I’ve had two babies, and both experiences have been completely different, except for one thing: I didn’t want people to hold my baby.

Moreover, I really didn’t even want visitors. I’ll use my second experience, with my youngest, as an example.

My baby was born in October, and my husband had a glorious two weeks off from work. I knew we were lucky, and I knew we would need this time to acclimate both ourselves and, especially our oldest daughter, to our family’s new addition.

During those two weeks, I didn’t want family driving in to meet the baby. My perspective, as a sore and breastfeeding postpartum mother, was what difference is it to outsiders if they visit during this sacred two-week time period, or if they visit after? These two weeks, while crucial to us as a family unit, will fly by for everyone else, and they can come then.

When we did have people over to meet our new daughter, and to show some much-needed love to our oldest daughter, I, frankly, felt like I was giving away a piece of my tender mommy-breast when I let someone hold my newborn. Actually, she often resided during the day in my sling, and I could conveniently place her there so it wasn’t an issue. She’s sleeping against Mommy—conversation over.

Yet my oldest needed me desperately, as was expected. She needed both her mother and her father to show her that she was still loved and special, and a crucial part of our family, but nursing moms in particular are often with the newborn, by default. Having my husband and, later, our extended family over to help with the baby so that I could also be present with my other daughter was a key part of helping her welcome the baby into our lives as seamlessly as possible.

It was not a seamless and smooth transition for anyone. I had postpartum depression, but not so badly that I even acknowledged it at first. I was exhausted. Those two weeks did fly by, and I was home alone with two kids, and even if I wasn’t watching my caffeine intake, there is never enough coffee in the world for some mornings.

A few friends came over and read to my oldest. One brought dinner. My sister visited. My best friend actually flew in for a few days. My own mom and dad were there at least once a week, helping with both girls and making my whole family dinner. My husband, thankfully, has a job that allows him to be home in the evenings and on the weekends. I had support, but I was still overwhelmed.

Don’t get me wrong, welcoming my youngest daughter into our family is one of the highlights of my life on Earth. It’s absolutely true that there is nothing more magical than motherhood. It’s also completely true that there is nothing more difficult.

If we want to help new mothers, we don’t need generic lists of how to help her. What we need is to communicate openly with each other—we need to learn to ask.

There will be plenty of mothers who could read this and think that all they wanted was to have someone over to hold the new baby so she could shower, or nap, or go to the bathroom alone. There might be plenty of mothers like myself who relate fully to skipping showers and not caring much at all about it.

I offered earlier that my new-mom experiences with my two children have been distinctly separate. There is such glorious variety in personality, in the actual birth process, and in our challenges and joys with them as newborn babies.

The thing is, people are different, women are different, kids are different—and this marked individuality begins right from the start.

So, no, I didn’t want a queue of anyone, even those I love the most outside of my private foursome, parading through my house during those first few weeks. I felt like a wild animal, in my fatigue, and my physical recovery, and in my protectiveness over my oldest’s jealousy, and of my new baby. Holding my new baby made all of the difficulty we were processing as a family worth it. It may well have been hormonal, but handing her off to someone else physically hurt.

Life, at my house, has moved on. My baby is more of a toddler, and my oldest plays with her sibling like a seasoned pro. I sleep. I don’t feel raw and vulnerable like I did as a brand-new mom. Yet those experiences are stored deeply in my heart and mind—the enchanting, the challenging, and the horrific still feel close, even if they are fading into normalcy through the perspective of distance.

If we want to help a new mom—if we really want to help her—we shouldn’t assume. We shouldn’t pretend we know because we’ve been there—we haven’t. Her experience is brand new, just like her baby.

We should ask. We should care enough to listen.

The post Why We Should Ask First Before We Invite Ourselves over to Hold the New Baby. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

I’m eternally grateful for my ignorance about motherhood before having kids.

I naively thought, like everyone else I know, that parenthood was much different than it actually is, or that I was somehow exempt from the ubiquitous concerns I’d witnessed other people go through after having a baby.

Date nights? (Insert cocky laughter.) Of course, we’ll still have plenty of time to be a couple!

The thing is, we are all entitled to our hazy arrogance of what we have in store for us and, especially as the one uncomfortably carrying the baby around for the gestational period, I’m glad that I was such an unrealistic idiot, or, more accurately, that I had no real concept of what my reality would be.

That said, here are a few things to consider for anyone who does want a glimpse of what happened, for me at least, after baby arrived, as well as a few others I laugh about in retrospect.

1. Those damn baby mittens.

Don’t buy those baby mitten things. Neither of my babies have ever worn those damn cotton mittens that my husband always thought were weird socks. I even kept them around when I was getting out the crate of baby clothes I’d saved from my first child, and my second baby still never wore them once.

2. Babies don’t wear shoes. Ever. And when they start to finally be ready for more than socks, they kick off every pair of shoes that gets put on. Stop throwing money away on shoes that will only look pretty on the dresser. Unless you like them as decorations.

3. It doesn’t matter what your “post-baby body” looks like. You just had a fucking baby. Look at her instead of your stomach.

4. Babies don’t need multiple Instagram filters or fancy bows to look cute.

5. It sounds fun to stay up and have a glass of wine with the husband. Oh, look at the time—it’s after 10! Oh, sure, another glass of wine sounds lovely. Baby crying at two in the morning, and then at four in the morning, and then at six when we finally get up—oh yeah, that’s why we don’t stay up late.

6. Fact. All kids eat kid food and listen to kid music.

7. Fact. All mothers can occasionally abide by the “it’s five o’clock somewhere” rule, because a little-known truth is that it was created for us.

8. Fact. It’s absolutely true that it’s utterly impossible to imagine how much you will love this tiny person.

The post 8 Truths of Being a New Parent. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.

I realized that my life right now is like a ginormous game of Jenga.

Let’s be clear—I don’t play Jenga.

Still, I envision the way that the wooden pieces are set together in a looming, grand tower and they feel stable—almost. But then, one piece is just slightly nudged—just bumped—and everything topples over.

Having a new baby in the family is the most wonderful fundamental change to a family’s structure.

Everything is new, even when it’s the second baby, like mine is right now.

Because she might look nearly identical to her sister—when they’re sleeping. But then their eyes open and their faces become entirely different.

I’m also an identical twin. My parents have old Polaroids of us asleep too. We look exactly the same. And then, in other photographs, we’re smiling—and our smiles are unique. Or we’re laughing—and the glimmers in our eyes are not the same at all.

Because people are unique and our personalities—even those of identical twins and seemingly identical-looking siblings—are wildly all our own.

And, in my unique little space in my life right now, I sit here writing this with a sore body that just wants to pop into my cozy little yoga room; the room with only a large circular mat and two Jade mats plopped down; the room with a tiny, unusually long and thin table off to one side with special things, like a beautifully large geode that I once won and a lamp that gives off the most gentle light; a light so gentle that this non-night owl actually looks forward to evening practices when my husband’s home from work.

And that’s just it: there’s a perfectly nestled, safe infrastructure cocooned away from the world within our tiny little family and our small-ish home on the hill—but within that soft, cozy space is also fragility and something…almost raw from being so brand-new.

My best friend is coming to visit tomorrow. I cannot wait to see her face, to hug her body and to look into her eyes.

Even talking on the phone—just texting!—has become nearly impossible as I try to juggle being a new mom with being the same mom I already am to my four-year-old.

I feel hot tears build up behind my eyes, that aren’t allowed to spill over, because I’m driving to an appointment or talking to a stranger.

I feel like an open wound hidden behind flimsy gauze and all anyone sees is the slight purplish color underneath my eyes or the way my stomach is close-to-flat as they inspect my postpartum body. People don’t see the fear that lurks under my postpartum skin because they don’t want to; it’s too uncomfortable. It’s much easier and lighter and nicer to talk about my stomach or my lack of sleep.

But my life right now is like a ginormous Jenga game—because it is perfectly placed, even if it’s precarious as well. And, though I so eagerly await my friend’s arrival, I’m also nervous that I’m too frazzled for adult human companionship.

There’s this mania that overcomes a new mother when she’s out in public—even at the grocery store.

She’s like a feral, protective animal as she holds her new baby close in the sling; needing both attention and not-too-much attention. Simultaneously, however, this new mother is manically excited to be out with other adults, since her species is usually found breastfeeding on the sofa with food stains from her four-year-old, or running errands like pre-school pick-up, and not out actually conversing with other “big people.”

So she laughs too much or too hard (which is really too much and too hard since she laughs loudly and easily anyways).

She over-shares just a touch too much (which, even that over-share took effort to reign in since she’s an open individual already).

Because the new mother is two people: herself, wanting camaraderie and giggles and fun and intellectual interaction, while also being a mother bear who wants to hibernate with her new offspring, away from the world and everyone in it (except her four-year-old daughter).

And it’s made even harder when you are a new mother for the second (or third, or fourth…) time. Because when I finally get to hold onto my first little girl—my husband, home from work, has the baby—I want to squeeze her and kiss her and tears come to my eyes all over again for how much I miss her, and our “us.”

But she shoves those tears down until they can spill over when she wants them to. (Although, she knows that this won’t happen—they’ll come freely when she’s writing and can no longer see the computer screen or they’ll come in the middle of a conversation with her doting husband and she has to excuse herself to sob violently alone in the bedroom.)

And this is the mania of the new mother’s careful, tender Jenga-built life.

And every piece is perfectly placed, from her chunks of sleep at night to her best friend’s few-days-long stay.

She grabs a tissue to wipe her flowing tears. The baby within the sling stirs against her beating chest. Her phone lights up with a text from her doting husband who is trying to help plan her friend’s airport pick-up. And all of these things are sitting, stacked one on top of the other in a perfectly ordered, disheveled array.

And she knows that she might be too raw for her manic interactions with the optometrist when she stops in for her daughter’s new pair of glasses, but she’s not too messy for her friend. Or for herself.

Because she’s a new mother and she deserves grace, especially her own.

After all, if we cannot be kind and gracious with ourselves, how can we be these fragile things with the rest of the gently waiting world?

Photo: Chris.

This article was first published by Be You Media Group.

The post The Mania of the New Mother’s Careful, Jenga-Built Life. first appeared on Jennifer S. White.