Finding a Baseline

an essay by Lauren Ahmed

I’ve heard it takes two years for your body to come back to baseline after having a baby. I don’t know if this is true, but I heard it once then filed in the part of my brain where I keep information that seems important but is too aspirational to matter—like the toddler soccer clinic I thought sounded like fun but missed the deadline, the pullover sweater Instagram insists will make me look like a CEO, and the annual neighborhood BBQ my family has never attended. There are a million little things swirling in my brain every moment: my inbox, the groceries, the vet, past-due well-child appointments, everything I need to do in the spare seconds between school drop off and lights out. Everything else only gets a dismissive nod.

This thought, however, was inching closer to the front of my brain on January 1, 2024. I was a little over a year postpartum after our son, Jonah, our final baby. “Returning to baseline” felt within reach, almost reality. In October, I’d run my first half marathon since becoming a mom. I had started to look at photos of myself with recognition, if not exactly elation – the postpartum hair thinning had leveled off and the dark circles receded just enough to no longer look like day-old eyeliner. My pants fit me in a recognizable way, rather than pulling and clinging uncomfortably. I was on track to have hobbies, and even well-rested enough to befriend a few neighborhood moms. I smugly wondered if it would even take the full two years. Maybe it would only be one, and by summer I could sip a cocktail in a sundress like the moms on Instagram smiling in vacation photos with their toddlers, fresh from the gym, glowing and happy with their hair blown out. I would be enjoying my kids’ childhood, every minute, just like all the inspirational quotes on Instagram say you must.

I’d scheduled another half marathon for February, and I was excited to see what I could do now that I was sure that my mom-of-two, 37-year-old body would run at all, let alone that far. We’d planned a trip to Las Vegas to see my parents, retirees who lived there part-time to beat the Ohio snow, and I was eager to run another 13.1 down the Las Vegas Strip.

Bags already packed and on the treadmill for a final shake-out, I was dreaming of finally taking a break, a kid-free weekend in a warm place before springtime, when my phone lit up green. Mom. Instead of answering, I grabbed it and dashed off a quick text.

Finishing on the treadmill, can I call you later?

New year, new me. I was going to be the type of person that prioritized workouts and didn’t drop everything when the phone rang.

…

…

Yes.

I hopped off and called her back. What follows, I store in another part of my brain, far from the Instagram Quotes.

Your dad fell, he’s in the ambulance

Bladder displacement

Level II trauma unit

Broken in 4 places

I don’t remember everything after. We ate a lot of takeout. I flew out to Las Vegas a few times when it looked like things were taking a turn. The running habit I’d fought for started to feel too indulgent. Who has three hours or so every weekend for a long run and a shower?

Parenting young children is an everyday project, and so the forgotten list of aspirations was swamped by the immediacy of their need for their mom who was increasingly not there. I would hug them extra to apologize for leaving town, try to put together a decent breakfast, sit at the park or children’s museum while anxiously avoiding the pile of laundry by the door. I would silence my phone so I could play princess instead of obsessing about the texts with medical updates that ran together—oxygen saturation, occupational therapy, step-down unit, the hospitalist says... I hoped it was enough to carry them through the times I was distracted, anxious, and sad. I hoped my mom and dad, scared and lonely themselves, understood.

I started making mistakes at work. I gained weight, the kind that made my clothes pull and tug uncomfortably. I avoided the treadmill because it filled me with dread. The weekends where I was supposed to be going to BBQs in a sundress turned into assembling shower chairs and retrofitting my parents’ bed with an accessibility bar.

The kids sensed my distraction and stress and did what kids do: threw tantrums, resisted sleep, screamed in the background of a work call. I scolded myself for not enjoying their toddler years more, like the pink, cursive Instagram posts demanded, longing instead for quiet and rest. When my friends would go on about how they were “loving their baby snuggles,” all I could feel was bitterness at how uncomplicated that feeling was for them. It was unfair that they weren’t always in three or four places in their minds, or disappointing one person they loved unconditionally to show up for another. When these same friends talked about how their kids wouldn’t let anyone else put them to bed, how all their babies wanted was their mom, I felt my stomach drop. My kids were getting used to me being anywhere else. When I was there, they didn’t cling to me at bedtime. I worried that I’d missed my chance to be their person while trying to keep the people who once tucked me into bed alive.

Every morning, I would set goals and intentions—to start a new exercise regime, do “1000 Hours Outside” with the kids to make up for all the TV, or limit junk food. Like clockwork, as soon as the proverbial ink was dry on these promises, the baby would get sick or preschool would close for RSV. We’d spend the weekend watching movie after movie as I tried to stem the tide of dishes and errands, catch up at work, or cobble together a date night. Through it all, my dad got sicker, then better, then sicker. Every emergency felt a little more pressing than the last, and every few weeks I would drop everything and then reassemble it, a little extra rickety every time.

In July, we (insanely) planned a trip to Italy, doing the thing you do when everything feels impossible so why not go for broke? We assumed that would fix it all. How could it not? We would fully reset, unplug, do something novel, and get some sleep.

I had to call 911, your dad has pneumonia.

You should still go on your trip, he’d be heartbroken to know you canceled, and besides, they’re saying he will go home in 48 hours or so.

We went, and I came home energized, completely convinced that we could eat cleaner foods and be more cultured. I was “European” in that “study abroad” type way where I desperately wanted to make it my whole personality. This, I assumed, would finally be a shortcut to the two-years-postpartum milestone that was maybe a month away now. It was my Hail Mary pass.

He was never discharged. A week after we landed at JFK, the doctors called palliative care. A week after palliative care, he died on August 7.

This is LifeBanc, we can’t release your father’s body without speaking with a family member.

We’re so sorry for your loss. When do you think you’ll go back to work?

Two years postpartum came and went, and I gave up on the promise of January 1, 2024. I kept forgetting to sign up for parent-teacher conferences. I planned two birthday parties in a haze. I would schedule time for grief, then reschedule it.

But young kids give structure to sadness. They push you to get out of bed. You face it for them, and sometimes you face it with more bravery because of them. One gift of parenting is feeling like it’s all bigger than you, and that you must keep trying, relentlessly, because the people you love need you.

On October 6, a week and change after the baby actually turned two, one day shy of two months after my dad died, I got it together enough to host a birthday party for Jonah. The two-years-postpartum milestone was again stashed deep in the back of my mind as I rushed through Party City in a last-ditch effort to amass enough cheap plastic to pass for gift bags. A friend’s son graciously offered to come as Spider-Man, when it became clear that we had invited children to this party but planned nothing specific for children to do.

I laughed a bit with my mom and my husband and ignored the empty place at the table while we set up balloons and taped decorations to the wall. My mom purchased decorations featuring an unlicensed, Temu-esque version of Mickey Mouse which we affectionately dubbed “Ricky Mouse.” That would have to do this time. I thought about the days when I used to spend hours searching for children’s party ideas on Pinterest, and then quickly thought about something else.

The day of Jonah’s party was joyful and sad. Ricky looked great, though, and Jonah, a man of few words, joyfully exclaimed “Spidey!” when he saw Spider-Man at his very not-Spider-Man-themed party. We laughed while the kids played and cried a little after they went to bed.

There will be many birthdays after my dad, but this was the first, and maybe it’ll be the hardest, but I have dispensed with making predictions. I am starting to accept that there is too much life in our days for me to be the smiling, fit, Insta mom who crushes her PRs, has long snuggly toddler bedtimes, plans idyllic family vacations, and wears the perfect sundress to the BBQ. I am continuously starting fresh, even if all I can muster is silencing my notifications to play princesses.

It occurs to me now that my dad worked a lot when I was younger. He was often distracted like I am now. I rarely clung to him at bedtime, but I always knew, in my child cosmology, exactly where he was in the universe. I loved him all the same. I remember the times we were happy and have largely forgotten the details of the days we weren’t. Looking back, the things I loved about him were often part and parcel to his absence. I think about his ambition, his determination to give his family security, his need to get up at 5am and run or bike out all the nervous energy so he could build, build, build, even as, we now realize, the stress was taking a slow toll. I recognize myself in him – the things I am proud of as well as the things I am not. I wish he had given himself more grace and known that now, in the after, we love his flaws, too.

I no longer know his exact location. All that love that has no place else to go but into these tiny humans as they grow up. I think he would tell me that I spent last year doing something more important than reclaiming my 32-year-old body: caring for our whole family, alive and gone. He would probably say that there’s no way to do it without feeling like sometimes you can’t. I think he would tell me it’s okay to go for a run.

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Our January theme is “new beginnings.” Check back next Thursday for another essay on this topic by

Amy Colleen

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