How I failed as a man during postpartum

My mind recalls one specific memory of one evening when me and my wife were indulging ourselves in our regular twenty minutes online after Nina had fallen asleep when my wife stumbled across an article and suddenly sobbed: ,,Oh what a harsh truth.” Another article followed the first, and as my wife felt related to the content, it left her completely jaded and overwhelmed. The article featured the so-called postpartum period, and since it had been a starting point of a discussion and contemplation between me and my wife, you can read it here. Perhaps it may help you get a better understanding of what you are about to read. What should be taken into account is, that it is quite normal for every individuals’ feelings to vary according to their own experience. As for me, I didn’t feel particularly moved during the postpartum weeks. On one hand, being a rationally thinking grown up man a loving husband and a father, I’ve learnt a seemingly widely known fact. For the mother, those first six weeks come across as an extremely exhausting period of time, which demand a great deal of encouragement, support and endless loving care and deep compassion, generated especially by the partner.

Compassionate and supporting grandmothers as extinct species

In the old days and in the multiple generations of families, maternal grandmother had always provided the new mother with a significant amount of support. She would be compassionate towards the severe hormonal imbalance and would comprehend the physical pain involved in the overall healing process of the new mother’s body. To our dismay, those days are gone and our grandmothers had chosen a different approach to life. The modern life had been given a different meaning and so had the way we work and spend our leisure time. One cannot hold it against them, and surely some of our grandmothers still fulfill their roles with pleasure and delight, supporting their own grown-up daughters with multiple tasks. However, as far as I’m concerned, the good old grandmothers are on the verge of extinction. Providing the grandmother is nowhere near to be able to help or can’t provide the much needed emotional support, it’s all up to the partner to take up this role. With this being the centre of our attention, it is exactly what we have learnt from the postpartum period. Nevertheless, I completely failed as the so-called vitally important support to my wife. Despite the fact whether or not did I want to be associated with my failing, it was not only for my wife’s drawing attention that I had to accept my failure.

The fourfold failure:

1. Lack of ability to show compassion towards my wife’s overall state during her postpartum weeks
2. Instead of providing my wife with emotional support, I failed to resolve problems and repeatedly attempted to find solutions for problems which could hardly be solved
3. I asked all sorts of frivolous and totally inadequate questions as ,, Does the baby sleep enough, does she eat?”
4. I should have sacrificed the certain sense of tranquillity to my wife, rather than stirring up more negative emotions

To my mind, all points mentioned above are pretty appalling, considering I love my wife from the bottom of my heart and I would give up my entire universe for Nina. In light of all this, I may had been awarded the Most Evil Man of the Year. It’s quite possible I gave Nina excessive care, rather than go with my instincts. In that sense, it may had been helpful from some of my friends and fathers to describe their own experience to me. Generally speaking, vast majority of them spent their wife’s postpartum period either indulged into their work or completely drunk, indulged on the other hand into celebrations of the new family member. Be that as it may, their impact on the situation was highly likely more rewarding than mine, since they couldn’t cause any more havoc or trigger negative emotions as I had done (failure no. 4 on my list). As a matter of fact, I’m not completely sure whether one can successfully and completely avoid failing, perhaps it is because a man cannot completely put himself in a woman’s shoes. It is indeed true that a man produces the so-called oxytocin hormone, but one becomes rather economic when it comes to progesterone. Whereas women, on the other hand, seemingly produce an abundance of progesterone during this time.

Hormones out of balance

The mother nature has been somewhat cautious and economical when it comes to a bond between a father and newborns. Although studies mentioned in this article suggest that a moment of physical contact of a man with the mother and a baby increases the level of estrogen, oxytocin , and prolactin. This shows effort a man’s body tries to exert in order to become a part of the current circumstances, which has one drawback: It is not all it is cracked up to be. The article makes the point that while some men may experience increased levels of testosterone, others may experience decreased levels of hormones. And without a doubt, testosterone isn’t particularly a pleasing visitor in one’s body. I may well indulge myself in the studies of this matter and deeply contemplate the issue and the reason why I didn’t quite make it through as it had been expected of me and surely, I wasn’t the only one. I hereby give all my respects to men who succeeded. To me, it is another lesson learned. I haven’t yet acquired the potential of any female sex hormones production, neither have I learnt to turn myself into a loving and caring grandmother, neither do I intend to do so. What I have learnt is to be more compassionate, as well as develop comprehension and tranquillity when it is needed, and recollection prior to questioning. I learned to be more attentive and evolve my intuition. A bold man’s rationality is best kept for more appropriate times, as that is when emotions are set aside. Let your first six weeks be peaceful and quiet.