The week I found out I was pregnant, I dusted off our Polaroid and asked my husband to take a topless photo of me. 
He gleefully accepted, with a twinkle in his eye and a touch of confusion.

I knew this was the end of my perfectly perky, symmetrical, beloved boobs.

And I knew I wanted to capture them in all their glory before my body became more than just my own.

They quickly grew to a cup size my thirteen-year-old self could have only dreamed of.
But now, they were the first thing that made my body feel alien.

By week sixteen, I noticed the crusty residue of colostrum left behind in my bra.
Surely it's too early to start producing anything, 
I'm not even halfway,
I haven't even told my colleagues I'm pregnant yet.
I thought in a quiet panic as the shower washed away the evidence.

Halfway through the pregnancy, I texted my sister, pleading with her to assure me they couldn't possibly get any bigger.
She regretted to inform me that this was only the beginning.

By week thirty-five, the stretch marks arrived.
Proof of the last eight months.
Or perhaps a small initiation into the club of motherhood.

In the final days before your arrival, bruises covered the underside of my breasts.
Evidence of frantic colostrum harvesting in the hours between being declared an emergency and being wheeled into the operating room.

Thirty-three minutes after you joined us, you latched for the first time.
Without any help.
Like you knew better than I did that we were embarking on a journey together.

For months, my boobs had been changing in preparation.
In that moment, they finally had a purpose.

By day four, my milk had come in.
By day seven, I was pumping.
By day ten, I had an oversupply.

What followed were nights spent sobbing on the edge of our bed, caught in the familiar breastfeeding battle:
Pump and ease the pain, risking the oversupply getting worse?
Or wait for the next feed, knowing you wouldn't be able to handle the firehose that awaited you?

The first night we left you with my sister for two hours, I leaked through my dress at a friend's birthday drinks.
I was grateful everyone else had consumed enough pints to blur both their vision and their memory of the mishap.

Two months into motherhood, I stare into my closet to find four tops, two dresses, and zero bathing suits that fit.
My old bras mock me from the bedside table.
My low-back tops gather dust in the back of the dresser.

Nearly three months in, we've settled into a rhythm.
Me.
You.
The body that feeds you.

Some days, I miss the perfectly perky boobs that spent thirty years on my chest.

Their symmetry.
Their predictability.
The way they belonged only to me.

But then you fall asleep mid-feed, milk-drunk and content, and I remember why they changed.

It is a privilege.
And still, an adjustment.

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I'm the first mother in my friend group.
Which means people keep asking
"What does it feel like?"
A simple question.
But an impossible one to answer
in the 30-minute coffee date 
squeezed in before they head back to work
and a life I used to know.

If they had the time,
I'd tell them:

Being a new mom smells like
spilt milk,
spit-up-stained college t-shirts,
and fresh rain as you circle the park
lulling them to sleep.

It tastes like
tea reheated three times before noon,
meals eaten one-handed 
while a tiny chest rises and falls 
in your other arm
and the salt of tears 
you can’t quite explain.
 
It sounds like
white noise machines,
tiny whimpers fighting heavy eyelids,
and the cry that breaks your heart 
at the eight-week vaccines.

It looks like
twenty-three burp cloths strung up on the clothes horse, 
bottle tops,
pumps,
flanges,
and snot suckers
piled high in the sink,
and the soft red glow
of 4AM feeds.

But the feeling?
The feeling is harder.

It's watching your old life shift
while falling in love
with your new one.

It's exhaustion and awe
occupying the same body.

It's experiencing the hardest day you've ever had
and still looking forward to tomorrow.

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It's midnight, and my husband's sound asleep next to me.
He's done the nappy change.
I'm doing the feed.
A scene our bed has become accustomed to after 32 nights of repetition. 

I was warned that this would happen.

That no matter how hard we tried,
or how evenly we divided the work,
this feeling would eventually find a way
to seep into our home.

I didn't want to believe them.

But in the darkest hours before the world wakes up,
I look at the man I love
and hear the soft knock of resentment
on our bedroom door.
Before it comes barging in,
so aggressively,
I mistake it for anger.

It feels like your arrival was, 
for him,
only an addition.

For me,
every. single. inch.
has changed.

He runs every day.
I can't make it down the street and back
without my body reminding me of what happened.

He sees friends when they ring.
I calculate how long I can be away from home
before the pump calls me back.

He can have a pint when the sun comes out.
I had one drink at our first barbecue of the summer,
and spent the rest of the evening terrified 
of when you'd wake up hungry.

He returns to work.
I return to milestones.
To tummy time.
To wondering when you’ll lift your head clear off the ground.

He looks in the mirror
and sees the same man he's seen for 30 years.
Only now,
he carries the shiny new title of dad.
He holds you like a football
and smiles proudly.

I look in the mirror
and see a messy bun,
a milk-stained, clip-strap tank top,
and a ten-inch scar
that creates a ledge my stomach’s never known.

I'm just meeting this woman.
We're mere acquaintances.

The cruel thing is 
that he hasn't done anything wrong.
He changes the nappies.
Refills my water bottles.
Washes the pump parts.
Tells me to go back to sleep each morning,
when he can see I'm running on empty.

He loves you completely.
He loves me too.

And still,
at midnight,
resentment arrives.

Not because he failed me.
Not because he doesn't understand.

But because motherhood has asked for everything.

And fatherhood,
for now at least,
has asked for less.

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To the other mothers who appeared after I became one

The expected ones

My own, my aunties, my sisters

Sending clothes, nappies, and delivery vouchers 
to get us through the week

But also those farther afield

The mothers I knew first

As women calling us downstairs 
after Saturday sleepovers 

Who mailed cards filled with kindness 
and sent stuffies to comfort my daughter 
when I cannot

The sorority sisters 
I haven’t spoken to since drunk college nights 

Who became moms a few years before me

Responding to my stories at 2AM 

Assuring me that the baby blues 
are indeed just a phase

Admitting they, too, 
cried every day for the first two weeks 

The acquaintances turned friends 
from my prenatal classes 

Learning sleeplessness beside me

Sharing links to sound machines 
and “where to stay cool on hot London days”

And the friends of friends of friends 

Reaching toward me
like we’ve always known each other 

Helping me name experiences 
I don’t quite have the words for yet

On the days when the grace I have for myself lacks

You all are where I find my strength

Someday

I hope to love another mother 

This well

In March, you made me a mom
Or mum, as they call it here
Three weeks plus a day earlier than anticipated
One cut, seven layers, followed by the most beautifully loud cry I’ve ever heard

They lifted you out of me like the prized possession that you are
The first thing the doctors said was, ‘She’s so small!’ and a wave of fear rushed over me
I quickly responded, ‘But is she healthy?!’
And sure enough, you were perfect
Tiny but mighty, as we always suspected

They placed you on my chest, where you’d stay for eight hours
I wouldn’t let anyone take you away from me
So in awe of this tiny human my body had created
So in awe of the person you already were

Your nose was so small and looked just like the scans
Ten tiny fingers
Counted more than once
Each would wrap around my index finger whenever placed in your palm
You had the sweetest smell and the softest skin

In those first moments, I knew I could spend the rest of my life staring at you and still feel like there wasn’t enough time to soak up every inch of you