Over and over in my reading of personal reflections on birth and motherhood so far, I've noted a tone of surprise, bordering in some cases on outrage: why didn’t anyone tell me it would be like this? Kate Figes in Life After Birth, for example, ruefully admits that she ‘didn’t realise that pregnancy and childbirth place immense strain on a great deal more than just the abdomen and genitals ... how difficult it would be even to walk in the days after giving birth’ (7)
Following hard on the heels of surprise in such books, comes a feeling of being let down: by other women, for not telling us what it would really be like; by ante-natal groups, who skirt around what happens immediately after the birth; and sometimes even by second-wave feminism, which dared to suggest women could have it all.
Judging from the new mothers that I’ve talked to over the last year and a bit, this is not solely the preserve of writers. Women are variously surprised by the severity of the pain, the loss of identity, the loss of independence and even by not feeling attached to their new babies. In the various groups I attended just after my baby’s birth, we compulsively swapped birth stories - these stories variously conveyed shock, sometimes anger, and sometimes pleasure at the birth having gone more or less as planned. I remember one new mother saying in a still-bewildered voice, ‘it really hurt - why didn’t anyone say how much it would hurt?’
My own sense of surprise was primarily physical. On one occasion, I boldly set off for a walk in the park, husband and baby in tow, after I had been out of hospital for two weeks. After a few metres of slow walking on flat ground, I suddenly wilted, feeling as if all the energy had drained out my body. But I was determined that everything was OK, so I kept right on walking. After a few more metres, I started to feel like I was being stabbed with every step. And yet, I still claimed that I was fine, albeit through gritted teeth. When a bench came into view around the corner, I did, however, make a beeline for it and sat there trying not to move until we went home.
Cue a distraught phonecall to my midwife telling her about my trials: ‘how long will it be before I’m back to normal?’ I wailed. She sounded surprised: ‘I wouldn’t even expect someone who’d had a normal birth to be going for long walks in the park at this stage. You have to take it easy. Just a gentle walk for about five to ten minutes until you feel stronger.’ ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘I didn’t know.’ And I really didn’t. Like Figes, I didn’t realise how much of a physical toll childbirth takes (and not on the obvious parts), and when you throw in a traumatic birth or surgery too, it takes that much longer to reach a stage where you can do most of the regular things you used to do - getting out of a low chair, walking to the shops, doing the vacuuming - without really thinking about them.
Perhaps it is that sense of no longer calling the shots in your own life. Perhaps it is at least partially buying into the sentimentality that surrounds babies and children in which having a newborn is like living in an Anne Geddes calendar. Perhaps it is over-estimating how much of a panacea modern medicine and labour-saving devices can be to this most primal of experiences.
Geraldine Beddell in her review of Misconceptions for The Observer comments:
The generation that is now encountering pregnancy and new motherhood was unashamedly educated for work, equality and autonomy. Nothing in their training or understanding of themselves has prepared them for the chaos of babies, or for the way in which pregnancy, birth and infants render them weak. For the first time, young women are discovering that they are not, in fact, in control. Individuals who have previously given orders, or travelled the world alone, now find they are unable to determine what time they have a bath or get dressed. Inevitably, this throws into question formerly automatic assumptions about identity, and alters - perhaps temporarily, perhaps permanently - their take on the world.
Even though I tried, I couldn’t will myself back into physical health post-birth, even though I pushed myself on several occasions after that first walk in the park. I live on a hill and walked down a little further every day, trying to bear the smarting I felt as I walked back up, in order to convince myself I was better than I felt.
Even though I wouldn’t have dreamed of asking him to take extra leave, I was extremely grateful and relieved when my husband took dependency leave on top of his two weeks’ parental leave to look after me and the baby, while I recovered enough to at least get out of a chair without significant pain.
Even though I was pleased that I was able to breastfeed with relatively few problems, I wasn’t quite prepared to have a baby suctioned onto me for hours at a time, every few hours at any time of the day or night. And to not only feel like, but be described as, a dairy-cow.
Even though I am increasingly enjoying time spent with my baby, I miss the sense of achievement, independence and autonomy that comes with having a paid job.
After a year and a bit, I feel like I’m finally returning to ‘normal’ again, after having my world turned upside down. Aside from the baby, there are things for which to be grateful: being alive and still having a womb, for starters. And if - and, at this stage, it’s still a pretty big if - we do it all over again, I’ll have a better idea of what to expect.
But, all the same, why didn’t anyone tell me it would be like this?
P. S. I’m going on holiday for two weeks, so will be in internet-hiatus for a wee while. I’ll be back in early February.
