My midwives sat across from me during my prenatal appointment, with crossed legs and kind countenances. They knew something I didn’t.

I think you need a new plan, was the gentle reply they voiced only with their eyes.

What was my postpartum plan to rest after my third baby was born? Well…nothing? We were new to the area, we weren’t plugged into our church, my husband didn’t have paternity leave, there was no family around. My only local friend was due with her own third child three weeks before me.

There was no plan.

To make clear my prior view on postpartum rest, let me share this:

My Marine husband left for five months when my oldest son was 20 hours old, so at nine days postpartum, we flew from CA to TX to visit him for the weekend. I spent the following weekend driving to San Francisco and back twice to expedite a same day passport for my son, and when he was three weeks old, I flew to Malaysia alone with him for my twin brothers’ graduation.

My daughter came along 22 months later, and the second I walked through the door on our arrival back from the hospital, I spent three hours cleaning. At three weeks postpartum, I went back to work as a barista part time because I was going stir crazy at home with two littles.

I always go hard after having babies–primarily because I’ve never struggled with exhaustion during the newborn stage. I’ve honestly never felt the need to slow down and rest; I’ve been a flowing fount’ of energy. I was fine.

This explanation for my lack of a plan hardly satisfied my midwives, who gently suggested I find some help.

In fact, they went so far as to tell me that they encourage a full week of strict bed rest after baby is born and an additional week of maybe moving to the sofa but continuing on bed rest. I balked at the thought. Two weeks of rest? Me? I haven’t spent more than a few hours resting in bed with no responsibilities since before my son was born four years ago!

What a ridiculous suggestion. What a crazy, privileged, unrealistic recommendation.

But oh, how glorious of a thought it was.

I told them I’d try to find help, but with no paternity leave for the hubby and no friends or family, there was no way it was happening.

---

During my home visit, the midwives brought the two-weeks-in-bed suggestion back up with my husband. By then, we’d learned that he didn’t have paternity leave, but he did have enough PTO to take two weeks at home.

Could I please stay in bed for two weeks and do absolutely nothing while he cared wholly for the kids and the house?

I cannot tell you how excited my husband was at this suggestion.

Yes, excited.

Excited because my husband is desperate to love me, to help me, and in my inability to slow down, I refuse to accept his help in favor of working myself to the bone to do it all myself. Now, it was doctor’s orders for him to take complete care of me for two whole weeks.

This type of rest was incomprehensible. I don’t rest. Rest is the opposite of productivity and it’s for weaklings. (Yes, I’ve worked on this stuff with my counselor…)

I am a weakling. I. Can. Do. It. All. Myself.

But as incomprehensible as it was, a feeling of longing blossomed, a desire I had always squashed. I wanted rest, and I needed it desperately.

I spent the next five weeks yearning mostly to meet our son but also yearning for the rest I knew would come afterwards. Four months ago, my sweet boy was born at home in the wee hours of the morning, with his older brother and father at my side, and it was perfect.

Thus began a week in bed and another confined to the sofa, and I’ll admit I struggled. As intensely as I wanted to rest, I was at war with my need to control and I couldn’t resist tidying up the toys and doing the dishes on occasion. Still, I was in bed for all but a couple hours here and there to clean and shower for an entire week, and I spent almost all the following week on the sofa in the living room with my no-longer-quite-so-little family. I stayed out of the kitchen entirely and I didn’t have to prepare a meal for 14 days. Oh, gloriousness.

I rested, and my body recovered. The day I delivered, I felt like I had been hit by a train, and the following day it was a bus, then a car, then by day four I was slightly sore but basically normal.

In contrast, for weeks after my daughter’s birth the constant level of activity I kept up made me feel as if my pelvis would collapse. I thought this was normal. As it turns out, it isn’t, and I never felt that way with this little one. Yes, my body was quite happy with the rest.

But there were some outcomes of two weeks of rest I hadn’t predicted.

Namely, how it would affect my brand new, perfect peanut.

His personality is different–he is obviously more calm and gentle than his two older siblings which I could tell from his movements in the womb, but he is more settled too, and I am sure I know why.

(I feel a little gypped because when I started writing this post two months ago, he genuinely was calm. These days, though, he’s as crazy as his siblings. I really, really thought I finally got a calm one…)

First, he was born peacefully at home, without a single medical intervention.

Second, I know him.

I know that he hiccups after every single burp. I know the only reason he cries when snuggles don’t solve the problem is because he’s gassy. I know if he eats more than every two and a half hours his little belly gets too full and it will all come back up, and I know he loves staring at the ceiling, Christmas lights fascinate him, he likes his baths particularly warm, and putting him in his wrap will send him to dream land immediately.

I knew my older two as well, and I adored them, but I didn’t always know why they were crying, and it took me weeks to learn their cues rather than days. It’s not that I felt any less of a connection to them, I just didn’t understand them as well.

My son is not a mystery to me because I spent two weeks staring at his sweet chubby cheeks and learning how he communicates and what he needs when, and he is secure because his needs are met. Because I understand what they are, because I spent two weeks on bed rest figuring them out!

You don’t learn nearly as much about who your baby is as a tiny person when they’re in their swing while you cook dinner and sweep the floor. Babies in swings are happy, and cooking dinner is necessary, but if you have the option, resting and doing nothing but spending time with them makes a difference.

Dear friends, please understand:

Not everyone can rest for two weeks. I say this with an especially sympathetic and gentle heart towards the mothers with husbands who are gone, or who don’t have husbands. I have been that mother, and praise Jesus that my oldest son’s birth coincided with our PCS (military move) so I had already moved out of our apartment and was staying with a family from church (they had five young boys in their home, including a newborn and a first time mom with no idea what she was doing. Bless them! April, you’re amazing!)

Not everyone can get help. Not everyone can rest like this. There is absolutely no shame in being busy loving on and taking care of your family–this post is not for you!

This post is for the mother like me who didn’t think to even try and get this type of rest because she thinks she doesn’t need it.

I didn’t think two weeks of bed rest was an option, so I never considered it. I like to be in control; did I really want to relinquish that to my husband for two whole weeks?

I never tried to make bed rest happen because I had been a crazy person after my last two kids and I (eventually) recovered, I had no hormonal or emotional issues, I adored my children, and I wasn’t even particularly tired. I was content moving at the speed of light and I felt I even thrived doing so.

Perhaps I had done all those things with my first two–but oh, how I needed the rest this time around. And it made all the difference.

Don’t be like me.

Of course you can do it all–you are a super mom! But maybe you don’t have to do it all, and maybe two weeks of bed rest is an option for you.

If there’s a way, make it happen, because I’ve never had a more don’t-know-what-you’re-missing-until-you-have-it experience.

Now, mothers who cannot rest once the baby comes, hear this:

I see you. I’ve been there, and I fully acknowledge that I’m writing this post from a place of privilege. I have friends who have given birth alone, and I’ve nearly done it too. Perhaps you are a single mom, or a mother who chose to give her baby life and you have no one around to care for you. Your husband could be deployed or not have paid time off or he could just not be willing to help you for two weeks. We don’t all have friends or family around who are able or willing to help.

I see you. You can do this–the strongest of us are forged by fire.

If you love and care for your child, ultimately, little else matters. Still, you must also love and care for yourself because if you are empty, you cannot pour out to your family. There have been times the best I could do to love myself with my lack of time, resources, and energy was to sneak a piece of chocolate into the bathroom and lock the door behind me.

We are all doing the best that we can, and you are the only thing that brand new little baby needs. If hungry older kids and piles of dishes and laundry are calling, you strap that sweet baby to your chest and know that you are rocking this mom thing.

Please, this post is not for you.

It is for the one who, like me, is afraid to give up control of running the household for fear of what they’ll find when they emerge. It’s for the woman like me who didn’t bother trying to find ways to rest because she was confident she could do it all.

We all need rest, and we are not all afforded it, but if you are–

Take it, dear mama.