The first month of parenting a newborn was one of the most surreal and clinically insane things I’ve ever dealt with. It had me thinking of the various circumstances parents find themselves in and how on earth they can accommodate any of this in the United States. I could come up with a whole list of accommodations we’re lacking for new parents, but at the very least, I think parents deserve pediatrician home visits for the first month.
The day after we came home from the hospital with my son, we had to bring him to the pediatrician for the first time so they could get a good look at this new source of income we’d created for them. Mainly, they just want to see what he weighs.
We brought him home in February when it was 3 degrees Fahrenheit outside. Less than 24 hours later, we had to strap him into the car seat in time for our appointment, hoping he wouldn’t start screaming for food during the 15-minute drive while I sat in the back with him criticizing my husband’s driving as he made turns with the precision of someone defusing a bomb. I had just undergone major abdominal surgery, so I couldn’t drive or lift the car seat – I was a leaky, mobility-limited, anxiety-riddled milk vessel (and honestly was fine with not being able to do anything despite feeling surprisingly good, albeit sleep-deprived).
When we get to the doctor’s office and they asked us to strip him down, he’s of course had a poop that’s somewhere between the sticky tar of meconium and the orange liquid of milk poop, so I apologize 15 times while trying to clean up a screaming cold baby so they can weigh him. My husband goes to throw the diaper away only to find out you can’t throw poopy diapers away at the pediatrician’s office. I make a mental note to put puppy trash bags in the diaper bag, a note that which immediately leaves my brain.
His weight is lower than his birth weight, which is completely normal for babies after they’re born but they still want us to do this charade all over again in 3 days so they can confirm he gains weight. No, the scale we have at home will not suffice because it has to be the same scale and also we could just lie about it anyway.
We leave 20 minutes later after answering questions like “how many times a day has he eaten” and “how many times has he peed and pooped” with “ummmm an amount? Like 8-10?” I vow to finally download the Huckleberry app so I can neurotically track the information they request, which is exactly what I need in this sleep-deprived state: one more task.
We pack him up in the car and go pick up chicken shawarmas for lunch. I wait in the car with RJ while my husband runs in. RJ starts screaming because he probably wants to eat. I am not confident enough with the car seat buckles to get him out, start feeding, and put him back in, plus I’m not sure if that’s legal to do in a running car in a parking lot, so I text my husband and panic a little until he returns with our food.
We get home and I endure the toe-curling pain of latching while my husband prepares my food on my couch tray and fills up my water jug. A Stanley will not suffice for this level of thirst.
I think about the simple task we just endured of bringing a newborn to the doctor, and I think: how the hell would I have done that myself? What if I was a single parent with no support system? Someone who literally couldn’t lift the car seat or drive the car? What would they suggest I do? Would they come to the house? Of course not. Would they tell me it’s OK, just wait 6 weeks until you can lift things to bring him in? Not without a call to child protective services. What if my job gave me no time off and I had to go back to work in a week? Would any daycare take a 2-week-old newborn? How much would that cost? Not just financially, but also on my mental health? Why do so many new moms have to leave their newborns to go back to work before the dinner plate-sized wound on their uterus is healed?
I have had so many thoughts in the last year that leave me feeling embarrassed at my level of naivete over what it’s really like being a parent in the United States. I knew it was bad and I’ve always advocated for things like paid parental leave and universal childcare, but going through it all makes it hit even harder.
We are supposed to be the greatest country. Yet, we have no accommodations or protections for parents who don’t have the village and support system required in order to raise children, especially in those vital, terrifying first days where the birth parent is deliriously exhausted from birth, wearing diapers, and healing from various open wounds. It’s sad and sickening in a country that supposedly values the “sanctity of life”. It’s been made abundantly clear that the sanctity of life is more precious and worth accommodating when it’s in a petri dish than it is when it’s a fully-formed human demanding milk from your body at every hour. “Oh, you finally gave birth to the baby we’ve pestered you to have because we need to ensure capitalism never runs out of workers? Fuck off freeloader, you’re on your own!” People who call themselves pro-life but support no universal childcare, no meaningful child tax credit, and no paid parental leave are some of the most unserious, hypocritical rubes of our society.
At the very least, new parents deserve a quick house visit from a scale-wielding pediatrician in those first few days (if they’re comfortable with it, of course). And, while I’m dying on this hill, a year of maternity and paternity leave to establish your life as a new family, bond with the baby, and actually give the exclusive breastfeeding they want us to do for TWO YEARS a fighting chance.
I have never been more aware of my privilege as someone who freelances from home with an infinitely flexible schedule and a decent amount of “passive” income. I knew before having kids that this was the income-generating setup I wanted in order to be able to stay home, but even in these best of circumstances, it is a huge adjustment and I’ve struggled to stay above water at times, mentally and financially because both things have been affected. Had I still been at my last full-time job where a bunch of boomers nagged me on the regular about when I’ll have kids because I was, in their words, “no spring chicken”, I’d have had to find childcare and go back to work after 2 weeks unless I managed to save up the funds to extend that leave on my own dime. It’s cruel at best, and every parent and child in this country deserves better.
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