4 Things I Wish You Knew Before the Fourth Trimester
This is truly distressing to experience. It's your brain making you anxious for seemingly no reason. You don't even watch horror movies, and yet the stuff your brain makes up is Tarantino-level creative. It's gruesome. It's horrible. And no one is giving you any Oscars for the visuals.
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This is truly distressing to experience. It's your brain making you anxious for seemingly no reason. You don't even watch horror movies, and yet the stuff your brain makes up is Tarantino-level creative. It's gruesome. It's horrible. And no one is giving you any Oscars for the visuals.
There is no way to truly prepare a mother for postpartum. How do you communicate everything that happens without scaring her? Without dimming that hopeful light? How do you explain the responsibility of having your whole heart living outside your body?
I'm a maternal mental health therapist, and I'm still figuring this one out. But I've sat with it long enough to distill what I wish every new parent and every family member who loves one knew going in.
1. Learn the word matrescence.
Pronounced mah-treh-sense. This is my most important word. It means the journey of becoming a mother, and it encompasses everything: the hormonal shifts, the brain changes, the identity changes, the changes in relationships, in time, in self. The term was coined by anthropologist Dana Raphael in the 1970s. Dr. Aurélie Athan, who has brought this concept into modern clinical research at Columbia, asks us to think of it the way we think of adolescence. We give teenagers grace for the enormous transformation they're moving through. Matrescence says: mothers deserve that same grace.
If more people knew this word and what it actually entails, I think mothers and their families could normalize this season, expect it, celebrate it, and care for each other through it with so much more understanding.
2. Build your village before you need it.
Some of us have family nearby who will show up with food, do the night feeds, and take the baby so we can shower. Many of us do not. So think about it now: who can you lean on? Who will actually show up? Are there friends who can be part of your village? You can be a villager for them one day, too. Do you have a therapist who gets this journey? A doula? A lactation consultant? Let people in.
Think about your basic needs, sleep, food, mental health, physical recovery, and ask honestly: how will they be covered? Who might you need to hire? What is your budget for your own care? Compare that number to what you spent on your wedding. You are worthy of investment during this time.
3. Sleep will be brutal. Plan for it anyway.
This is a place for radical acceptance: it is going to be hard, and no amount of preparation fully softens it. And also, there are things you can do. Take shifts. Schedule naps. Hire help if you can. Ask mothers you trust how they got through it.
It also helps to name what sleep deprivation actually does to us: it makes us irritable, quick to snap, slow to process, and disconnected from the people we love most. Knowing that doesn't fix it, but it does make it easier to extend grace to yourself and to your partner when you're both running on empty. The exhaustion is the catalyst. You are not the problem.
4. You are already doing enough
Take it slow; you're already doing enough. So many of us are chasing perfectionism. Many of us feel like we're not doing enough. You are, trust me. You just birthed life. You nourished it. You deserve a break. The to-do list can wait. You deserve a chance to pause and reflect on how extraordinary you are. To be nap-trapped and nowhere else. Slow down, be present, and take a conscious breath.
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