I thought I was ready. The nursery was finished, the freezer meals were made, the books were read. I knew I’d be tired. I knew I would love my baby. What I wasn’t prepared for was the loneliness, the self-doubt, the way the exhaustion crept up on me before I even realized how empty I was running.
Here’s what I wish I had known and maybe it will help you too.
The exhaustion isn’t what you think it is.
I expected to be tired. What I didn’t expect was to feel completely fine, almost energized, and have no idea how depleted I actually was. I was running on pure adrenaline, and I didn’t realize it until it wore off. My body was doing this incredible thing of keeping me upright and functioning, masking just how empty the tank really was. If I could do it again, I would have rested harder in those early days instead of assuming I was handling it well.
If you’re in that season right now, this fourth trimester self care guide from Postpartum Support International is worth bookmarking.
The loneliness is real, even when you’re not alone.
This one is hard to explain until you’ve felt it. The room can be full of people who love you, your partner, your mom, well-meaning visitors and you can still feel completely, inexplicably alone. Not because anyone is doing anything wrong, but because something has shifted in you that nobody else in the room fully understands yet. You’re on the other side of something now. It’s isolating in the most tender way.
If you feel that way, I want you to know it doesn’t mean something is wrong with you. It means you’re in the middle of one of the biggest transitions a human being goes through, and that’s allowed to feel enormous.
Nobody actually knows what they’re doing.
I kept waiting for the moment it would click. When I would finally feel confident, certain, like I had figured it out. That moment took a lot longer than I expected and in the meantime, I second-guessed everything. Feeding. Sleeping. Whether that sound was normal. Whether I was normal.
Here’s the thing I know now that I didn’t know then: it’s normal to have doubts, have lots of questions, Google is a friend and foe at 3am. There is no manual, each baby and each new mom experience is unique but you’re not alone. There is only showing up, again and again, for this tiny person and that’s exactly what you’re already doing.
The hard parts and the love exist at the same time.
I want to be honest with you: my first two weeks were harder than I expected. Not harder than they were worth, not even close but harder than I had really prepared me for. And somehow, in the middle of the exhaustion and the uncertainty and the loneliness, there was this love that I didn’t have words for. Still don’t, really.
That’s the part they actually get right. It is full of love. It’s just that nobody mentions all the other things that are full too.
As a newborn photographer, I get to step into that tender season for families all the time. And I can tell you those early days go faster than the nights make it feel like they will. If you’re expecting and thinking about capturing this time, I’d love to chat about what that could look like for your family.
