Postpartum Portrait: From touch anxiety to home birth: Michelle's honest story about the fourth trimester
We prepare ourselves incredibly hard for the birth itself - but what about the time after? In our interview series Postpartum Portraits, we talk to mothers about the fourth trimester — without filter. For us, that time is at least as important and worth preparing for. Here you get a raw and beautiful insight into a special time, so that you hopefully feel a little better prepared for your postpartum period.
Today you will meet Michelle Berthels, look forward to a story about having difficulty bonding with your baby, about missing your first child when the next child arrives and about setting boundaries for yourself - and especially for others in a vulnerable postpartum period.
Text: Simone Mervig, photos: Cathrine Wichmand
How do you remember the time leading up to your first birth?
“I wasn't really sure if I wanted to have children, so when I got pregnant I wasn't quite ready for a baby to come out of it. During pregnancy I didn't feel like I had formed a bond with the little baby at all. And I think that had a consequence for the postpartum period.
I gave birth in the hospital, but upon arrival I was completely dilated and my body was ready to go straight in and push - but it was going way, way too fast for me.
I wasn't there mentally at all. Neither during the pregnancy nor the birth. It actually meant that I didn't want to have anything to do with her for the first 2-3 days. I experienced a definite fear of contact. At the time, I didn't know that what I had was a postpartum reaction. But it just affected my entire interaction with her in the time immediately after.
How did the outside world react to your reaction?
“It was just really hard for others to understand, and I felt really, really wrong. It took me a while to start saying, ‘This is about me. This is not about you.’ Their experience of me, and their sharing it with me, was borderline.
People need to be respectful about how vulnerable motherhood is right at the beginning. And it's different.
Fortunately, my attention and care quickly turned. And then I didn't want to be away from her at all, and then there was no one who should be near her at all."
Michelle wearing Period Flow Brief in hazel and Post Partum Nursing Bra
In your preparations for your second birth, did you have concerns about experiencing a postpartum reaction again?
" I was really trying to bring a postpartum reaction to the forefront.
First of all, we chose for me to give birth at home in the living room, and it was just great!
Suddenly I had to give birth without nitrous oxide or other aids, and that just made me even more present.
But Bodie wanted to come out 16 days early. And it went fast. Everyone was called in; grandparents to look after our daughter, the midwife. The midwife didn't even have time to throw off her shoes and jacket before she went in and had to grab a head. The grandparents didn't make it, so both my husband and daughter were there.
The crazy thing was that I was able to be there. Despite the pace. And after an hour my in-laws came, we ordered sushi, and then we all sat around the dinner table with the midwife on Friday night, an hour after the birth, as if it was any other Friday night."
What were your expectations for your fourth trimester with Bodie – and how did it actually turn out?
"I was really just looking forward to becoming a family of four. But the reality is that the postpartum period has been filled with constant guilt. I never feel like I'm enough or can be there one hundred percent for anyone. It's surprised me how much my relationship with my big one fills me up here in the postpartum period of the little one." I've been through a lot, the loss of closeness with our big girl. Not having the same time and presence with her anymore. I actually miss her - even though she's here.
"I've thought a lot about whether there are better times to have siblings, thought a lot about how good we were as a little trio. Felt a little sad to break up a good trio, because the hope that in the long run it will be good and a gift with siblings."
Bodie has also just filled up. He has a small hole in his heart, which 7-9-13, is nothing serious yet. He has suffered from silent reflux, reflux, various intolerances to things, had zero rhythm, was not someone you could just put to sleep in a stroller - the first 3-4 months I have sat up and slept with him at night, and he still sleeps all his naps in the carrier because it has been so uncomfortable for him to lie on his back. It has meant something to the relationship with my daughter."
If we focus on you after giving birth, how has your body surprised you in the time since?
“I was very surprised by how weak my body actually became after having two children. I want to take better care of my body now and make it strong because it will last for many years to come. It’s about pure muscle mass. I want to be able to carry, play with and twirl with my children.
On the other hand, I have found peace in the fact that my body no longer looks the way it did before. And that's okay. I am so amazed that I can make a baby, have a living human being inside my body, give birth to it and feed it. The most natural and the most basic, but it's still so crazy.”
Would you like to give future mothers some good advice for their postpartum period?
“You're welcome to change saddles if something doesn't feel right and listen to your gut feeling.
I wasn't ready to go back to work at all when my first maternity leave ended. Yet I did what was expected. I sent our daughter to daycare, I started working. And I cried every day to and from work. I wasn't ready.
Today I regret not acting on my feelings - keeping my daughter at home, putting off work. For whose sake did I do it? It didn't benefit me.
We may change our minds, change as people. We, our values, change when we have children. If something doesn't feel right in our stomach, we have to dare to act. I wasn't brave enough the first time. But I am now.”
