The day I brought my newborn son home from the hospital, it felt like every fiber in my body was electrified. Like all of my molecules—from my brain to my toes—were spinning out of control. My skin was buzzing and I thought I might actually levitate at any second.

I have a picture of me sitting next to the car seat on that surreal ride home, and the only way to describe me is feral. I’m wide-eyed and terrified. My hair—air-dried in a mess of waves and frizz—is a physical tip-off to the chaos swirling within. When I look at that version of me, I have empathy for the deeply humbling, straight-up schooling I am about to receive as a new mom. 

The weird thing is, my most shocking memories aren’t the motherhood lessons I learned (and am still learning), but rather the unexpected—and completely out-of-character—things I found myself doing as a brand new mom. Here are the ones that make my top 10 highlight list. 

I Was Topless and Unashamed, a LOT. 

As someone who has always been very self-conscious about my chest and nudity in general, the number of times I found myself naked in front of random people was a pretty big about-face. And yet, because I was struggling to breastfeed and desperately wanted to be able to nourish my baby in this way, I was willing to do anything to make it work. By necessity, that meant taking off my top and letting strangers handle my boobs in all kinds of settings.  Because I was doing it out of a bone-deep love for my child, I basically just forgot to care about all my old hang-ups. 

I Forgot to Eat Meals

I’ve never understood people who say they forget to eat. My day is timed around when I get to eat, thinking about what I’ll eat, and daydreaming about the highlight reel of delicious meals I’ve eaten in my life. 

Well, friends, holding a baby all day while your mind is spinning out of control about the realities of new parenthood can change all that in a second. I don’t encourage this, it’s just a note that disappearing hunger cues can happen even to us anti-food-forgetters. So, you’ll need to have someone nearby who will take care of your meals. They’ll say things like, “Hey have you eaten any lunch?” or “What can I order you from DoorDash?” or “Let me take the baby so you can have a snack.”

Making sure you’re eating is super important for your recovery as a new mom. Yes, you need to feed and care for your baby, but you also need to give yourself the same attention.

I Hooked Myself Up to an Industrial Strength Breast Pump

Pre-baby, if you’d asked me what my plan was if I had a low milk supply, I’m sure I would have looked at you quizzically with literally no plan in mind. The funny thing is, as you journey through pregnancy into new motherhood, the unrelenting message that “breast is best” has a tendency to worm its way into your brain and hijack your ability to think clearly about what’s really best for you and your baby. At least that was true for me.

That’s how I found myself on the other end of the intense whoosh-suck of an industrial-level breast pump that I rented from the hospital. It came in its own suitcase that I wheeled into my office and set up at my desk. It sat there like a monolith staring me down, reminding me of my failure. Still, like the self-sacrificing hero of a mom I thought I was (strongly do not recommend), I hooked myself up every three hours to let the robot suck out every ounce of milk it could. 

What I eventually realized was that, while this pump was able to wring out more milk, it still wasn’t enough to feed my baby all that much. After a couple months of agonizing, I bid my bright yellow companion a bittersweet goodbye and never looked back. 

I Just Completely Stopped Wearing Makeup

I come from a long line of women who love to look their best. My grandmother worked well into her 80s as a cashier at a local diner, dressed to the nines with her costume jewelry and signature red lipstick. My mom is known amongst my friends as the fashionable one, with a coveted stash of brightly colored pumps in her closet. Wearing makeup and looking put-together was a part of my DNA growing up, and it’s something I carried into adulthood. I pretty much never left the house without at least a quick swipe of black eyeliner or a pop of color on my lips. And then I had a baby…in the middle of the pandemic. 

Not only did I stop wearing makeup and doing my hair, but I also pretty much stopped leaving the house. This was not great in terms of socialization, but it was also freeing. I was able to just live in my own skin and get comfortable with who I saw in the mirror, without embellishments. While I do still enjoy wearing makeup, having a baby broke the spell of needing to wear makeup to feel good about myself. 

I Wore Slippers Outside—and Forgot All Kinds of Words

Ever been so out of it that you wore your very-obviously-slippers slippers out of the house for appointments? I remember looking down several times while I was away from my home and thinking oh crap, I wore my slippers again. More like a passing thought than a judgment, because, as I’ve said, the lack of giving a shit about anything other than making your tiny, difficult-to-please, diaper-wearing new boss happy is astounding when you’re a new mom. 

Another thing I wasn’t prepared for was giving up my near-perfect memory. (I have memories of specific, mundane moments from when I was 3-years-old still banging around in my head.) When I became a mom and stopped sleeping, and replaced that sleep with increasingly intense worries about everything, something had to give. Unfortunately, it was mostly my ability to remember words that previously came to mind at lightning speed. As a writer and editor, this was a little alarming. Thankfully, I’ve come to understand that it’s a pretty common phenomenon known as mom brain, and now you know, too. 

I Talked About Deeply Personal Things With Strangers

Another weird thing that happened was the immediate stripping away of pretense when I was in close proximity to other very new moms. It’s like gaining access to an exclusive club where you can just say your deepest darkest secrets to the other sleep-desperate mom in line at Target without having to waste time on all the pleasantries. This wasn’t just a “me” thing either, it was an unspoken truth with all the moms I encountered. 

It was like, “Hi, are you getting any sleep? No, I have crippling postpartum anxiety, hbu? Oh, Same.” And then we’d check out and go home like we hadn’t just bared our souls to a stranger. It was odd and refreshing, and I wish we were a little bit more open about that stuff even outside of the postpartum period.

I Looked Up Extremely Specific Baby Stuff on the Internet

I was never one to really go down the Reddit rabbit hole in my child-free life. But once I became a mom, I dove headfirst into the baby forums to find answers and shared experiences from the parents before me in an attempt to quell the fleeting and constantly changing concerns that felt extremely pressing at the time. 

Heard the term “dyschezia?” I hadn’t until I was convinced my infant son didn’t have the muscle coordination to poop yet, which was causing me to stress out in the early morning hours when I could hear him grunting in the bassinet next to me. Was he fine? Yes, and while I’m glad decades-worth of parental nuttiness is immortalized on the internet (we are not alone), I’m not sure it actually helped with my anxiety. 

I Listened to The Chicks (and Wept Uncontrollably)

I don’t have anything against The Chicks, I was just never really a fan, preferring to listen to everything from Nirvana and the Misfits to The Backstreet Boys and Michael Jackson. It’s not that I don’t have varied taste in music, I’ve just never particularly liked country music. So when I asked Alexa to play “baby music” one morning while I was holding my son, their song Lullaby came on and—to my surprise—I absolutely lost it. I was sobbing before they could even get the first verse out. I’m going to blame it on my hormones, but, truthfully, even now, I get a little weepy when I hear that song. To me, it’s perfect.

I Screamed at People I Love

Generally, I’m pretty calm and laid back, but during postpartum that all changed. Not only did I have an undercurrent of irritation that coursed through my veins, but it exploded in ways I wasn’t prepared for. I remember one day wanting to get outside and take my son for a walk in the stroller. I mentioned it to my husband, who mumbled a “give me a minute” type response that lodged itself just under my skin. 

I waited. I waited some more. The anger started bubbling. Exasperated, I shot up in a huff, strapped the baby into the stroller, and stormed out the door. My husband followed after chasing me down the street bewildered. I don’t remember exactly what I said, but I know it was irrational and I screamed it, not caring that our neighbors could hear while on their completely non-ragey walk. 

The bad news is I couldn’t really go back and explain to those neighbors that I’m actually a very nice person, but the good news is the seething anger calmed down relatively quickly for me. 

I Wrote a Poem

I once told an English professor in college that I wanted to be a poet—like, as a profession. After he was done laughing, he said I’d probably have to find a day job, too. Sadly, I think that was the last time I wrote a poem, as the rigors of a Master’s program and then entering the workforce had a way of stifling those creative juices. Fast-forward 15 years, I was stuck at my desk in the middle of the night—hooked up to the yellow behemoth—and I was hit with the most overwhelming wave of love. 

I couldn’t think of anything else, it was like an oxytocin fire raging through my nervous system. I knew the only way to get relief was to write it all down, like I used to when life was big and new and exciting. So, I scribbled like my hand was possessed, and out came a poem about being swallowed whole by the love I felt for my son. It’s certainly not an award-winner and it will never pay the bills, but it hangs in his room as a reminder of the lovesick ache I felt as a new mom, which I won’t—and don’t want to—ever recover from.