I've been a mom for a month (!)

how it's going + learnings from the postpartum vortex + a poem

Joy-spotting: the fresh blossoms on the trees at our neighborhood park.

I had a baby!

Ora Sky Jones was born on March 13 at 9:41 AM. How it’s already been nearly a month since I became a mother is beyond me. It’s true what they say about these early days of postpartum—time blends together until it feels like you are living one long mega-day.

When you talk to people about the early days of having a baby, or when you read about it, it seems to be focussed on how terribly hard it is. While I have had challenging moments—a cesarian I didn’t plan for, scabbed nipples, sleepless nights, poop all over the bed—I found that what I had prepared myself for and what I’ve been experiencing as a new mom don’t exactly line up…

it’s actually been way more easeful and SWEET than I planned for!

I’ve been getting adequate rest (albeit at odd hours and in 2 hour chunks, but I am rested, nonetheless!) and I have absolutely been in a “love bubble” as my friend described it and that’s felt like a fuzzy, blurry, warm, liminal space where not much matters besides this tiny little human sleeping on my chest.

Aside from the hormones coursing through my body and Ora being a truly perfect baby, I set myself up well for this period by deciding that it would be my era of surrendering to the present (also, asking friends to organize a meal train has done a ton of heavy lifting, which I wrote about here!).

I’m finding that setting the bar incredibly low for “what gets done,” sets me up to have more fulfilling days. Actually, scratch that, I’ve booted the whole productivity thing out the window. My daily goal is to take care of my baby and get to know her and her needs as best I can. Everything else can wait.

While I have put most things on hold, I wanted to reincorporate my weekly writing circle back into my life fairly quickly. I knew that my facilitation style would look different as I might have to run for a crying baby, but making it a priority to hold that space for myself and my writing felt right (and attainable). If I did it with retched morning sickness (most sessions I literally laid down during the writing time), I felt I could do it with a newborn.

My first week back I got through the 15 minute introduction fine, but once we started writing, I got 4 sentences on the page before Ora was rooting for the boob. Instead of trying to write and nurse (which I know is in my future once I’m more of a breastfeeding pro) I took her to our backyard, focussed on nurturing her, and enjoyed the sun together.

Backyard snuggles.

As I sat there, I remembered one of my writing teachers, Anthony Thomas Lombardi, sharing in a class, “It’s all writing,” when we talked about having spells of not getting anything on the page. He said you have to fill your tank with experiences in order to have anything worthwhile to write about. I felt grateful to have a yard, to have a spring day, to be witnessing my daughter experiencing sunlight for the first time. I closed out our session feeling satisfied with how the time was spent and sure that I’d have more to write about the next time I got the chance and that this whole motherhood thing was sure to fill my tank.

This week I decided to set the bar really low. ZERO writing was the expectation, but if happen to get the chance, I’d *play* with the idea of a poem—even if I just got down a line or two. Turns out, I ended up with about 20 minutes of uninterrupted writing time and a draft of a poem before I heard that familiar and precious wail.

As I fed Ora, I was able to continue to write, but just my head. Once she dosed off and I could set her down, I returned to the keyboard, vigorously incorporating the edits floating in my mind.

I guess this is what moms mean when they talk about learning how to make the most of their time. You learn to prioritize quickly. I haven’t showered or brushed my teeth yet today, but I finished editing this newsletter and I updated my portfolio in anticipation of wedding season (yes - I am very much looking for day-of wedding coordination gigs for the season).

Currently, I am finishing this newsletter hunched over the sleeping baby in my lap, typing with one hand 🙃.

As I wind down this note, I will leave you with the poem I wrote during my group. I want to share that I feel vulnerable posting it because:

1) it’s a draft, and

2) because there is an inner critic that is worried I’ll lose my identity to motherhood. Is all my creative work now going to become about being a mother? Is this newsletter a mom blog now??? Will all my outgoing text messages from here on out only be pictures of my kid?!?

For so many years, I thought I’d never have a baby because the “lifestyle isn’t for me.” I wanted freedom. I wanted art and friendships. I wanted time for myself. And I believed that to have a child you couldn’t also have those things, or at least in any robust way.

This is partly because I remember hearing a lot as a young person, “your life will be over once you have kids.” I was terrified to lose my life, especially because I quite liked the life I was living. Yes, it was effective as birth control, but it also made me believe I had to GET EVERYTHING DONE (!) before having kids (as if I could check off all the To-Dos Of Life in the first place 😅).

That’s all daunting as hell! No wonder I was so hesitant. Add the current political situation (is that what we are calling it?), worries about the climate and reproductive rights, and the mounds of college debt that most millennials have, and I’d say it’s a miracle that any of us are choosing to have kids, which is why we are seeing less and less people choosing to do so.

But I want to circle back to this “life being over” bit, because I think it’s really sad that that’s a story of parenthood that’s in circulation. Many of my friends sighed a HUGE breath of relief to hear me say that postpartum hasn’t been as hard as expected, and that in fact, it’s been quite pleasant.

Of course there is a wide spectrum of experience when it comes to all of this, so I want to acknowledge that this is only my experience. Also, I am also not trying to convince anyone to have a child—I have always believed that having a child or not having a child are equally respectable choices.

AND now that I am a mother I just want to say how unbelievably incredible it is and that my life doesn’t feel “over” in the slightest. Yes, I am only 1 month in and I am sure there are more hard days ahead, but I believe there as just as many (if not more!) beautiful, joy-filled, jaw-dropping ones.

I believe that I can be a mother, and

a friend, and

an artist, and

someone who loves to dance, and

a writer, and

a lover, and

an entrepreneur, and

someone still figuring it out,

and

and

and

I love that living in New York City offers me the opportunity to witness so many different versions of motherhood. I love seeing babies at art openings and parents who take turns staying in with the kids so the other one can have a night out in Bushwick.

I love that my version of motherhood will be exactly that—my version—and I believe that my partner, my child, and I are co-creating a life together that is as unique to us and our needs and desires, as we want it to be.

All that to say, I am very much in my mother-era (!) and I couldn’t be happier to be here. Maybe all my art will be about motherhood. Maybe even when the art isn’t directly about motherhood, it still is in conversation with it, as I am making as Mother. Maybe I don’t have to worry about it and instead I just focus on the making and the mothering 🫶🏼

How are these hands SO tiny and precious?

Each day I find in loving Ora more fulfillment, more learnings, more inspiration, more more more.

And now a poem, for my Little Dragon, who we named after a visit to the Natural History Museum where we learned at the exhibit of Komodo Dragons that the locals on Komodo Island in Indonesia call the reptiles, “Ora.”

Little Dragon

“I wish we could put her in the freezer,”

says my partner, preserve her

milk-slobber kisses, sunflower-seed-sized

fingernails. I could watch her for hours—

in fact, most days, that’s all I do,

considering myself lucky

if I make it outside to take a walk

or check on the chamomile seedlings.

The dishes pile, the same dirty diaper

has been under the couch for 3 weeks,

meanwhile, a snoring dog lays at my feet,

and she, suckles at my breast,

I close my eyes and listen to the clicking

of her throat as she guzzles, marvel at the curls

that bounce their way into her hair

when greeted with water at bath time.

I wasn’t prepared to love something this much—

holding her tiny hand, my heart has begun

to break.