You Are a F*cking Awesome Mom: So Embrace the Chaos, Get Over the Guilt, and Be True to You

by Leslie Anne Bruce

Becoming a mother is a natural life event, but it doesn’t always come naturally. Actually, it can feel really unnatural, especially in the beginning. For many new moms, it’s an upheaval of the status quo. In becoming mothers, we’re asked to give up a lot: our bodies, our identities, our priorities, our sanity, and, for some of us, our jobs.

For many women with strong personal and professional identities, becoming a mother causes a complete restructuring of their life.

Caring for a baby can be a struggle, especially in the beginning. I’ve always loved my daughter, certainly, but I didn’t actually enjoy her until she got a bit older. It’s hard to enjoy something you feel like you’re failing at.

Real motherhood happens in the tear-filled, sleepless nights when you’re left alone to wonder where the hell it all went wrong.

If for no other reason than because it is the best thing you can do for your kid, be good to yourself.

“I ask people, ‘What’s your postpartum plan?’” Johnson says, “and they say, ‘my husband’s taking ten days off work,’ and I’m like, ‘Yeah, and what’s your postpartum plan?’”

If her eyes stayed shut (which they rarely did), I then needed to decide: Do I pump or shower? Shower or pee? Should I pee or eat? What order should I do them in? She would either sleep for fifteen minutes or fifty, so it was a complete coin toss. I could feasibly shower, pee, and eat at the same time, but if I were to pump, I might actually be able to leave the house that evening to get to the store, go for a walk, or cry by myself in the car. But what if I pumped for fifteen minutes and then she woke up crying? I would have no milk left in my boobs to feed her, so I’d have to give her the bottle I just pumped, and then have nothing at all to show for all that “free time” I had: no shower, no bathroom relief, no full belly, and no promise of a future escape. (You can see just how quickly the “crazy” starts to kick in.) And it’s not like I could go for a drive or run a quick errand. Even if she didn’t loathe her car seat (which she did), I rarely managed to get out of my pajamas or brush my hair. If we did happen to go somewhere, I had a thirty-pound diaper bag to tote along, complete with nipple shields and boob cream because breastfeeding had done some considerable, and permanent, damage. I didn’t recognize myself anymore, figuratively and literally (the hormone drop-off was swift and fierce). Everyone around me said that the first three months were going to be a challenge, but I was convinced that the arbitrary twelve-week timeline wouldn’t apply to me. She and I were s...

once you have a baby, you’re going to go bat-shit crazy.