What is a Mother?
By: Chandni Bhatia
Tags: Mothers, Postpartum Anxiety, Motherhood, Postpartum, Pregnancy

My name is Chandni. I moved to Los Angeles from New Delhi, India, six years ago, to marry the love of my life. My husband and I met ten years ago at a dinner party, where my brother was meeting his fiancée’s extended family for the first time. Little did I know, I would end up meeting my future husband and baby daddy. Those who know me know that I am not impulsive. I am about as impulsive as an iceberg, to be perfectly honest with you. Falling in love with my then boyfriend is about the only impulsive thing I have ever done. My goodness, did it serve me well!

After a four year long-distance relationship, we got married, and I began a life full of adventure. Having a child was always on both of our agendas. Why just stop at one child? Multiple children were on our agenda! We talked and thought, and thought and talked, and looked at various factors (including my PCOS), and four years into our married life, we were blessed with a baby girl.

All throughout my pregnancy, I experienced extreme panic, fear, and anxiety, and a question I often heard myself asking was “who the heck allowed me to get pregnant?”. I asked my therapist this question more number of times than I care to admit. I read every book about what to do when I was expecting, how to take care of an infant, how to burp, bathe, and swaddle. My husband and I took all the classes (walked right out of the C-Section class, because I will only have a natural delivery), did CPR and choking training, the works. Everyone I spoke to said being a mom would come naturally, that I would know what to do when I held her. “Women have been having babies for millennia, you’ll be fine” was the common refrain.

I was due in early December, and I remember sitting on the sidewalk of a relative’s house at Thanksgiving, paralyzed with fear. My parents were getting on a plane from Delhi, India, to come to LA to be with me for the birth. As I sat and sobbed on the street, I could only keep saying, “we’ll never be the two of us again,” and it filled my heart with fear and sadness, while my husband positively glowed at the thought of bringing our daughter home.

Then came the fateful day. I went in for a routine ultrasound a day before my due date, and was admitted right away because the baby had no fluid to grow. I didn’t go into natural labor, so they induced it. Somewhere between the Pitocin and the epidural, my baby’s heart rate and my heart rate started dropping. Twenty-four hours into this cycle, we needed to do a C-section. Guess who wasn’t prepared? THIS GUY!

Having walked out of the C-section birthing class, I didn’t know what to expect. The recovery, pain, and terror I would feel leading up to a cough or a sneeze were mysteries to me at the time. I passed out on the table upon setting eyes on my daughter. Seeing her, hearing her, smelling her, and knowing she was safe now brought a sense of relief no amount of pain medication could have. Unfortunately, that was the only relief I felt for the next three months.

When they placed my daughter on my chest, she wouldn’t stop crying. I was in too much pain to help her, and too afraid to move her. She was the smallest, most fragile, most beautiful thing in the world. My husband swooped in, held her, and she was calm. This was the pattern that followed for the next three months. I would hold her, sing to her, nurse her, rock her, but it wasn’t until my husband held her that she would calm down. It was like she sensed my inexperience.

Being a father came much more naturally to my husband than being a mother came to me. I struggled everyday. I wouldn’t change her clothes out of fear of hurting her. My husband taught me how to do that. I couldn’t bathe her for fear of her swallowing water. My mother taught me that. I couldn’t get her to stop crying and use the pacifier. My mother-in-law taught me that.

All around me were people who were better at mothering my daughter than I was. I felt pretty defeated, considering how being a mom was always my greatest dream. Over the first three months of my daughter’s life, and my new life as a mother, we learned each other. I learned her cries, her clothes, her little body, her coughs and hiccups, and most importantly, I learned to trust myself.

Today, a month shy of my daughter’s second birthday, I can say with pride and confidence that I am a good mom, and I am trying my best. I can say without feeling shame that being a stay-at-home mom has been the most rewarding and most isolating experience of my life. I have never felt more fulfilled as a person, and more at a loss of my purpose as a person.

So what is a mother? A mother is me. A mother is you. A mother comes in so many shapes and forms, and each journey to motherhood is different. Some just find their way easier than others. I go to bed every night thinking, “I did my best. Tomorrow will be better. She is happy, she is healthy, she is loved. And so am I.”

For now, that is enough.