The secret sauce of parenting: releasing expectations.

A word of caution: In this post, I write about my first son’s birth, which may be triggering to those who have experienced traumatic birth. If you are struggling to process your child’s birth or suspect you have a perinatal mood disorder, there is help for you. Our birth experiences matter, despite our culture telling us to “just be grateful that you and your baby are healthy.” One resource that I really like is Postpartum Support International.

Before I had my first baby, I thought I had it all figured out. I would never get overwhelmed, or lose my temper, and I would be sooooo great at this mothering thing. The reality of having my first child could not have been more different from what I imagined.

Sharon with her first child.

It started with the labor and birth. I had planned a beautiful, peaceful home birth, surrounded by my husband, midwife, and a few close friends. I planned to give birth in the inflatable tub that we had set up in my living room, with candles flickering and soft music playing.

My baby, as it turns out, was in a posterior position, meaning that the back of his head was pressing against my lower spine. This so-called “back labor” usually means excruciating back pain and s-l-o-w labor progress. After three days of very little sleep and basically living in an all-fours position draped over a yoga ball, my midwife gave me the option to go to the hospital, where I could be given medication to help me sleep.

At that point, I would have done just about anything to get a few hours of sleep, so my husband and I packed up and went to the hospital, letting go of our dream of a beautiful home birth.

We arrived at the hospital, and after three hours of blissful, morphine-induced sleep, I was found to be progressing, so I labored in the hospital room with my husband, midwife and two close friends.

Sharon pushing with support from her husband and friend.

It took four (!) hours of pushing to get him out, but finally, our baby was born. Unfortunately, he wasn’t breathing, so a team rushed in to resuscitate and stabilize him before taking him to the NICU for testing and monitoring.

I was able to hold him very briefly before they took him away, which I will always remember as one of the most incredible moments of my life. I can only describe that experience of holding him for the first time as “right.” It felt like everything in my life had let me directly to that moment of holding my baby in my arms and looking into his eyes.

Sharon’s husband and new baby in the NICU. 

The next four days were a blur of discussing our son’s care with doctors (one of whom was threatening and condescending with us, but that’s another story!), learning to breastfeed, and sleeping on the floor of a tiny room in the NICU so I could be close to my son after I had been discharged. On the last night of our stay, my milk came in, and the staff let me keep him with me in that little room. I was blissed out seeing my baby finally figuring out breastfeeding and anticipating taking him home in the morning.

Sharon holding her baby in the NICU.

Despite the challenges of that week, I was on a high; I was so proud of myself, thankful for my amazing birth team and so in awe of my beautiful baby. But soon after we got home, the high started to be replaced by anxiety. Early postpartum felt chaotic and unfamiliar, and I wanted a sense of control so badly.

To give myself a sense of control, I got myself a journal (yeah, with actual paper!) and I started to record everything. I wrote down when he fed, on what side and for how long. When he pooped and peed, the amount and the color. When he spit up. When and where he slept and how well.

I tried to find patterns in all this data; something that would help me to predict things and find some semblance of a “routine.”

Looking back on this now, I probably had a perinatal mood disorder, but at the time I didn’t think there was any other way. I just had to keep recording everything.

All of this recording did absolutely nothing to ease my mind; it just created more anxiety. I would look at this data and compare my child’s nap schedule with a friend’s child’s nap schedule, and wonder what was wrong with my son, and with me. Also, why was it so hard to keep my house clean or take a shower?

The thing was, my lived experience of mothering didn’t mesh with my idea of what it was “supposed” to look like. I am not sure what I expected, but this wasn’t it. Over the span of my son’s first year, I continued (unsuccessfully) to try to mold our experience to be more in line with what I had expected. It was a tough year.

I wish I could have told myself that the house would be a mess for a while and that it was completely fine.

I wish I could have told myself that “bouncing back” is a lie - that you don’t go back to your old self after having a baby - you grow into a whole new person.

I wish I could have told myself that my child has so much to teach me, if only I could be present and listening.

I wish that when I woke up in the morning, my only expectation was to learn something new about my son.

I wish that I had recognized that I was unwell, and that I deserved to get help.

Shifting my mindset would not have replaced treatment for a perinatal mood disorder, but it sure could have helped. Hindsight is 20/20 - I get it. I don’t beat myself up for that first year, but I feel the need to share my experience with people who are starting on their own parenting journeys now.

I see a lot of people wanting that same sense of control. I hear questions like “How long should she nurse for?” and “I shouldn’t let him fall asleep nursing, right?” Behind these questions is fear. Fear of doing something wrong or not “being enough.”

From day one, many of us approach our babies with fear. But what our children need from us is to trust them. When we give them our trust, they are free to trust themselves. This is a gift to both parent and child.

What if, when our babies are born, we trusted that they have all the information they need, and our job, instead of to mold them, is to grow alongside them? Babies come out of the womb with reflexes, instincts and the ability to do things that should astound us. A baby can find its mother by smell and use it’s tiny mouth to extract milk from a breast for many hours every day. Whoa.

What if I had never recorded a feeding or a diaper change after those first few weeks?

What if I had trusted that he and I were capable?

What if I had approached him with curiosity and tuned into what he had to teach me about himself?

What if I had been able to set aside that vision of what motherhood is “supposed” to look like, and embrace what it actually was for me?

At the risk of being that old lady who tells the youngsters how they should be doing things, I recommend examining your preconceived ideas of parenting, because we all have them. Once you shine a light on your expectations, you can see them for what they are - they are ideas, but they are not the truth.

Our expectations need to be set aside so that we can see what’s actually going on in front of us. Because that is where the real living is, and where the joy can take place. It turns out that life is so much sweeter without tracking what’s in your kid’s diaper all day long.