my chest.
My first thought was that she looked a bit like a bug. A cute bug—or at least a bug with the potential to be cute—but a bug nonetheless.
My next thought was, “Oh my god, I have a daughter.”
I examined each little toe and eyelash. I felt her doll-sized hand grip my finger. Her dark eyes gazed into mine. I ran my hand along each inch, every fold.
It felt strange. On one hand, I was meeting Mila for the first time. I didn’t know her yet, and even though we had spent nine months together, she felt like a stranger to me. On the other hand, I had built every one of her cells. I had made her. She was more a part of me than anyone would ever be.
Mila moved to latch. As the doctors quickly stitched me up, we tried to feed for the first time. It wasn’t easy, but it felt right.
Just as I was settling into the moment, Mila pooped all over me.
Well hello to you too.
God bless the nurses in the antepartum unit.
I’m not sure exactly how many times we called them in to re-swaddle our burgeoning little bug, but we came close to getting our money’s worth from the hospital stay, which is saying something given the cost of healthcare.
So I was absolutely appalled when, just 36 hours later, the nurses started talking about “discharge” (and not the kind coming from my downstairs plumbing). We had a 7-pound nugget who absolutely could not be trusted with us. We couldn’t even get the swaddle right. And yet, legally, she was.
I kept wondering why there wasn’t some kind of parenting test we had to pass before leaving the hospital. Nothing too intense—just something between the difficulty of renewing your license and the LSAT.
But no application process, no test, not even a baby registration fee?
I guess the hospital bill can count as the registration fee.
When we got home, I turned my final two brain cells to one pressing issue:
I still hadn’t pooped. It wasn’t until three days later and serious strain that I was finally able to pass something. After enduring the trauma of two deliveries in 72 hours, I felt like an Olympic athlete.
“Akrit, get in here!” I yelled.
“What happened?” he said, with a tinge of panic.
“No, it’s good! I finally pooped!”
I wanted to show it off like someone shows off a finely bred horse or an award-winning zucchini. This was a poop for the ages.
“You want me to look at your poop?” he asked.
“Yes!” I said, with entirely too much enthusiasm.
“I think… I’m okay,” he said, slowly backing toward the door.
Disappointed, I turned back toward the throne. Maybe it was better for our marriage if he didn’t look. At some point, he would be my sexual partner again (though that felt very theoretical at the moment).
What I saw in the toilet was both beautiful and terrifying—at least half the weight of the baby I had just delivered.
No one told me about this part of postpartum, I sighed, equal parts relief and irritation.
My thoughts turned from the long list of things that no one had told me about postpartum, to the 50-year-old pipes in our building. We had already had one incident during pregnancy that involved me walking home through Menlo Park carrying a toilet plunger from Ace Hardware like a woman with a mission.
If the pipes hadn’t been able to handle that situation, they were absolutely not going to survive this one.
So I quietly went into the kitchen, grabbed a plastic fork and knife, and returned to the bathroom. Then, I politely knelt down and cut up my doogie, gentlewoman that I am.
“Welcome to motherhood,” I whispered, as the remains of my old life flushed away.
Then, I vigorously washed my hands, walked out to the kitchen, and helped make Thanksgiving dinner.
I was surprised—and, if I’m honest, ashamed—by how much I didn’t enjoy my launch into motherhood.
The feeding schedule was relentless. Even with Akrit and both sets of parents helping at different points, my tether to Mila was short. Between feeds, there was never enough time to rest, reset, or feel like a separate person. The sudden loss of bodily autonomy and independence were staggering.
And the exhaustion! It was a slow, cumulative unraveling. I started to understand, on a cellular level, why sleep deprivation is an effective torture tactic. 36 hours of no sleep + a sad baby = I am absolutely spilling which country’s president we’re kidnapping next.
I told all of this to a close friend and next-door neighbor, who had her baby just two and a half weeks before I did.
I don’t know if I like this. I love Mila, I can’t imagine life without her. And… I’m terrified I don’t like being a mom.
After listening to my confession, she paused for a moment and said, “If it makes you feel better, I don’t think your baby is having a great time right now either.”
Well, shit.
She was probably right. Mila did not seem to be enjoying her stay at the Mila Palace. I was sure we were headed for a two-star review: Staff grumpy. More milk.
My friend continued, “Your baby has gone from being in a cozy, temperature-controlled environment to dealing with lights, sounds, and faces. She went from having food delivered through a cord to suddenly having to work for it. She’s womb-lagged: her days are nights and her nights are days. She’s getting her diaper changed constantly and has to wear clothes that don’t quite fit.”
She paused.
“It’s not like she’s having a great time and you’re the one ruining it. You’re both going through something completely transformative together.”
Then she added, “Anything your baby is going through, you are too. Your sleep is off. You’re changing your own diapers. Your clothes don’t fit like they used to. And you also don’t know what’s going on.”
Maybe, she suggested, instead of feeling guilty for having a terrible time, I could take what I was experiencing and use it as empathy for what my baby was experiencing.
Maybe we were both the baby.
In a moment, I went from guilt to: of course this is terrible for both of us.
We had both been born during the delivery process; we were both becoming something new. Understanding that helped ease the pressure and shame. But it didn’t make me better at being a mom.
I’m the oldest of seven kids, so I confidently assumed I would be a good mom.
By the age of ten, my parents were leaving four younger kids under my care. I could handle dinner, cleanup, and bedtime with the best of them. I was the designated neighborhood babysitter, and had conquered babies with separation anxiety and toddlers on energy pills. I had even taught my brother how to ride a bike.
I was nervous about delivery, low sleep, and breastfeeding, but it never occurred to me that I didn’t actually know how to take care of a baby.
It turns out there are two very different questions:
Will I be a good mom?
Do I know how to take care of a baby?
The answer to the second one has been, consistently, no. Apparently, throwing dino nuggets in the microwave for a couple of kids is not the same as being the full-time caregiver for one.
Within about eleven days, I felt wildly underprepared. The volume of things a new parent needs to understand is absurd—colostrum, meconium, purple crying, wake windows, active sleep, developmental leaps, fussy phases, tummy time, contact naps, feeding schedules, sleep training, baby-led weaning, high-contrast toys, gas drops, reflux, overtired vs. undertired, witching hour, cluster feeding, dream feeds, nap transitions, sleep regressions, and something called “drowsy but awake”—none of which mean anything until they suddenly mean everything.
When I wasn’t feeding Mila, I was on ChatGPT or Reddit, trying to figure out congestion, swaddling, or whether bassinets are a scam. (Seriously, whose 2-week old baby is going down in the bassinet?)
A few months in, I was shocked to realize I was not going to eldest-daughter my way out of first-time parenting mistakes. This was going to be a lot of trial and error—which gave me both serious empathy for my parents, and was deeply disappointing for me.
At this point, you might be thinking, “Kate, come on, how bad could it be?”
Let me take you to Vancouver.
Last month, we flew to Vancouver for the wedding of one of Akrit’s high school friends. Mila was a little older than four months old, and deep in the dreaded sleep regression. Or, as she prefers to approach things, a full-blown sleep aggression. To make the trip harder, the Airbnb had promised a pack-and-play, but when we arrived, the baby sleep setup looked more like a pack-and-pray.
Given the questionable sleep setup, we placed Mila above my head on the bed while I scooched down and folded myself into what I can only describe as “mommy origami.” Every night, Mila woke up every 45 minutes. Within minutes of falling asleep, all three of us were awake again.
That pattern repeated over and over, somehow more mind-numbing than the “Happy Song” on repeat during a meltdown (iykyk).
Eventually, I put her in the car seat and rocked her to sleep. Unable to make the transfer, I let her stay there next to the bed, gently rocking the car seat whenever she stirred.
“I love traveling,” I whisper-cried to myself. “Traveling is my favorite hobby.”
The wedding was gorgeous, and the time with friends, cup-filling. Akrit and I were so glad we had gone. But as our flight home approached, our combined energy was lower than a shawty in apple-bottom jeans. As we boarded, I threw a prayer to every god for an easy flight with Mila.
The flight was scheduled for bedtime and, of course, delayed. Mila is a certified motion junkie and needs movement to fall asleep, so as we sat stalled on the tarmac, she began to fuss.
To prevent the squirm escalating into a scream, Akrit and I aggressively bounced her up and down, putting any gym bro to shame with dozens—then dozens more—of Mila shoulder presses.
“One, two, three, four…” one of us would count, as we frantically bumped her up and down. When one person’s arms gave out, we passed her to the other and started the count again.
We made it to takeoff, barely, only for Mila to realize she was no longer being bounced or rocked to sleep. Exhausted and slightly feral, I took the car seat to the back of the plane, hoping to recreate our Airbnb success. Mila cooperated just enough to give me hope, and then absolutely refused to go to sleep.
Any time the swinging car seat stopped, the crying started.
An hour in, the flight attendant found me in the back of the plane, squatting next to the car seat. Mila was crying, and so was I.
“She’s teething,” I explained, looking up at him through blurry eyes.
Truth be told, I don’t know if she was teething. I just needed an explanation for why my baby wouldn’t cooperate that didn’t make me look like the problem.
I avoided eye contact with the other passengers as I did the long walk of maternal shame down the aisle back to our seats. When I reached Akrit, I handed him Mila and desperately muttered, “I love traveling. Traveling is my favorite hobby.”
When we got home, things went from chaotic to concerning.
What had felt like travel drama started to look more like a system failure. Mila had always been a picky eater, but now she was refusing both the boob and the bottle unless she was drowsy or asleep.
She wasn’t eating well. She wasn’t sleeping well. And we were starting to spiral in that very specific way new parents do.
I called the pediatrician expecting to schedule something casual with a lactation consultant—maybe salvage breastfeeding, or at the very least, get Mila to eat when her eyes were open.
Over the course of the call, the urgency escalated quickly:
“Let’s see if we can get you in.”
“Let’s get you in next week.”
“Actually… I think you should come in tomorrow.”
And so it was that my second walk of maternal shame landed me in the pediatrician’s office, completely defeated by my infant.
After Akrit and I explained everything, our doctor smiled, and in the ultimate gentle parenting voice, said, “It makes sense how you got here. You’re trying to do what’s best for your baby by getting food into her by any means possible. But you’re doing too much—and some of it isn’t helping.”
She made several recommendations to get us back on track, which included letting Mila go hungry if she didn’t eat within a certain window, which felt illegal at the time. Next, we were to practice falling asleep independently again, and again, and again.
Within five days, everything improved. Our rapid progress was equally relieving and humbling.
The realization sunk in: Oh. We caused this drama.
Not negligently. Just confidently and incorrectly. It was the first time I learned that parenting is really just making a series of well-intentioned mistakes, and then learning your way out of them.
You will all be delighted to know that Mila is now so good at falling asleep independently that I walked into the living room the other day and found her asleep, smack dab on the carpet floor. No motion, no patting, no frantic swinging of a car seat in the back of a plane. I still can’t believe how much has changed in just a couple of weeks.
Which is amazing. And also not the whole story.
The persistent difficulties in feeding Mila have forced me to confront something I hadn’t expected to face so soon: how hard it is to change your mind on what’s best for your baby.
As a self-proclaimed (occasionally self-righteous) feminist, I assumed I’d be extremely relaxed about how my baby was fed. Before Mila was born, I breezily said, “A fed baby is a happy baby” (as someone who had never actually been in a situation where feeding didn’t go according to plan).
When feeding didn’t go according to plan, I was…. not breezy.
The other thing I’m learning is that parenting is, apparently, a two-way relationship with another human who has her own body, preferences, and personality.
It’s been difficult to let go of my definition of “best” and figure out what Mila actually needs. Because she’s not emotional that breastfeeding has been difficult, I am. And she’s not emotional when we miss library music time, I am.
I’m trying, some days more successfully than others, to take her cues on what she really needs from me. Which is usually just presence, play, stability, and cuddles. What kind of milk is in the bottle doesn’t matter quite as much.
The other day, I had Mila strapped into the carrier and we went for a walk—my favorite thing to do with her.
It’s one of the only times I get her like that, our hearts almost as close as they were during pregnancy.
She babbled as we walked, narrating something with her growing vocabulary of coos and raspberries. I asked her about the trees and her friends, and she talked right back. She looked up at me with her dad’s dark brown eyes and gave me a heartbreaking smile.
We laughed, and then she went right back to chatting. Over the last few months, Mila has grown from someone I take care of to someone I like. Someone I love spending time with. Someone I love.
At some point, she wore herself out and fell asleep on my chest. I looked down at her, smiling at the same profile I saw when the nurse first placed her on me. Same button nose, same little lips. She’s burgeoned into quite the cute bug. And don’t get me started on her eyelashes. I put my finger near her hand, and just like that first day, she reflexively wrapped her little fingers around mine.
As I walked, I thought about the last six months. Mila is learning how to be a person: how to move, how to eat, how to make sense of the world. And I’m learning how to take care of one.
Some days she’s fussy. Some days I am too. She’s getting better at her job. So am I. We’re both figuring it out in real time, and watching each other do it.
I thought motherhood would feel like instinct, or magic—something I would just know how to do. Instead, it’s mostly been extreme exhaustion, a steep learning curve, and poop.
Frankly, too much poop.
But motherhood has also been bedtime cuddles, bath time laughs, and playtime smiles. It’s been slow days and fast months.
As you know, I love traveling, traveling is my favorite hobby. And getting to see the world through Mila’s expanding eyes has made each week feel like I’m in a new place.
As I gaze down at Mila, her fingers still wrapped around mine, the same thought I had in the delivery room comes rolling back to me:
Oh my god, I have a daughter.
Kaaaaaate this so well-written and my jaw was on the floor for the Cutting of the Poop 😂 Thank you for sharing!! Yet another metamorphosis
What a beautiful article, Kate!! It made me laugh and cry at the same time. This is so so heartwarming and helpful to understand for someone who's not a mom. I love it! I missed your writing and am so glad you're back. I can't wait for more :)