Our First Forty Days

My first forty days since giving birth have stretched, shattered and emboldened me. I’ve experienced a deep, strengthening restoration that truly has reached back to begin the work of repairing decade old wounds. After the unfathomable work of birth with a placenta sized wound in my uterus, I knew I would need a period of deep rest and had prepared for The First Forty Days model of ten days in bed, ten days around the bed, ten days around the house, and ten days around the neighborhood.  

“After a baby is born, there is a sacred window of time. A time for complete rejuvenation of a woman’s physical, mental, and spiritual health. A time for deep, extended bonding with her newborn. The first 40 days after birth set the stage for your baby’s next 40 years.” - Ysha Oakes

There is so much unfolding in the postpartum for new mothers. When pregnant, estrogen and progesterone levels are spiked to the degree that equals taking one hundred birth control pills every day. In the immediate postpartum, there’s a sudden dip of all of these hormones leaving the body in massive quantities. Oxytocin is released in extreme doses during birth and three days postpartum. Though this is known as the love hormone or “cuddle hormone,” it also brings with it sensitivities, awareness, and anxieties that naturally bring about low mood and, at times, overwhelming weepiness. Aviva Romm, and MD midwife, describes this as nearly a manic depressive week or two of initial postpartum. The highs will never be higher and the lows will be transient but big and exaggerated.

Because I had a significant perineal tear and a few rare, severe breastfeeding complications, my healing has demanded even more of me than I could have anticipated. I wasn’t expecting the depths at which I would need. Despite my experience as a birth + postpartum worker, there have been so much more blood, tears, sweat, milk, and needs than I could have imagined. On top of the immense healing that a postpartum body requires, birthing people are immediately thrown into being constantly needed by a small animal who demands their body, time, and heart energy around the clock.

Thank goodness for the protective birth hormones that kept me floating high in a bubble of euphoric bliss which kept the exhaustion, pain, and anxiety dulled for the first several days. At the time, I instead felt only love, joy, awe, and contentment. Pregnancy, birth and postpartum truly took me beyond the depths of what I thought possible.

I’ll be forever grateful for every friend and stranger who has dropped a meal at our doorstep, shoveled our steps, come by for a wave through the window, washed our dishes or folded laundry while wearing a mask. I’ll never show up to the home of a postpartum mother-baby without a meal ever again! Because of the generosity of our community, I was able to prioritize rest, something I wouldn’t have been able to do otherwise. I’m sure now that the gift of a nourishing meal is the single greatest gift you can give to not only the new parent(s) but to the new baby as well.

I’ll never forget the constant support that my doctor and friend, Dr. Michelle Haggerty of the Fourth Trimester Doc, gave to me as she checked in daily, came to my home when specific support was needed and often reminded me that my body was simply acknowledging all that it had been through. She brought wisdom, connection, and tenderness to every raw moment that my postpartum held. Gratitude is too small a word for what her care has meant to me.

I’ll never forget the reverence we felt from Kari, our midwife, who held space for us throughout my birth and postpartum. Throughout countless hours of prenatal + postpartum care, she allowed me autonomy over my body and agency to make informed decisions which was a deeply empowering way to begin mothering.

The support of Laura in those first weeks was profound and unparalleled. In those first few weeks, I held the baby skin to skin for 22+ hours each day as Laura danced around me, caring for me constantly with compassion and gentleness while my tender body bled and ached. She drew me herbal baths daily, sometimes twice a day and made me three-five meals a day. She was always in the kitchen brewing tea, making congees, date milks or nourishing broths. I believe I had two bowls of soup and sourdough with extra butter every day for two weeks straight. She offered coconut + essential oil massages every evening, listened to me process, spotted the baby while I napped and meditated throughout the afternoons, and got up with the baby frequently during the night to give me a straight stretch of rest. She brought me my tinctures, vitamins, a daily berry compote, and so much more. She changed my diapers (that postpartum bleeding is no joke!) along with the baby’s diapers, did all of our laundry, kept up with the house, answered my emails for me and acted as the gatekeeper of our home to keep us all safe and resting in bed. She was present, attentive, kind, and offered humor on days where the sun never rose. How will I ever forget the tenderness of my first evening with the baby, when she washed my hair and body as I nursed our daughter in the bath? I couldn’t have moved through these soft, open days without her endless devotion.

I am so grateful that she helped me honor the first forty days, prioritize my healing and rest while also keeping me in-tune with my body’s present needs even if they diverged from the guidelines of the lying-in period. When I felt that I needed to step outside in the sunlight or take a slow walk, we honored that voice as well. We centered our days around rituals which grounded us and kept us connected to both ourselves and our child.

I wish I would have known that as soon as I got dressed and put real pants on in my early postpartum, I would be sunk. It’s hard to resist cleaning the house or answering emails when you have real people clothes on. I wish I would have known that answering FaceTime calls in the early days is the same as answering the door to a visitor … I had, and still have, every right to say no to things that didn’t serve me in those moments. I wish I would have known that a baby’s cry will trigger a literal survival response in breastfeeding parents, that the let down of milk will release hormones in the brain that look like anxiety or intense sensitivity, but are normal, primal, sixth-sense super powers that are a gift and not a sign of brokenness. I wish I would have known that I will never “bounce back” because I’m moving forward not backwards in my life as a new person. I wish I would have remembered that postpartum will take the time that it will take, that bodies don’t tell time or read calendars, that there is no rush to heal by a certain date. I think if I had known some of these things before giving birth, it would have eliminated or simply reduced some of the guilt that creeps up.

I am lucky to have experienced the passionate and delicious love for my child in an urgent, immediate way after she was born which is not the story for every new parent. This love has shaped, slowed, humbled, and taught me so much that I didn’t know before. The love for my daughter has rounded my edges, kept me grounded in tenderness and stripped me of any hyperbole, ego and modesty that was left. I’ll never be the same, and I’m so glad for that. It’s made me more apt to stand firm in my boundaries, ask for help when I need it, and empathize with a true understanding.

Today in the U.S., one-quarter of mothers return to work less than 2 weeks after giving birth. Before the tears from deliveries and C-section scars have even healed, many women are leaving their newborns in the care of someone else, most typically as an economic necessity. I thought about this nearly every day during my postpartum, particularly in the painfully raw earliest weeks. I’m grateful I was able to experience immediate postpartum in these ways and I recognize my great (white, class, educational, familial) privilege in doing so. 

As I move out of my first forty days and into this next chapter of continued rest, I hope I can remember that postpartum as no timeline or end date. My fourth trimester stretches another six-eight weeks and matrescence is lifetime work. Alicia Ostriker writes that “no matter what age you are when you give birth to a baby, you start over, you are born again.” I’m glad that I’ve had this essential, sacred time to integrate into life slowly and gently with my newborn so that we can both start our new lives in wholeness.

“Renewal is promised when rest and rejuvenating practices are prioritized.”