Baby Town

The Radically Mundane, Psychedelic Realm of Postpartum

How do you describe the postpartum experience? My friends and I have been calling it Baby Town and it really does feel like you’ve entered a different place, a different space and time; an alternate reality. It is at once overwhelming and boring, blissful and fucked up, psychedelic and mundane, magical and depressing; all while being raw, bloody, and primal. It’s easy to feel overstimulated and isolated while nearly never being truly alone. This time can be ecstatic and full of grief in the same moment, exhausting and all consuming. The complete miracle of creating and welcoming new life while mourning the death of your old self, before this tiny alien creature showed up and changed everything; the spring time of renewal, compost, blooming, and decay.

I’m currently about 8 weeks postpartum. My milk came in on day 2 and I woke up with rock hard giant freaky porn-star tits. I walked in to the bathroom, groggy eyed and bleary after a night of not sleeping. I looked in the mirror an…