Photos by Sara Knobel
I gave birth to my son, Woody, on a particularly unique day in March 2020.
We were overjoyed and completely checked out from reality after 30 hours of labor. A few hours after Woody was born, my mom and husband went home to take a nap. By the time they returned, the hospital had implemented new rules: no visitors.
As our tiny world changed tremendously, the entire world was turned upside-down, too. As shutdown orders quickly took place, our parents were ordered to return home. Suddenly, all of our well-placed “plans” evaporated. We took a few trips to the airport to drop off teary-eyed grandparents, only to find ourselves alone—with a brand-new baby.
It started to dawn on me that we'd be forging this trail independently—with a quickly-dwindling supply of toilet paper. The thing I told myself, over and over, is that billions of women had done this before me. I was smart, capable, flexible, and I could do it, too. Right?
Here’s some of what I learned in my first year as a mom. I hope you find them helpful, but if not, ignore me.
1. Every ClichÉ is Annoyingly True
Yep. All the crap they tell you is true.
"Make plans and the universe will laugh." (Hello, global pandemic!) "You'll forget the pain of childbirth." (Okay, not true, but it's worth it.)
"The days are long but the years are short."
This is the one I think of the most as I marvel at this small human navigating the world. Over the past year, I felt like I was waiting for every “first”—the first smile, the first laugh, the first steps, the first words, and the list goes on. After each first, time warps incredibly. Suddenly, I couldn’t remember my son without a mouth full of teeth.
I can barely recall the days before he blew raspberries or clapped for himself after eating or walking or sneezing. Though, I think we all could do well to replicate that self-congratulatory energy.
Many of the cliches around parenthood, I feel, have this one common thread—and it’s not an easy one. It’s to try to enjoy every day—and it's not easy. Enjoy the newborn cuddles. Enjoy sticking your (clean) fingers in their mouths before they sprout military-grade sharp teeth. Enjoy the first smile, the first (and five-thousandth) blowout.
I’m not here to tell you to “practice gratitude,” but try to slow down for a moment. Take it in.
2. Sharing Stories (Good + Bad) is So Important
As I wobbled around seven, eight, and nine months pregnant, other women were eager to tell me their birth stories and every tale about early parenthood. Some of these stories were cautionary, some were hopeful, and some were worst-case, awful, why-are-you-telling-me-this-right-now horror stories.
Take them in—and we’ll talk about what to do in my *next* lesson.
I loved hearing everyone’s stories. One mama was telling me her own particularly gruesome birth story only to be cut off by her husband who exclaimed, “She doesn’t want to hear this!” Spoiler alert: I did want to hear it. Personally, I love hearing the good, the bad, and the ugly. But that's just me.
Share your stories—even if it’s with yourself. If things were tough, be honest about it. I think we should create the space to share it all—even if it's in the pages of a journal. My chosen lot in life, personally, is brutal honesty about hitting the bathroom after birth. Nobody wants to talk about it but we alllllll have to do it.
Sharing stories helps people feel less alone. Even difficult stories are typically told by someone who came out on the other side.
3. Listen to Everybody + Nobody
Okay, here’s my own caveat on all of those stories you’ll hear, all the blogs you’ll read, and all the Instagram posts you'll be served. Tell your story and provide space (if you can) to hear others'. Follow pregnancy blogs and mommy vlogs if you want, then unfollow them if they annoy you.
Learn to listen to what actually serves you. Trash the rest.
While I was pregnant, a friend of mine loved to tell me the most horrifying stories about clogged milk ducts, screaming children, and brutal postpartum depression. I always politely listened and said, “We’ll see what happens.” Some of the stories are really just other people navigating their own fears and insecurities—and that’s ok. You can always politely tell someone to shut up. Seriously.
Breastfeeding was also a huge topic of debate and, ahem, judgment. Depending on who you ask, I breastfed. However, I exclusively pumped my breastmilk after crying on my couch one night because I couldn’t decide which end of my body was crying out in pain the loudest.
I set out to pump and feed from a bottle—and my son loved it. You know who else loved it? Me, sleeping through a 2:00 AM wake-up call because my husband was feeding a bottle to my son. That ruled because it worked specifically for me.
Do what works for you. There is a ton of information out there and it is designed to make you feel bad. No matter what, you’ll always be doing something wrong or, at best, “not quite right” by any mommy blog’s standard.
The internet is great for getting some answers. For example, when my son started “fake choking” at the dinner table, I learned this was pretty common. That was helpful.
After that, I started being served posts on exactly how, what, and when to feed your child, which was not so helpful. I’m not learning how to cut a piece of apple into a star and arrange it to reflect his Zodiac sign on a plate, but you do you!
4. I'll Never Know How My Mom Did It
I wasn’t going to write this without talking about my own mother. After I gave birth, the quarantines set in. Our plans to have my best secret weapon—my own mom—on hand, were dashed.
As I postpartum-hysterically-crying-hugged my mom in front of Burbank Airport, she whispered into my ear, “You’re a great mother.”
How could that possibly be true?
My mom gave birth to ten (10!) babies—all of whom were over eight pounds apiece. In November of 1987, before sonograms were part of the old routine, she birthed one eight-pound boy only to find out there was another eight-pound boy right behind him. Those were my twin brothers, Luke (#7) and George (#8).
My mother raised us with love, attention, and mutual respect. She recently told me that the first thing she would say to herself every morning was, “I am the boss here”.
My father worked long hours and was lucky enough to be cast in the “good cop” role. Many nights, he would return home in a jovial mood ready to tickle kids, crack jokes, and watch TV. My mom, starved of adult conversation, was ready to slam him over the head with a cookie sheet (a common practice in my WWE-obsessed household—and don't worry, it doesn't hurt at all). She was the boss, though, and she did a damn good job.
When he passed away in 2010, my mother took on the role of mom and dad to ten heartbroken children, a role I wish she didn’t have to play, but one she still navigates with grace and a whole lot of worrying.
All this is to say, I had an incredible role model who allowed me to believe I could do this—no matter what—as long as I led with love (directed at myself and my child). But, no, I don't know how she did it—or how she still does it.
5. You Can Do a Lot (But You Need Help, Too)
There’s the nagging question of, “Can women have it all?” and the answer is unclear. It’s unclear because it seems that in order “to have it all,” we are expected to navigate “it all” by ourselves. Nobody expects the same from men.
You have to ask for help—even when you know you can do it better. This is a hard pill to swallow at times, but if your partner puts the diaper on backward, let them figure it out. If you don’t like the brand of wipes they picked out at the store, let it go.
If you need to sleep an extra ten or twenty minutes, do it.
One huge thing I learned in the past year is that I can do a lot. I often joke that if I had one more arm, I could probably get another job. Even if this is true, don’t do it all.
Remember you. Get help so that you can continue to connect with you.
6. I Understand Why Women Leave the Workforce
This was the toughest lesson I learned one day shortly after the new year.
Woody was almost ten months old and the childproofing wars had begun. I had been making a lot of stupid mistakes at work and, let’s face it, probably at home, too. I am very lucky to have a husband who takes on most of the childcare duties during the workweek, but when you're working from home in a small apartment, baby knows where mommy is and baby follows.
I had been going, going, going for too long and I was about wiped out. In my weekly 1:1, I unexpectedly found myself sobbing over a Google hangout while realizing, in real-time, that I was messing up.
That was the day I learned why women leave the workforce. New motherhood, work, no outside help, tireless pumping, and a global pandemic as the cherry on top finally got me.
The big difference? I was met with understanding, grace, and support. However, I know that is not the case in many organizations for many working moms.
I was given time, space, and resources to make sure that my work was going to fit into my life. I felt so ashamed and sad at the moment. I'm not a person who likes to ask for help; I'd rather quietly figure things out. In the end, it made me so much more motivated to do my job better—because part of my job is helping women so that they don't have to make the choice between career and family.
I can see why working mothers, met with a “deal with it” or worse, a “you chose this” reaction from leadership would walk right out the door. I don’t blame them one bit.
But, sadly, I also don’t have a solution for them YET. Though I promise, I’m working on it.
In Conclusion, I'm Only Beginning (Yikes)
In conclusion, I have so much more to learn. Sometimes I look around and I’m not sure when I stopped being a child and started being a mother to a child.
Navigating change is tough. Navigating a change like motherhood is a mind-boggler. But here's the thing—we’ve got this and I’m hopeful that the world is going to start to make the space for everything we can do.
If you need any words of encouragement (or if you want to tell me I’m an idiot who knows nothing!) feel free to reach out via email.
