Mother

From the moment she took her first breath, I forgot myself.

Like a switch flipped, the internal body systems responsible for keeping me alive fell dormant. My need for food, water, and sleep—all quieted.

Her breaths were ragged and labored, and so too, I couldn't quite catch mine.

"She's in good hands," my nurse assured me as a team of masked, scrub-clad professionals rushed my minutes-old infant with skin an alarming shade of cornflower blue off to the NICU.

I needed to go with her. She needs her mother.

"Not yet," the nurse said gently. I needed to recover from the 21 hours of labor, she said. Needed to regain function in my legs. Needed to use the bathroom.

They clearly don't know what I need. Because what I need is to be with her.

I couldn't eat, couldn't drink. Every maternal instinct on the same desperate hamster wheel: get to her.

 My body had just accomplished the unthinkable, and still, I did not allow myself rest. There was more to be done.

I needed to pump. Needed milk for this new life I had worked so hard to create. But there was nothing in me left to give. The sheets were still sticky with too much blood lost in delivery. My stomach roared for nutrients.

But I kept ignoring the warning signs—begging for self-care—as only a woman can. 29 years of training taught me well.

My baby girl was stable when I finally made it to the NICU. I, on the other hand, was not. I fainted within minutes.

Scarlett Shae, three hours old

It has taken me 18 months (and counting) to learn how to care for the both of us. Nothing in the parenting books taught me how. And social media only made me feel guilty for not co-sleeping, not baby-wearing, not breastfeeding longer.

The mothers who give everything; who are burnt out and ragged and haven't had a peaceful shower in months—they are called selfless. So what does that make me?

Am I selfish?

If some days I'm ready to leave her at daycare? If I need a girls' night? If I look forward to bedtime? If I'm sad to cancel my plans when she gets sick?

Am I doing it wrong?

The 27-year-old version of me who stuck a needle into purple-blue flesh every day for months would unfollow me. And the 28-year-old who lost two babies back-to-back would hate me. Because she swore if she was ever lucky enough to become a mom, she would never complain; never take a single second for granted.

And yet here I am, lining up babysitters so I can have a date night. Tagging in Dada so I can shower in peace.

I am ragged, too—believe me. This is the hardest work I have ever done. I've just decided that I don't want to live in that space ad nauseam. I don't want to be called selfless because I don't actually want to lose myself.

The truth is that I am proud of the work I've done to learn how to attend to my own needs. It is not second nature; it is the daily work of rewiring neural pathways. Undoing ages-old training. Learning how to pay close attention to my inner voice, to the signs my body sends, rather than shushing them.

And the kind of daughter I want to raise is one who knows deep in her bones how to do the same. How to set a boundary or leave an unsafe situation. How to be gentle with herself when she messes up. How to chase wildly after her dreams.

Not less of herself. More.

And the best shot I have at growing up a girl who is unapologetically attuned to her own self is not by modeling the opposite. It is not by giving and giving and giving until I am depleted.

Rather, it is by radically reclaiming myself. And in doing so, becoming a mirror for her—pointing her always back to herself.