Postpartum really is one heck of a ride. Our beautiful columnist Meg Mansell gave birth to her second baby, another little girl that she and her husband Guy have named Miller. During those very early days of suddenly being a mother-of-two (and riding all those wild waves of the great hormonal drop-off) Meg decided she would write down a few sentences each day about how she was feeling. She has so very generously shared these with us. It’s raw, it’s relatable, it’s a rollercoaster. We thank Meg for sharing this, and we hope you’ll join us in congratulating her – and her family – on their new edition. We love you Meg!
Welcome to Am I The Only One with Meg Mansell, our regular Capsule columnist. Meg is one of our favourite members of the Capsule community, bringing us smart, warm and thoughtful pieces on mental health, body positivity, motherhood and more.
This month, Meg writes about the absolute rollercoaster of postpartum.
When I was pregnant with my second baby, I decided that I wanted to write down my thoughts each day for the first week postpartum. I remembered how wild the ride was with my first, Daisy, and I wanted to see where my mind went this time around and document it.
The following is what I wrote from the hospital room, my bed and couch. It is totally unedited (forgive me if some of my delirious, sleep deprived rambling doesn’t make sense).
Day 1:
I have two daughters
Day 2:
Both days have completely run into each other and I can’t believe that I gave birth yesterday morning. It’s even more surreal thinking that Miller has only been out of me about 32 or so hours as I write this.
I think I’m starting to have my hormonal drop. That or it’s the lack of sleep over the last three days – and to be fair the last few weeks of pregnancy insomnia all adding up. I’m having moments of downness and despair. I can’t quite pinpoint why, which makes me think it’s my hormones. But reflecting back on photos of Daisy at the same age has got me all sorts of teary. As does thinking about my birth.
I will never stop feeling sorry for that version of me trapped in that moment of time. She/Me did so amazing and was so brave but I wish she didn’t have to be.
Miller is half sleeping next to me while I’m in my hospital bed – she keeps making little noises and I keep hushing and soothing her, but I also keep accidentally calling her Daisy. I’m unsure if that’s a normal thing that happens when you go from one to two, or if it’s just because they are little clones of each other… which doesn’t help the teariness and nostalgia about thinking about my firstborn when she was just days old herself.
I feel nervous going into the night not knowing what it’s going to bring but also so very very relieved I can now sleep on my back and am more comfortable lying down than when I was when I was pregnant, although the stitches are fighting against that a little.
Right, attempt number one for the first sleep of the night. Going into it with a positive mindset and reminding myself how quickly all these phases go in the end. Got to lean in and remember to live by a 24 hour clock now – not just the 12 hours overnight for napping and sleep
Day 3:
Alright, the hormonal drop has hit. I arrived home a few hours ago. I had two, only two, wants for my birth and postpartum plan for my final pregnancy and they were: get an epidural and go to Warkworth birth care. Neither of which have happened.
I am feeling really sad about this – I remember both of those things giving me a wonderful sense of happiness, relief and control when I had my first baby and now having neither I’m feeling a little lost. I spent Saturday through to today, Tuesday afternoon, in hospital and I thought it was time to head home vs go to birth care and not see Daisy for another few days and just take the step into getting settled back into home life. But now I’m home I’m feeling really overwhelmed. I feel I have forgotten all my normal life things. What time does Daisy bath again? I just slept for two hours, how am I meant to get any sleep tonight? Then I remember I’m probably going to be up all night so it doesn’t matter.
Daisy wanted to play with me with a balloon, Nala, our dog was sniffing the babies bouncer she had just been in and I told Nala to stop – for my Mum to say “oh she was only sniffing” which led me to burst into tears feeling like a bad person for telling the dog to stop because everything is overstimulating me.
I’m absolutely hitting my hormonal drop.
I’m missing my pregnancy body and not having had time to really mourn that I will never be pregnant again and now have to accept this totally new version of my body I have hardly even looked at in the mirror yet.
I want to get Daisy down to sleep but I also don’t want to leave Miller but that makes me feel guilty for even thinking that. I’m suddenly feeling stretched very thin and very confused and daunted about how I’m meant to make this all work and feel normal again and not like I’m on a different planet.
Today I’m grateful for: Adult nappies. The hospital. My peri bottle.
Day 4:
How is it day four already?
Mum got a cough so went home today. She was planning on being our village for 10 days but it turned into 12 hours. So we are on our own at home from today.
It’s been a huge hormone dump and I have found myself crying at the drop of a hat. I’m feeling really sorry for myself. With wanting the epidural, to go to birthcare and then to have my Mum be at home and helping us for 10 days all not happening and they were all the things I was looking ‘forward’ to outside of, of course, having a child. But tonight I found myself back to the usual grind of making dinner for the family like I was five days ago still pregnant. Guy was entertaining Daisy and it was easy enough to make but I just had a moment of wow this wasn’t how I saw day four postpartum being.
The tears won’t stop coming over everything. Over my birth, over Daisy being so big, over trying to remember how many scoops of milk powder for her bottles vs formula for Miller’s. Over seeing my co workers…
Day 5 and 6:
I don’t think I finished my last entry and wasn’t able to write yesterday. I don’t even remember what that train of thought was but probably some sort of insecurity being away from work.
Yesterday felt like one of the worst days of my life with the immense sadness that was holding me. I could barely speak my way through very heavy hearted tears.
I am just now starting to feel that heaviness again, it seems to come on at night time. I’m ok in the morning, I actually felt quite happy and at peace. But right now thinking about how a week ago today she was still in me and a part of me and I was in the hospital waiting, it’s starting to hit me again: Ordering dinner with my Mum and Guy, waiting for contractions to build. No idea who was coming, or the way she was going to come.
My birth was not what I had planned. But tomorrow she will be one week old and time has never flown so fast. I remember feeling sadness of time passing so fast with Daisy, but I don’t remember it ever being this completely all consuming as it is now.
I keep thinking about how it was just me and her for nine months (ow, my heart is aching again). Nine months together – we shared Christmas and New Years. Birthdays and events, lows and highs and she was my constant that I would talk to when I was by myself or rub my tummy subconsciously when I wanted comfort from a little kick or wiggle. And now she’s here and she is already one week old and it feels like it came out of nowhere. I can hardly see through tears as I type this.
For so long with this pregnancy – I almost tried not to connect to her, we had a scare early on which looked like we would be losing her before 23 weeks. Then she stuck but life was busy with work and a toddler and you don’t do baby showers with your second. I didn’t buy her clothes or items because we have so many hand me downs from Daisy so I just didn’t really.. connect with her as much. And I protected my heart until the very very end (even on the day she was born) that she might not be real or make it.
Now she’s here and the love I feel for her has slammed into me like a freight train.
With Daisy I was just understanding becoming a Mum, I didn’t know what to expect or how to feel and I focussed a lot on ‘what I needed to do’ not what I needed to feel. I was mostly in survival mode, learning and proving I could do it.
This time I know how fast it goes, I know every moment is an ever changing phase with a baby. How amazing that new born smell is. The feel of her skin, her scrunches, her squeaks. The first time around, any time any phase ended like putting away her newborn clothes (i kept every single one of them btw) I would say “it’s ok because we will have another one”.
This time the finality is killing me. I will never have another six-day-old again. I used to dread the nights with Daisy, now they are my favourite part of the day, where it’s three in the morning and it’s just me and her again in soft light, warm and cozy together. I’m delaying her first bath because I know then I would have washed off every last part of me and her being one together. The love is so sharp this time.
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8 weeks:
Wow. Reading that back is a lot. This weekend it’s been eight weeks since Miller was born and the feelings above are almost a distant memory.
I still get pangs of pain, thinking about how fast time is moving, how this is my last newborn experience with her, but the feelings are more manageable. I’m able to process them, feel them, sort through them and move past them within a few minutes (sometimes still with a few tears).
And I feel happiness, so much happiness. I think this is the happiest I have ever felt in my life. But I remember feeling completely out of control in that first week, with the ache in my heart being insurmountable. I later found out that on the fifth night, Guy – my husband – quietly messaged a best friend and my midwife that he was concerned about me, as he watched my tears pool into my dinner plate, unable to eat.
The friend turned up at my door step 30 minutes after he messaged her to offer an ear and my midwife called me within five minutes. I thought it was coincidental and good timing but really it was a worried partner who knew the signs of postpartum depression.
I’m grateful that the emotions gradually became more manageable as days went on for me and I wasn’t officially diagnosed with PPD – but I can now only imagine how frightening for everyone it would be if those feelings continued on as strongly.
The postpartum hormone drop a woman will experience is the single most sudden hormonal change a human being will experience in their lifetime – alongside a large haemorrhage during my birth, the extreme feelings I felt during that time do make sense. The hormones can take up to a year to recover, so even now two months on I have to remember to be patient and gentle with myself. It was the second time experiencing ‘The Drop’ and you can read above that even though I was very aware it was happening this time, the knowledge didn’t stop the tears or the pain. But I do remember it did help knowing what it was – so I can only hope that me writing this can help any first time Mum’s to know when they are in it they aren’t alone in their ‘baby blues’ (stupid name that makes it sound mild and silly).
If the feelings don’t get better after a week please reach out to your midwife or doctor, PPD affects around 13% of NZ mothers and can be helped with medication.
Motherhood is the hardest and greatest thing I’ve ever experienced and I never quite understood what people meant when they said that until I went through it myself.
Postpartum can feel and is incredibly isolating – even though at any one time 15 million women around the globe are going through their first six weeks together. It’s all of the things at once, magical, consuming, exhaustive, emotional to the highest degree. It was both a beautiful six week bubble that I never wanted to burst yet also like trying to run through golden syrup to get through and out the other side in one piece.
Reflecting back, I’m glad I wrote everything down. Being able to read back on how I was feeling – knowing those feelings have now subsided is really powerful. The messy, sleep deprived words are proof that overwhelming happiness can co-exist with immense sadness for me.
When I had the idea to write this, I thought it would be a diary of the first days of Miller’s life. What I actually captured was the collision of grief, love and hormones that make up the postpartum experience.
The days following you giving birth are as emotional as they are physical – a wave that slams into you no matter how prepared you are to experience it. Eight weeks on, the ache has absolutely softened. The tears still come, not as frequently or intensely- but so does the laughter, the calm and the knowing that I can do this.
The storm when you are in it, feels endless – but it passes.
In fact, that’s the greatest take away from all of this for me. The drop is temporary, but the love is not.
