Surprise: I had a baby!
We welcomed our second child, a daughter, back in July. I am writing this in stolen moments when my not-yet-four-month-old is either sleeping or happily being ignored.
As you can imagine, life has been chaotic since we became a family of four.1 Even more so because we moved right after I gave birth. And by “right after,” I mean that I gave birth on a Monday, we came home from the hospital on a Wednesday, and movers hauled all of our belongings to our new home on a Friday. Apparently my spouse and I thrive in chaos?
There were many things about my second pregnancy and labor experiences that were similar, while others were incredibly (sometimes shockingly) different. With my first baby, I went into spontaneous labor after my water broke. This time around, I decided to have an induction on my due date, partially to help make the transition easier on our son and for those who were taking care of him when we went to the hospital. I also decided to not have a doula, mostly because my husband and I felt more confident in our ability to advocate on my behalf (and I remain forever grateful for our prior doula’s contribution to helping us feel that way for this birth). Indeed, I made certain that the doctor who delivered my first child (the one who told me to “be rational,” among other sins) would not be present for the birth of my second, which was a huge relief. I had doctors who were compassionate and transparent with me about every single step of the process, from a brief moment when it was possible I was going to need an unplanned c-section to their decision regarding whether or not I needed a stitch. One even gave us a tour of my placenta, which we found fascinating (and recorded it for posterity!) My husband and I both talk about how psychologically different it felt for our daughter to enter the world in the morning, with the sun beaming through our hospital windows, compared to when our son entered the world at night, in a dark delivery room that the nurses called “the cave.” Interestingly, I did not have uterine cramps when my daughter cried like I did with my son. Indeed, my daughter’s cry sounds completely different than my son’s.
At the same time, now that I’ve had two babies, some things have become patterns. It’s now a pattern that I will develop gestational diabetes during my third trimester. I’ve learned that the left side of my body does not take to an epidural well. Both of my babies had a weird mineral deposit in the exact same spot in their mouth that resembled a molar. I apparently make babies who look very, very similar. Additionally, I have been told and have observed incredibly objectively that I make babies who are literally the cutest.
Having a baby in 2023 was also different than having one in 2021 due to the pandemic of it all. We had family (including our son) visit us in the hospital, which meant more to me than I anticipated. We were so much more active in doing things and seeing friends in the immediate postpartum period: our daughter went to see her first movie when she was a week old (Barbie, at a local theater that specializes in matinees where parents can bring their babies), and we went to a friend’s band’s show when she was two weeks old. Being able to be out in the world, with people, definitely contributed to my better mood postpartum. At the same time, there was something uniquely special about being our own intimate pod, only spending time with each other, when we had our first baby that we didn’t really experience with our second - not just because of COVID, but also because we had another child to take care of. There’s something bittersweet in thinking about how much more attention our first child got in those newborn months compared to our second.
Friends keep asking me whether having two is harder than having one. Obviously parents all have different experiences, but my answer thus far is that going from zero to one was exponentially harder than going from one to two. I didn’t really have the baby blues this time, which was helped by the fact that my postpartum recovery was easier, and maybe because psychologically I just didn’t really have time for it? (see above about moving right after giving birth) My anxiety around taking care of a baby has also been much less this time, partially because I (kind of) know what I’m doing, and partially because honestly the baby is just so much easier than the toddler. My son is wonderful, but he takes a lot of work, and is much more vocal about his wants and needs than the baby. I’m thankful that, for now, we have one child who doesn’t mind being ignored. More than anything, what has made this transition easier is simply the fact that the existential angst of shifting one’s identity from “nonparent” to “parent,” something that took a huge psychological toll on me with my first child, is old news. It’s still there, but more as a familiar face than a foreboding stranger.
I’m slowly transitioning back to work and trying to answer some hard questions for myself about what I want that to look like. That includes figuring out what the future of this newsletter will be. Stay tuned, I guess? I imagine there will be future posts on mental health after subsequent births (irrelevant to my own life, I know), as well as digging a bit more into the newly approved postpartum depression drug zuranolone.
In the meantime, you can read this post I wrote for Cambridge Psychology Group on Busting Some Myths Around Postpartum Mental Health (appropriately written right before I gave birth).
Technically, we became a family of six, if you count our cat and our dog. They would be offended if I didn’t and, to be honest, they struggled more with our major life transitions than our human babies.