Who Is Checking On You Mama?

Dominique Lee, Certified Breastfeeding Specialist

I am a self proclaimed comedic genius and mother of 1 attempting to find myself as a mom and human through food, WINE, knowledge, laughs, music, and much, MUCH more. Certified Lactation Specialist is my current title, so I’ll definitely talk about boobs and babies

Alright SO, here we are. I have done the blah blah intro and now you have a little background on just WHY I’m even sending my thoughts into the void about the sh!t nobody tells you about procreating.

After about five seconds of deliberation I’ve decided that I’m going to start off with a topic that hits very close to home. Your identity after a child is brought into the mix.

Whether you identify as mom, dad, grandparent, aunt, uncle, your life has changed. Someone, maybe you (phew, talk about brave), has had or adopted a baby. What does this mean?

A whole lot of love, and a lot of f**ing chaos.

Now, let me preface by saying that my toddler is amazing. He was the best newborn and always sooo happy but he has been very anti-social. Not a problem because I also dislike social interaction. But that’s just the thing, with a new baby comes family visits, calls and texts. For example:

How’s the baby?

Are they sleeping through the night?

Are they colicky?

(Insert information about how their baby acted)

Please send all the pictures you can!

Sound familiar, parent? Yep. They’re asking about the baby. Not YOU. And YOUR life just got flipped upside down.

When I had my son, I was going through sooo f**king much and only a couple of people took the time to ask how I was doing. It all revolved around my sweet, curly bundle of joy. He didn’t even do any of the work! He was just mooching off of his dad and I, and being super cute! The nerve! The hormones and stress of childbirth also put a strain on my marriage and other stressors were causing personal strain as well, and yeah it would’ve been really nice if someone asked how the f**k I was doing through it all! Especially when I ended up with mastitis and ended up ignoring everyone out of spite for several days because I wanted someone to ask how I was, not how my sick husband or perfect newborn were. If you’ve had mastitis…. you have probably felt the same and if you haven’t had it, I’ll definitely be making a post about it in the future. Beware.

So there I was at home feeling unimportant and very “woe is me” and I thought I was alone, but then I got onto the local mom groups on Facebook and saw many other moms don’t feel important, or checked in on after they have a baby.

Now let’s be real here… Whether you expected or planned for a baby or not, things aren’t the same. Your vagina or C-section incision is killing you. You most likely have hemorrhoids from hell. Your boobs hurt, you almost guaranteed still look pregnant for the first month minimum. Even after that you might not be happy with your new body for months to years. You are most likely NOT sleeping the recommended 6-8 hours. You have to suffice for quick meals or junk food to tend to the new baby. Are you potentially feeling like you may have postpartum depression or anxiety? Long story short, unless you’re a magical pregnancy unicorn… YOU PROBABLY FEEL LIKE SH!T.

As much as your family means well, the baby is the center of attention.

So, who is checking on you? How can family help check on you so that you aren’t simply the vessel that incubated and then painfully evicted a tiny human? Family, how can you change your approach to including the new parents mental and physical well being into your “how’s the baby?” checkup? Talk to me, let’s discuss and bring awareness to the mental health of everyone involved with this new life change!

Love on your sweet little bundle of joy, and make sure that you are taken care of as well as your baby.

You are still important, and remember…

YOU. ARE. NOT. ALONE.

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WEBSITE: Procreatingreality.com

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