As a new mother, I’m just as fresh and raw as the newborn in my lap. Vitalization and terror surface together as I face this beginning. I wonder about my identity in this role, who my baby will become and how to keep him safe.
The first transformation is in the first trimester. I can hardly believe the exhaustion as my body grows new organs, my own and my baby’s, pumping more blood and carrying more fluid than ever before. There are days where walking for even five minutes is too much. This astonishes me given my love of movement throughout my life.
I adapt to my rapidly changing size, but I expand only to dramatically contract once again upon labour and delivery. I’m in awe of what my body and my baby know how to do as he crosses the threshold from my womb to the outside. My mind, however, is still fighting to keep up. The loud chaos of labour and delivery reverberates: the thudding heart monitor, the moaning of pushing, the cheering of support. Everything is blurry.
Physical and psychological changes
Hormones plummet following delivery, setting off the seesaw of emotions such as joy, anger, fear and sadness. Sleep deprivation leaves me raw and sensitive. As emotions challenge me at every twist and turn, I try to surrender to this state of suspension. I’m nervous about the loss of familiar rhythms, as the duo of me and my husband becomes a trio, launching a new search for harmony. It’s unclear what key we’re in and what is the time signature.
The core of my being has literally vanished, as my abdominal muscles have been uprooted and I shed skin and tissue. I’m left with an unknown version of my body that lacks foundational muscles. I’ve lost balance, coherence and stability. The strength of my core—a pillar of my agency—has disappeared, and I’m disoriented. I’m no longer grounded in my body, and everything aches. I’m forced to move slowly and carefully as I cradle my precious newborn and try to feed him from the fountain of my own body.
Psychologically, the core of who I am has suddenly shifted from independent woman to life-sustaining, milk-making caretaker whose needs are secondary. I’m at my most vulnerable, and yet an even more vulnerable being is relying on me to stay alive. My newborn has almost no muscle tone or co-ordination. Together and separately, we search for our breath and digestion. It’s difficult to trust that our bodies can sustain themselves.
I’m foggy yet preoccupied, caught between distracted fragments of activity: sleep, feeding, playing, diapering, cleaning. For my baby, night and day are indistinguishable, and his confusion is mine, too. Time runs away from me: faster, slower, without a clear pattern, changing again just as I come into its stride.
Nothing is predictable, and my baby’s behaviours are perpetually changing. Messes remain untouched without the hands to clean them. Naps end just as they’ve started, and feeds are interrupted by multiple spit-ups. Time is no longer measured by hours but by ounces eaten, diapers changed and hours slept. Planning seems futile.
Finding peace through new rituals
Yet, as the days collect, rooms get tidied and then untidied, clothes get folded and then unfolded, and bottles get washed and then filled. The safety of ritual begins to emerge once again. There is peace in loading and unloading the dishwasher every morning. We become more grounded while walking among the palm trees and the ocean, shaking an array of rattles to the beat of my favourite songs, creating a bedtime routine. These rhythms coincide with my baby’s first smiles.
My baby’s eyes begin to open more, and in a way, so do mine. His cries are more expressive, his smiles more engaging.
Music fills the house, and meditation unfolds naturally, as we listen to unusual combinations of Middle Eastern and Western jazz instruments like the oud, bass clarinet, bass guitar and traditional hand drums. I break out my oboe, an instrument I haven’t practiced in years, but which becomes a soothing companion. Playing the oboe activates deep diaphragmatic breathing that my body needs most. I feel moments of refuge from shallow breathing and muscle tension.
My baby’s eyes begin to open more, and in a way, so do mine. His cries are more expressive, his smiles more engaging. What has been largely hidden starts revealing itself. We all begin to feel a sense of cohesion. I get immersed in his face, losing track of time as we coo at each other. We begin to find a rhythm with a clear time signature, feeding off one another like the ensemble of instruments in the jazz I have blaring in the house.
I return to my own breath as security and safety. I sleep when he sleeps. As I find my own breath, I listen to his growing vocal range. Together, we expand and contract, our sounds slowly becoming music.
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