What's one more person in the bathroom with you anyway

Today, I was talking about all things new motherhood with a dear friend of mine. She opened up and shared that the first few months after her daughter’s birth were absolutely BRUTAL. Her daughter cried constantly, and she found herself asking over and over, What’s wrong?—trying to soothe herself as much as her baby. I was stunned. She’s one of my closest friends, and I had no idea she had been struggling so much.

We asked ourselves: Why don’t more women talk about how brutally hard those early days can be? How you can feel completely overwhelmed and consumed by the struggle of caring for a newborn (and maybe a toddler or older children too), while simultaneously being over the moon in love and endlessly grateful for your precious baby?

I believe a lot of the answer lies in fear—fear of being seen as ungrateful, inadequate, or insensitive if we “complain” about how hard this time can be. The truth is, for me, I’m so deeply grateful for the opportunity to love and care for these tiny beings that it makes it all the more emotional and overwhelming.

There is no greater feeling in the world than a hug and “I love you”’from your toddler. There is also no worse feeling than hearing them cry for you when daddy is putting him to bed and you’re holding a crying baby instead. 

There’s no greater joy than seeing your baby’s gummy smile or hearing their tiny coos. Which is why it breaks your heart when they spit up, cry, and suffer for hours with tummy troubles, leaving you desperately trying to figure out what’s wrong.

Or why you die inside a little when the baby starts crying (again) and your toddler asks you “to please not to go pick up THAT baby” because they are craving your time and attention so badly. So you stay with your toddler who has vulnerably expressed his needs and listen to your precious baby cry for as long as you can stand it… and then you feel terrible guilt when you can’t stand it any longer and you go pick up the baby, leaving your toddler.

In your hormonal state, these moments can feel brutally heartbreaking. 

You love them both so much that it breaks your heart - you wonder if they will be scarred for life from this negligent mothering. 

Why am I going on and on about this in great detail? 

Because motherhood can be so terribly isolating. Many days I have felt I am drowning in cries and diapers, alone. And as that continues, my ability to parent and bring fun and lightheartedness to my children diminishes. My household gets heavier and heavier as my spirit sinks. 

Relief only came when I got honest with some friends about how much I was struggling- and I heard that they had struggled, too.

“It was the closest I’ve ever come to losing my mind,” a friend confided in me when I finally opened up about my own struggles. She was reflecting on her transition to having two children, and later, baby number three—how both experiences felt overwhelmingly isolating and completely consuming. 

With my friend’s comment, suddenly I felt NORMAL. I felt like, “Wow! If she went through this and she is handling their shit now, then I can do this! That very same friend had all three of her children dressed for CHURCH, with beautiful outfits on and their hair shining and COMBED, and she took a PHOTO to document it, for crying out loud! She was also dressed up for said church outing, with clean hair and accessories!! This was unfathomable to me. 

Another friend with two very active boys like mine also remembers these days- but today she is going to get a haircut and grab a coffee- ALONE!!” 

As I shared openly and heard that these “successful” mamas had experienced some seriously  dark days, my spirit lifted. I had assumed they had breezed through those early months as effortlessly as it seemed now. Hearing the truth gave me hope—I realized I would figure it out too. Suddenly, I felt FULL OF HOPE—and that hope lifted my spirits, helped me stay calm and optimistic, and created a positive shift in my home almost immediately. 

The truth literally set me free.  

It is my hope that mamas in this painful stage will find this site years from now and find support and hope from it, and know that they are not alone. It is also my hope that by that time,  I’ll be easily shuffling around two kids and going on dates with my husband and tossing my (washed) hair in the breeze, rocking motherhood and all other aspects of my life with confidence and ease.  

But I know I will also forget how hard it can be, as most of my friends have long forgotten… so I want to write this down now while it is fresh in my mind.

You will figure it out. Pretty soon, you’ll be that mom who is easily having fun with her kids,  driving around with a bag full of snacks and your sunglasses on, with your windows rolled down and your favorite playlist on, running your household like a boss and meeting some girlfriends later for a girls night.

So if you're reading this post while you're crying on the toilet with a baby on your boob, a perineal squirt bottle in your hand, and your toddler flushes the toilet all over your bare ass, then please know you are not alone. I am there with you mama, counting down the days until you don’t need that squirt bottle anymore, telling you that it will get easier. Because at this point, what’s one more person in the bathroom with you anyway?

Originally written March 30, 2019 -when my babies were 3 months and 2.5 years old and I was recently out of this fresh hell

** Authors note. Even as I re-read this journal entry six years later and decided to share it, I cringed. I thought to myself, “Wow, what an emotional, incompetent wreck of a mother I was!” Ah, the humbling experience of motherhood—cringe, cringe, and question whether I’m oversharing. But here’s the thing: if even one mom, deep in the trenches of this intense and overwhelming season of parenting, reads this and realizes that what she’s going through is normal—and that it will pass, likely soon—then exposing myself as that so-called wreck of mother is absolutely worth it.