Postpartum Diaries - 4th Trimester and Mother Time

I can’t believe I’m coming up on 12 weeks postpartum when I’ve been trying to write this blog post for half the time. Of course, I should’ve known better.

Mother Time is a totally different reality where the clock starts and stops from one moment to the other. Seeing a task through from start to finish has become near impossible, but 5 minutes here and there has also become more valuable than ever for a load of laundry or emptying the dishwasher. (Also, wow, baby laundry is nonstop.) I have somehow become more efficient with the little time I do have, though many days all I can do is hold baby boy while he sleeps, cries, and nurses. Mostly, Mother Time ebbs and flows with my son’s needs. The more I release my hold on schedules, timelines, should and must, the easier it is to float through each hazy day.

I’m learning that Mother Time is fractured and fluid.

Other things I’m learning:

• Rocking, bouncing, baths, dark rooms and warmth. All the things that calm baby down are what he’s familiar with from his first home. No wonder it’s called the 4th trimester. And every time I rock him to sleep, I can’t help but think about all the time he spent inside me floating in the waters of my womb. I can’t believe I made this human.

• 3 hours goes really fast when you’re breastfeeding, pumping, making sure a little human is fed.

• “Sleep when the baby sleeps” actually means, you will start to sleep again when baby sleeps. Now that he’s doing 3-4 hour stretches at night, I finally feel like slightly more of a human being.

• I had a fourth thing I was going to add, but I didn’t write it down because I thought I could outsmart Mom Brain and now I’ve forgotten it. It will come back to me and maybe I’ll write about it then.