Post Partum is not just for the Moms...

When we start the difficult, gut wrenching conversation of post partum, I bet most of us (including myself) are thinking of the mothers, because they are the most affected party. Hormones are going crazy, your body feels like it's betraying you, and you are all over the place.

But I wanted to acknowledge how much it affects the fathers as well. Recently, I had to return to work and leave our baby in daycare. Did I cry in the parking lot? Yes. Did it feel like I was failing? 100%.

But what I didn't think about was that my husband had to leave her a lot earlier than I did. He returned to work when our daughter was 3 weeks old, that was the maximum amount of parental leave he could take. Yes, let's be grateful that we get parental leave at all! Some countries don't have this option, so gratitude for that.

But I can't imagine leaving my baby when she was only 3 weeks old. Yes, it is a different scenario because he was leaving her with me, but I was a mess at 3 weeks too! C-Section healing, barely able to feed myself during the day, and absolutely terrified of everything, and he had to leave. This was not easy for him, and we talked about how it was very distracting to be at work, because he wanted to be home with us. I also think there is a huge opportunity to give dads some space to talk about this, and know that it's completely normal. I mean, you don't feel normal in any way, shape, or form after you have a baby, but it is okay to feel like you are grieving when you have to give up your baby to someone else to look after. It's okay if you need 15 minutes in the parking lot to have some tears, and it's okay if some days feel harder than other days. Moms and dads are all going through some weird shit, but we should all feel supported.

I remember a few weeks after he started back at work, I said I wanted to check in on him and make sure he was doing alright. I think that caught him by surprise because he has been told for so long that he had to look after me, and he needed to support me, which is fair, but he needed to be supported too. And was I the best person to do that? I don't know. But someone should.

Support dads too, they need it and they deserve it.

-Not the Gram-Mom