Motherhood: My hell-ish experience as a new mum / 10 things I wish I knew
Nobody told me that the first few weeks as a new mum are pretty hellish! Growing up, I always just assumed I would one day be a mum. The entire African community assumed that I would one day be a Mum. From the moment I got married, I started hearing murmurs from relatives (and strangers) — “When will they have children?”. I actually had to explain to some family members that we were actively avoiding pregnancy at the time because it is such a FOREIGN concept in a Nigerian home. You would have thought that with all these people being in our business, someone would have thought to explain the intensity of the first few weeks of motherhood!
The Nigerian cultural practice of “Omugwo” involves your mum coming to stay and look after mother and baby for months after delivery. I guess people assume you learn on the job with supervision. Much to my surprise, my plans to take this beautiful opportunity to ease into motherhood were thwarted by the global pandemic as my mum couldn’t come for my Omugwo. The global pandemic also meant no antenatal classes. AAAAHHHHH!!!!! OK, we can fix this. We’ll read as many books, watch as many videos and get as much advice from mum as we can. How bad can it be?
Then I have the baby and… Oh my goodness..
10 things that I did not quite realise before becoming a mum.
- Labour & delivery can literarily go WILDLY different from what you expect or plan. Instead of a smooth, naturally induced labour & vaginal delivery, I end up with a medically induced labour and a C-section. OK… That’s a curve ball.
- You become SO SWOLLEN after delivery. My ankles were triple their normal size. Since nobody told me, I was sure I had some HORRIBLE complication. I finally summoned courage to ask the midwife for my prognosis. After she persuaded me that this is normal and that I will in fact live, my only thought was: why didn’t anyone tell me?!
- Babies can be VERY sleepy for the first few days of life but somehow you still need to feed them… !! You should have seen our feeding production line. Stage 1: My husband, frantically trying to awake this very sleepy baby using all the tricks in the book. Stage 2: me desperately trying to stuff my boob in her mouth and get her to catch all the milk that was going everywhere BUT into her mouth. Stage 3: our little angel having NONE of it
4. Breastfeeding can be incredibly difficult to establish, even if babies are NOT sleepy. So apparently, you don’t just put your boob to baby’s mouth and voila, they are feeding. There are positions and manoeuvres for holding a floppy, tiny newborn to feed; a lot of which are literally like stunt moves. One is even called the rugby/ football hold. YOU HOLD YOUR BABY LIKE A RUGBY BALL!! *side eye*
5. Babies need to feed essentially 2 hourly, sometimes hourly— DAY AND NIGHT. I don’t think you quite get what I am saying. For WEEKS and WEEKS, you might not be able to get into that deep non REM sleep where your body really feels rested and you STILL have to function as a human being.
6. Baby poop brings tears of joy. Stooling is so essential to know if they are feeding well, especially the first few weeks. So, on day 3 when baby had not pooped in 48 hours, you can imagine the melt down. I am literally CRYING and I am genuinely wondering DO WE NEED TO GO TO THE EMERGENCY ROOM?! For those who think this is a reasonable thought for me to have had, let me explain. 1. we were having daily midwife visits and baby was going to be seen by the midwife literarily in a matter of hours 2. I am a doctor who has worked in A&E previously and this is not classified as an accident nor emergency (baby had pooped plenty on day 1) and 3. Contacting the out of hours GP would probably have been more reasonable. Thankfully, there was a POONAMI the next morning, et voila — tears of joy.
7. Breastfeeding induces after birth pains. Excuse me!?!!! So AFTER labour, when I think I am finally done with the contractions, there are MORE contractions to come? My. Goodness.
8. Your nipples hurt like a she-devil!
9. You are emotional as heck. I knew to look out for baby blues, post natal depression, and even post natal psychosis. Nobody warned me that without any of these pathologies, simply the lack of sleep and hormones can lead to major OVERREACTION. Thank God that my marriage is still in tact is all I can say.
10. You might fling the books out of the window if it means sleep. You read things like do not co-sleep, do not use a pacifier, do not do this and that but in the end, you just do what you need to do for you and your baby to SURVIVE!!
New or soon to be mamas out there, take note of the above 10 things. Know that if I can do it, YOU CAN DO IT. Finally and above all, ASK FOR HELP if you need it. The midwives, my family and the church were just INVALUABLE during the first few weeks of motherhood.
YOU HAVE GOT THIS!!