Mommy’s Groove

Fifteen days of blissful gazing into the eyes of your newborn, resting, nursing and finding that Zen Momma place reads like an idyllic start to a new life together. But who can actually stay in bed for 15 days?? You’ve got new grandparents clamouring at the door, a bundle of joy to show off and your brain is accustomed to multi-tasking 16 things. Lying-in is not for you, right? Don’t write it off so quickly.

Wrapping ones brain around the idea of spending 15 days in bed with an infant is a challenging proposition. I’m hearing from women who love the idea (especially second time mothers) but are naturally so centred in the business of living that they cannot imagine being able to manage that amount of time prone.

I can relate. Before my daughter was born, I was working as the Director of Marketing for a global consulting firm with responsibilities for a department, people, and in my mind accomplishing my annual goals in 6 months before I left on my maternity leave. As a results oriented person I excelled when I had a full plate, high expectations and people relying on me.

When my midwife told me she expected her clients to practice lying-in, it took me about 4 months to wrap my mind around the notion before being willing to commit fully to it. What I found as my pregnancy progressed was that I was less able to focus on things that used to be very important to me. By the ninth month, I was simply unwilling to focus on anything that was a chore because it was so glaringly obvious that I was swimming upstream — trying hard to push ahead on things that had somehow, simply fallen down the priority list. Something in me was changing and I was aware enough of myself to pay attention. But still attached to my way of life to date, I didn’t share these changes with anyone. I just got quiet with myself and tried to listen to what was going on.

By the time Kate arrived, I was excited and completely convinced that I was at the bottom of a very steep learning curve. Not only about the obvious stuff around caring for a newborn, but also around allowing myself to be changed by this tiny person. I knew that if the final weeks of pregnancy could move me off my high-functioning, results orientation,  then the mother I was becoming had to allow herself to be fundamentally influenced by the experience of becoming a mother. 

I had told my mother that we wanted to have 2 weeks to ourselves after the baby was born. She may have been offended or hurt, curious or dismissive of my choice, but she respected it, albeit a bit grudgingly. I got on the phone after Kate was born to tell everyone I loved personally about her amazing home birth arrival. In doing that I got to share my excitement and joy, if only briefly. After the news was spread far and wide we shut the metaphorical door to the world and stopping engaging with the outside.

I wished for and wanted at times to talk with loved ones, but I tried to stay in the room with Kate. I can see in hindsight that I was giving myself to her. It felt akin to the moment in our wedding ceremony when I accepted fully and completely that I was giving myself into the care of my husband as he was giving himself up to me. In our first days together, Kate and I came to know one another and trust each other  — we gave ourselves up fully and completely to our interdependence. I’m not sure that would have happened so quickly for us had I been distracted by housework, visitors or the energy of anyone else.

Modern life is so much about the busy-ness of living, yet we all know that it takes quiet and time to fully understand the deeper meaning of our daily interactions and living. Lying-in is a challenge to any women who lives actively and engages in the world around her, because it requires you to unplug and to be present fully and completely. It invites you to tune out social expectations from family and friends, shed your own preconceived notions of life with a newborn and ignore the consumer culture’s push to stay connected to modern life. It’s tough stuff. But so is becoming a mother.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 9th, 2007 at 8:58 am and is filed under Lying-in, Mothering, Recent Blogs, memories of those moments. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.