Mixed Bag

Some stuff I've read lately . . .

Must you make so much noise, woman? One doc - and my mother - says no.  I say, O rly?

My fav bit? "The goal of childbirth isn't to scream at the top of your lungs. Rather, it's to focus that energy down on the pelvis to push the baby out, instead of wasting it contorting your body and castigating your partner." Again, O rly? Srsly? Y'all can do your Bradley breathing or whatever, if I want to unleash an unholy torrent of profanity while creating modern art out of the bed rails and/or my husbands radius and/or ulna - guess what I'm going to do?

And customs for new moms - trying to adapt these to American culture seems largely impossible because our public policy serves to isolate new moms and rush them back to work and away from their kids asap.  America - we're about family!

How long is post still post?

Lately I've been thinking a lot about the early postpartum days. The ones I hated.

I've been thinking a lot about the other moms, too, the ones who welcomed 2010 babies.  I've been looking at facebook pictures of fun holiday outings some of these other new moms have taken with non-mom friends (outings to which I wasn't invited - but that was another pity-party post).  I recently saw a mom of a 10 day old out and about and visiting and thought, again, what did I do wrong? Why did it take me so long to get out of the house? Why was I so weak, lazy, so behind, why am I still behind now?

Maybe I wasn't behind. Maybe everyone else was just unnecessarily ahead.  I wish I had the strength at the time to tell the few voices hurrying me along to STFU.  Frankly, even now, I'm clearly not as advanced as some would like me to be.  At the same time (brief pity party return), I wish people would issue invitations, even if I have to turn them down because of the continued demands of breast feeding and bedtimes.

Motherhood continues to be very lonely in some ways.  I can't imagine how much worse it would be without my other mom friends.