This micro episode explores the psychological realities of having a baby through metaphors that make sense of experiences that often feel impossible to articulate. I compare having a baby to that nightmare where you're suddenly in an exam you haven't studied for, or realize you're naked in public - that sense of being woefully unprepared despite knowing this moment would come.



I dive into why two particular emotions dominate the postpartum period but rarely get discussed: grief and shame. The grief comes from losing who you were and the life you had, which is natural and right, but completely unexpected. The shame emerges when we think struggling means we're failing as people, rather than simply learning something with an incredibly steep curve.



Drawing on the reality that babies' cries literally hijack our nervous systems by design, I explore why having supportive people around makes such a difference, and how our modern isolated parenting differs dramatically from the community-based child-rearing humans evolved for. Sometimes understanding why something feels so hard can help us be gentler with ourselves through the process.



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