Becoming Mommy
A Normal Crisis in Three Phases

If you are pregnant with your first baby, you are in for a life changing experience. Like most moms, you have been assailed with ideas about stuff! What to buy for your new baby? What to pack for the birth? Perhaps you are also beset with ideas such as: How should I give birth? And where? Where should my baby sleep? With me or alone? How should I feed him? Bottle or breast? Is it safe to vaccinate or not?

But whoa! What about you? Yes, you, new mommy! Let’s pause for a moment and try to put aside the massive changes taking place inside your body, and the incredible mind-blowing thought that you are growing a human being inside that magnificent belly! For a few moments, let’s focus on the changes that will take place inside your head and your heart, and in your life as you know it—family, spouse, friendships, and work.

Having a baby is, in many ways, a crisis because your habitual ways of being are dismantled; and you are required to put yourself back together perhaps differently, perhaps better. It is therefore a constructive crisis offering space and time for personal change at a time when change is easier because you are so vulnerable.

“Early motherhood is a crucible of change where new identities are forged from old ones. The more you can see and reflect on what you are doing, thinking and feeling during this period, the more you can influence the direction of these possibly far-reaching changes. (Stern 1994, 193)”
Psychologists, Daniel and Nadia Stern have studied the changes in a woman’s identity as she becomes a new mom. This article is based on the three phases of becoming a mother that they outline.

The Preparation Phase: Pregnancy through Birth

While your body is doing the physical work, your mind is mentally preparing for motherhood. At whatever point you become certain that your pregnancy is viable, you may begin to let yourself daydream about that sweet baby growing inside you. You find yourself entertaining hopes, dreams, fantasies, and, of course, fears for your baby and for yourself as a mother.

Perhaps you have an idea of the kind of mother you always wanted to be. Maybe, all you are sure of is the kind of mom you definitely don’t want to be! In a sense, there are three pregnancies going on at one time: physically, you’re gestating a real infant; mentally, you’re gestating the baby of your imagination; and emotionally, let us not forget, you are getting ready to give birth to a mother. That would be you!

Enjoy this time as you give free reign to your fantasies which are creative and vital preparations for motherhood, and involve everything which is, at this point, totally unknown about your baby and you as mother.

The final part of your phase one preparation is giving birth. The physical mother is born and you are required, no matter how tired or unprepared, to take care of this little miracle. However, the psychological part of being a mom is still incubating. Give her time! Be patient with her and allow her to find her way.

The Middle Phase: Apprenticeship

In this phase, you are like an apprentice—learning on the job! You’ve plunged right into the labor and toil of motherhood and are largely preoccupied with three important tasks: feeding and nurture, bonding and attaching, and learning from other mothers.

1. Making sure your baby survives: feeding and nurturing.
This is hard-wired and all-present in the mind of a new mom and sparks off natural fears for your baby’s safety. Like most mammals, you aim to create a safety nest of vigilance with your constant monitoring. You’re concerned with baby’s warmth, weight gain, diapering, gas, food intake, avoiding illness, and the dreaded SIDS. How you go about this reflects much about who you are:

• Are you laid-back, taking it all in your stride (not many of us are)?
• Are you anxious and self-doubting, second guessing your every move?
• Do you feel that you can control every last detail?
• Do you accept that some parts of this endeavor are beyond your control?
• And that your baby is unpredictable much of the time as you learn to know her?
• Can you entrust your baby to someone else’s care for a few hours each day so that you can rest?
• Do you feel compelled to do it all yourself for fear that something will go wrong if you are not around?
• Can you ask for help, assistance and advice?
• Can you let go of other household duties and focus on your baby?

Over-vigilance leads to exhaustion! Your biggest enemy in these first weeks is fatigue. Therefore exhaustion management is critical and the willingness to take extreme self-care of yourself will serve you well here. Your baby’s survival depends on your surviving emotionally and physically. Remind yourself of the oxygen mask metaphor about first putting your mask on in the airplane before helping small children!

At around 6 weeks (and again at 3 months), just when you think you are going to collapse with exhaustion, a pattern emerges. You realize you can, indeed feed, grow, and protect your baby. You really are emerging from this trial by fire. You are, in fact, an adequate and competent mother.

And when things become chaotic again, as they will, you must tell yourself that it is temporary and you will master another phase of mothering. Your willingness to acknowledge yourself for your successes and forgive yourself for inevitable mistakes is an invaluable foundation for all the years of mothering to come! For your sake, and the sake of your children, it is essential that you let go of that “perfect mother” illusion (non-existent and counterproductive) and take pride in being what psychologist Donald Winnicot termed a “good-enough” mother (the best we can hope to be).

2. Creating an intimate, loving, and responsive relationship with your new baby: bonding and attaching.
How does this happen with someone who cannot speak and doesn’t understand a thing you say. By trial and error and watching your baby’s reactions, you will begin to know her. By the time you are presented with that first smile around 4-6 weeks, you’re hooked.

Your baby is actually inviting you to become intimately connected with her. And your baby will learn deep-rooted lessons about intimacy and being with another person from hundreds of daily interactions as you:

• Establish a feeding practice that is mutually satisfying to both of you,
• Take pleasure in playful, silly interactions that have no purpose other than to make your baby smile and laugh.
• Develop empathy as you mentally get under your baby’s skin to find out what she wants and needs

What is your characteristic response to intimacy? How do you usually form relationships? At this point, your life story has an impact on how you mother your baby. If there are painful issues in your past that stop you from getting close, you might want to talk to someone about them, or at least reflect on them yourself. A mother’s capacity to reflect on the way she relates to her baby (rather than going into automatic mode) bodes well for their relationship. If you are really struggling to connect with your baby, are feeling overly worried and sad, and take no pleasure in the good moments, then you might wish to talk to someone about the possibility of a postpartum reaction.

3. Learning from and with other moms.
This is your third task of the middle phase. Validation and encouragement from other moms is essential to your new identity as a mother. Isolation is bad news for any mom, much less a new mom. In traditional societies, more experienced mothers will surround the new mom with a web of affirmation and calmness. Within this powerful circle of potential, the new mother can explore and learn to trust her developing mothering style. New and inexperienced mothers need this mentoring relationship. All new mothers need mothering—it is a psychological necessity, not a luxury. You will naturally turn to other women at this time because even the most supportive husband cannot provide this mentoring mothering web.

Your relationship with your own mother will become present for you at this time. If it is a painful one, or if your mother is absent, feelings and memories will be stirred up inside you. Don’t try to push those feelings aside. Find someone to talk about them with. They are important. You are processing so much information during this time, and that should also include the way you, yourself, were mothered.

You might ask yourself: will I be like my own mom? What does that mean? How can I do this differently? The more you understand your relationship with your own mother and come to terms with it, the less you will end up automatically repeating it with your own child.

The Final Phase: Integration

The final phase involves integrating your new mothering identity with the rest of your life (your relationship, career, friends, and colleagues). In time you find yourself less preoccupied with your identity as a mother as you get on with life as a mother. This takes time—years. Everyone has their own pace and external circumstances may force this upon you sooner than you like. Being a mother will eventually become a part of who you are, and not the whole of who you are. Other interests will resurface and you will strive to create a balance and learn to juggle!

“…the process of giving birth to the motherhood mindset progresses through phases. The new identity requires that you first prepare yourself mentally for the change, that you then undergo much emotional labor bringing forth the new aspects of yourself, and finally that you work hard to integrate the changes into the rest of your life. All of this happens while you are nurturing a baby who demolishes your daily routines, keeps you up at night, and requires all of your attention. And yet, when you look back on your life, becoming a mother will remain one of you life’s major endeavors (Stern and Bruschweiler-Stern, 1998: 20)”.

Editorial provided by Kim Richardson, M.A., LCPC, CPC. Kim is a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor and Certified Professional Life Coach working with new mothers and treating postpartum depression. She is also actively involved in the Postpartum Depression Alliances of Illinois and Michigan.