Welcome to my diary. These are entires I wrote during my own pregnancy. What you’re about to read is unfiltered, unedited, and perhaps a bit uncanny. But these are my raw feelings written in real-time. Everyone’s perspective and journey is different. This is mine.
Dear friend,
Jen Glantz here. I am a MOM!
A week ago today, at 9:40am, after 38-hours of labor, a little baby girl with bright blue eyes entered the world.
When I first saw her, I was more scared than I ever have been before.
You are my baby?!!!
I felt this pressure to hold her tight, protect her, love her, and keep her safe - all in the same tiny second.
Except I was strapped to a hospital bed, my insides all unaligned, and my brain hogged by doctors and nurses asking me questions and checking on the baby.
In the first week of motherhood, I’ve asked myself one question, again and again:
How am I going to do this?
By this I mean feed my baby, make sure she’s okay during the 1,440 minutes of every day, and still function as a 34-year-old human being.
I don’t have an answer to that question yet but I can tell you this?
I am doing it.
Sometimes it feels like I’m slow dancing on egg shells.
Other times it feels like I’ve been doing this my entire life, like I was always ready to do this, like I have done this before.
Most days, it feels like my entire life is under some kind of magic spell. Like I drank some type of witch potion. Like my heart is slowly expanding and the empty space is filled with a special kind of love.
Ps. Know someone who would enjoy reading this?
Some quick things I loved this week:
❤️ Products that I fell in love with this week:
A few incredible brands sent me welcome home gifts that I received when I came back from the hospital. I’m super excited to try these products because a lot of them came highly recommended from my mom friends. Sharing some of the awesome ones right here:
-A bunch of products from Tonies. They make music products that keep kids entertained and help them also fall asleep.
-Bugaboo Fox 5 Stroller. This is an epic stroller. It’s made me excited to go outside with the baby for short little walks.
-The coolest and most modern breastfeeding products from Swehl. These would make a great gift for any pregnant friend who is considering breast feeding or pumping.
**I made a bunch of detailed lists of all the things I bought for pregnancy, postpartum, and for the baby. Here’s where you can eyeball / share these lists with anyone who needs them**
❤️ Living in these Kindred Bravely hands free pumping bras. They are so soft. The first two days of pumping, I didn’t realize I could this hands free. The second I put the bra on, my life changed. I’m typing this to you now with my breast pump on.
❤️ I have a theory that my baby is obsessed with Meghan Trainor. She would kick in the womb whenever I played it, the night I filmed a TikTok dance to her song - I went into labor, and even now, when we play her music, she lights up!
❤️I’ve been spending time spilling my thoughts on TikTok. Watch some of that fun stuff right here!
I Am Somebody’s Mom.
I am slowly sharing every single detail of my experiences with you - from having the baby, to the wickedness of postpartum, to the scary things that happen when you bring the baby home, to the pain of breastfeeding - and every in between.
Let’s start with the first part of the series: LABOR.
The story starts when I found myself begging the doctor for one more day.
Pregnancy has a deadline. It has to end eventually. Either your body makes it start, or sometimes, the doctor steps in and helps.
I was climbing over the 41 week mark. My doctor eyeballed the calendar and said:
Sunday, March 19th. Let’s have you go to the hospital and let’s induce labor.
That’s my anniversary with Adam. Regardless, I wasn’t ready to go that route. I needed to buy some more time.
She reluctantly said okay.
I wanted to make sure this baby knew that I wanted her here. I’d spent months hollering about how scared I was to be a mom on the top of my lunges. I know she hears me, feels me, listens to me. I needed a few more days to explain myself to her.
I secretly took these long walks to this spot by the East River that holds me still when I run there because the winds of life are making me blow away and drift from the person I know I am.
I sat on a bench and I expelled what was inside of my brain into the baby’s ears:
Your mom feels everything so deeply and intensely. I’ve never wanted anything more than I’ve wanted you.
I’d come home from that walk everyday and sink into the pressure around me to go into labor.
Friends asking: No baby yet? When are they inducing you? You have to get this baby out!
So I did what the internet says to do: I ate pounds of pineapple and jalapeno peppers, I sidestepped curbs, I did acupuncture and foot reflex massages.
Nothing worked.
On Sunday night, March 19th, I asked Adam if we could spend our anniversary doing nothing. I wanted one night to shut off the world, shut down my thoughts.
We danced around the living room.
I felt these pings in my stomach and when I sat on the toilet, I saw a greenlight in the color of red.
I saw blood.
I screamed from the bathroom.
It’s happening. It’s finally happening.
As he ran toward the toilet, I looked down at my belly:
I’m not scared.
I’m ready, I always have been, I was just scared to admit that to be true.
I was in labor for 38 hours. Every hour felt like I was in a boxing match with my organs. Every minute, its own Mt. Everest.
Somehow, I kept climbing.
After the contractions started, I walked dozy circles in the living room for 12 hours. Every inhale reminded me that the baby and I were working together, every exhale forced my body to rock away some pain.
In the middle of the night, I dug my nails into a chair, and thought about how much we doubt ourselves right before we’re forced to show our strength.
It felt like boulders were slamming my insides, it felt like my stomach was trying to unzip from my body.
And yet, I was doing it.
At hour 15, we went to the hospital.
In the elevator, I shut my eyes and promised this:
To survive, I’d surrender.
To surrender, I’d trust myself.
I was only 2 cm dilated. I had to get to 10. The doctor said she’d check me again in 4-hours.
4 more hours of walking in circles, grabbing onto chairs, slow dancing through the pain.
When she came back, I was 4 centimeters. Hours later, still 4.
I had all these plans for how I’d manage the pain on my own. I wrote a book for Adam to use to help. I hired a professional for tips. I bought a birthing ball. I made a labor playlist.
But I didn’t want any of that stuff.
I wanted to fight the only way I know how:
Stubbornly and in silence, all on my own.
After 24-hours, I made a decision that went against every game plan I ever had.
I got an epidural.
To surrender, I had to trust myself.
To trust myself, I had to do whatever it took to survive.
I felt like a complete and utter failure.
But failing isn’t changing plans. Failure is giving up hope, it’s giving up on yourself.
And as I laid in the bed, and shut my eyes, I remembered to surrender, to trust myself. I was almost there, so close. I would survive.
By hour 24 of labor, I was no longer in survival mode, or panic mode, I was myself again:
A fighter who never gives up.
Without the pain, labor became a ping-pong game with no paddles. It became a circus juggling act of thoughts.
I didn’t need birthing balls or labor positions. I didn’t need words of encouragement or background noise.
I needed mental strength. Now was the time to prove myself right.
I thought about all that I had overcome that should have destroyed me. The part of my life story I rarely share. How days would go by and I’d look at myself in the mirror and say:
How are you still standing? How did you make it through yesterday?
What we so often forget is that when the brain and the heart form an alliance what happens next makes you unstoppable.
At 37 hours of labor, the doctor said it was time to push. I was 10 cm dilated. She could see the baby’s head.
A nurse grabbed my left leg, Adam grabbed my right. They pushed them toward me and I hunched forward. I couldn’t feel the lower half of my body. I didn’t know what I was doing but I knew I was doing something as hard as I could.
An hour and 10 minutes went by. The doctor stood up, leaned forward, and yelled at me to push one more time, as hard as I could.
And all of a sudden, before I could exhale, the doctor pulled out the baby, and put her on my chest.
A week ago today, at 9:40am, a baby with big bright blue eyes entered the world.
In the first week of motherhood, I’ve asked myself one question, again and again:
How am I going to do this?
I don’t have an answer to that question yet but I can tell you this?
I am doing it.
Sometimes it feels like I’m slow dancing on eggshells.
Other times it feels like I’ve been doing this my entire life, like I was always ready to do this, like I have done this before.
Most days, it feels like my entire life is under some kind of magic spell.
Like I drank some type of witch potion.
Like my heart is slowly expanding and the empty space is filled with a special kind of love, and joy.