So, someone has just dumped a child on you and that child is now yours.
You are officially a mother.
Now you’re a mum, you know exactly what to do to care for your child. It’s instinct. It’s animalistic. Some profound, long-hidden wisdom, born in your ovaries, mystically guides you, showing you how to care for this babe. You’re doing exactly what you should be doing without even thinking about it.
Ha ha ha … jokes! That’s not how it works at all.
Those instincts don’t always magically appear the second you’re holding your baby. There are no spontaneous lullabies; there’s no invisible connection forming between you and your child. You aren’t wordlessly communicating with the fruit of your loins.
You’re most likely sitting there thinking, ‘Oh. Okay. That happened. I have a baby. Hello there. I’m your mother. This is rather strange, isn’t it?’ Or maybe something with more swear words in there.
And you’re waiting for instructions or permission to do something, but no one is speaking to you.
Medical staff don’t care that this is your first time. They’re busying themselves with making sure you’re physically okay and they’ll completely forget that delivering babies isn’t your job. They’ve delivered 874 babies. You’ve delivered one. And you’re sitting there, wild eyed and foggy brained, holding a hairless mammal and not sure what you should do next.
Birthing classes dish out detail after horrifying detail about the birthing process but the information stops abruptly at ‘They put the baby on your chest’.
It’s as if you’ve just arrived at your first day of a new job. It’s a job you’ve been keen to start but you’ve only been given a vague outline of the tasks you’ll be expected to carry out.
Everyone around you is busy at work, rushing about, clearly more experienced than you. You’re sitting there, hoping someone will come along to show you to your desk, give you a computer login and a rundown of your tasks. You thought you had an idea of what you’d be doing but now you’re here, you realise you’re grossly underqualified for this job and it appears no one is here to supervise you.
How the hell are you supposed to get started without some sort of handover or orientation? A computer near you starts pinging and you look around, wondering if you should get up and check it out, but still, no one is talking to you. You feel like maybe that’s your computer and it could be a job for you to complete, but where’s the boss? Is anyone going to show you what to do?
Eventually, you’ll realise your boss is The Baby—a megalomaniac sadist who gives you zero instructions or guidance and no feedback at all. He won’t even email you a list of tasks. You’ve just got to guess what he wants you to do and if you get it wrong, he’ll scream in your face until you want to cry.
It’s alright, you’re new to this. No one starts a new job and nails it on the first day. Or, if they nail the first day, they’re going to falter a few days down the line when things become a bit more involved. But you’re learning, and if you want to really grow, you’ve got to take leaps of faith and make mistakes. If you’re not making mistakes, you’re not learning anything.
So, like any first day at a new job, you’re going to need to ask some questions.
Ask the medical staff if you’re okay. They could be performing a vagina replacement down there and you wouldn’t even know. Prompt them to communicate with you.
Ask them if the baby is okay. Even if he looks perfectly fine, it’s nice to get some confirmation. Remind the staff you’re new at this.
Ask them what you should be doing now, but expect anyone and everyone to give you a completely different answer because no one can agree on anything when it comes to taking care of babies. This will continue forever.
Usually, the first thing you should try to do (after taking the mandatory first photos #welcomebaby) is put your baby to your boob. But apparently, again, you’re supposed to just know to do that without anyone telling you.
If no one steps up to help you, go right ahead and put that baby on your boob. You don’t need to latch or actually produce anything, but putting your baby’s mouth near your nipple is pretty much all your baby wants out of life so far.
Not going to lie: that first time is weird and awkward. You’re putting a complete stranger’s mouth on your nipple, which is not something you’d typically do in public. It’s normal if it feels a bit strange and unnatural at first.
But this is your baby. You don’t technically need to ask anyone’s permission, even though you’ll want to. You get to make the decisions now, and that can be the scariest realisation of all.