Stork Bites

The physiological process of giving birth gives you nine months (and for us a couple bonus weeks) to visualize what life is going to be like when the baby arrives. That seems like plenty of time, yet now eleven days after the birth of Jane, I’m not sure any length of time would have been sufficient to prepare us for this new phase of life. I knew there would be a screaming baby, I knew there would be diapers to be changed, and I knew that the priorities of my life would reoriented. But somehow it’s all been more demanding than we anticipated.

Stork bites are a common form of birth mark that appear on a baby’s skin caused naturally by the delivery process. They’re often red, flat marks that usually fade over the first couple days or weeks of the newborn’s life. While completely normal they can appear concerning to an eager new parent. Jane had a few of these marks on the top of her head. As Grace and I are in the stormy seas of the first couple weeks of parenthood, I’m realizing that “stork bite” is an apt name for many of the challenges that come with this life transition. A few of our own stork bites:

• The feeling of helplessness when she screams spontaneously, uncertain of what she needs.
• The questioning if we are really up for this challenge.
• The mourning of our independence.
• The frustration of aimlessly rocking her to sleep in the middle of the night.
• The realization that we’re only 11 days in...

Normally a post like this would end with a footnote about how all of the hardships of caring for a newborn are worth it. People talk about how they wouldn’t trade being a parent for anything. Hopefully that feeling comes with the hindsight of making it through this first phase, because being in the thick of it isn’t pleasant. I'm putting my faith in the hope that, like the stork bites on Jane's head, these challenges will also fade.