Postpartum Changed My Brain. Here’s What It Rewired.
New baby, new brain chemistry
I’m writing this on the eve of C turning nine months old. Nine months in the womb, nine months out in the world — our baby has officially doubled his existence since birth.
He is a whole different baby from the one that I met all those months ago. His eyes crinkle into a full-face smile when he’s around his favorite people. He (almost) dives out of my arms to greet our dog. He has an affinity for anything that lights up and makes noise — the car, the microwave, the thermostat. Our little tech bro. He houses meat sauce and reaches for his favorite books, which makes me melt into a puddle every time.
And in this time, I am a whole different person, too. From the way I think and how I prioritize my time, to the dreams I have for our future and how I show up for myself through it all — everything has shifted.
In the days leading up to his birth, I wrote about reframing maternity leave as a maternity sabbatical, a period of transformation and integration of a new reality.
We will be doing the opposite of calling out. Rather, we are upleveling: mastering new levels of being and productivity, and unlocking powers and capabilities we didn’t know we had in ourselves.
I am still very much in the thick of postpartum. Yet now after nine months, I have just enough distance to begin untangling the wildness of those early weeks. I was softened by the profound beauty of it all, and simultaneously lit like a fireball — shaken awake, unwilling to settle back into the status quos that shaped my pre-baby world.
I’m going to try, the best I can, to describe what I mean here. I knew having a baby would change parts of me, unlocking new capacities within myself and fundamentally rewiring my brain. I just didn’t think it would change all of me.
The Mothermind Shift: On Creativity, Rage, and Radical Rest
#1 - My creativity has been amplified, not destroyed.
There’s a real fear that becoming a parent will consume us—that our creative lives will evaporate under the weight of care. And in those earliest postpartum weeks, I felt it.
The joy and adrenaline of new motherhood was laced with grief for the life I had known before. I craved time to write, to process the baby blues and intensity of it all (beyond the near-daily cathartic shower cry). But even the mundane felt impossible to manage. By the evening, my heart would break with the realization that I had not given any love, any pets to our pup that day, despite her shadowing our every move with the baby.
But it got better. And as my capacity slowly returned—for myself, our household, our rhythms—I found that my desire to create didn’t fade. It sharpened. It grew louder.
Becoming a mother didn’t strip away my creativity; it deepened it. It challenged me to get more creative with the how of a creative life, and become more anchored in why I create at all.
I am fueled by a sense of purpose and urgency that I did not have before our baby came. My senses are heightened, and I feel a rally cry to make work that matters—for my own growth, for our family’s future, to model a creative life for our children, and to play my part in shaping a more beautiful, equitable world.
I worried that motherhood would swallow my identity. What I’ve found is that it has only expanded and added dimension to it.
ICYMI: a peek into the making of my 100 Days series:
#2 - Parenting is political.
It’s a mindfuck to realize that when we started trying for a baby in 2022, I had more protections and rights to my bodily autonomy and reproductive health, than I do now.
To be freshly postpartum while watching our country spiral into what feels like a real-life Black Mirror episode is torture. There is a deep, specific rage in me — that so many treat the erosion of rights for women, LGBTQ+ people, and minority and marginalized groups as nothing more than political tradeoffs and acceptable collateral.
This is not politics as usual, not a simple difference between the blue and red. It is a moral and ethical crisis. I carry a very specific anger — that in the eyes of many, our rights are not sacred, but expendable and negotiable.
And I transform that rage through how I mother. My identity and approach to motherhood is shaped so much by a sense of uncompromising values and accountability — as not just a political stance but a daily practice (and yes, for my own party and actions, too).
This is not about just teaching our kids to play nice at the playground — it’s helping them understand the power and promise of a world that is just and equitable, if we have the courage to fight for it. That under no circumstance do we put others down to lift ourselves up.
One thing I know for sure: our son was born with a spine, and we’ll raise him to stand tall—especially when it’s uncomfortable, especially when it matters most.
#3 - Tuning out is my default state.
Modern motherhood comes with so much noise. The parenting accounts, the product recs, the constant stream of what I should be doing with my baby, what I should be reading, learning, optimizing, staying on top of. The emotional labor of simply keeping up can feel like a full-time job.
And that’s without even mentioning the news cycle. There’s always another headline to digest, another call to action.
I am becoming much more comfortable with tuning out as my default state, and being intentional with when and how I tune in — how I consume my news and media, how I engage productively in politics, how I show up on Substack, and when I go into business mode vs mom mode.
I used to think multitasking was a sign of strength. Now I see that presence is a muscle to forever strengthen.
Now, I’m much less compromising on my boundaries when it comes to what I’m doing, what I’m focusing on, and what I have time/energy for in a given conversation. I make it a rule not to have my Airpods in around the baby, to leave my phone in another room when it’s playtime, to change my environment if the energy is not serving me. I’m learning to trust that I will get to the rest of life’s to dos in their own time, that things are not as urgent as I used to think they are.
So much of this is for our children. I don’t want to model a distracted life. I want them to see that deep focus, real presence, a mind unburdened by noise—those are the norms we’re allowed to claim.
And so much of this is for me. There’s a quiet liberation in living like your own energy is worth guarding.
#4 - I’m the first person I take care of now.
Since becoming a mom, I don’t think I’ve ever been better at taking care of myself. And I’m fiercely proud of that. It feels radical, but it shouldn’t.
If you’re even in the general vicinity of MomTok, you’ve probably seen this making the rounds:
“The quality of a mother's happiness is the number one indicator as to whether or not their child will grow up to thrive.”
It might sound dramatic. But when you live it—when you see your own energy reflected in your baby’s face—it lands differently.
Reframing my self-care as a foundation for family care = revolutionary.
That looks like skipping dishes to get in a solo workout. Sitting beside my baby while he plays and reading a few pages of something just for me. Naming and claiming my need for rest, and doing it in the open, without apology.
Rest and self-care has turned into a sacred practice. In Women Who Run with the Wolves, Estés writes about “the most important of women’s cycles,” — “the return to home, the wild home, the soul-home.”
“It is right and proper that women eke out, liberate, take, make, connive to get, assert their right to go home. Home is a sustained mood or sense that allows us to experience feelings not necessarily sustained in the mundane world: wonder, vision, peace, freedom from worry, freedom from demands, freedom from constant clacking. All these treasures from home are meant to be cached in the psyche for later use in the topside world.”
Motherhood has helped me recognize and “return home.” In doing so, I show up with so much more presence and capacity to care for my family.
I’m excited for my son to see this version of me—not burned out and stretched thin, but steady. Grounded. Joyful. A mother who shows up fully because she knows how to return to herself first.
Nine months in, nine months out.
I’m still figuring it out, but I’ve never felt more grounded in myself.
And I’m so grateful to be part of this growing community of mother-writers on Substack, each sharing stories that are simultaneously intimate and universal.
Also—small joy—I was honored to have my breastfeeding story included in a recent round-up by
, whose work beautifully uplifts the voices of mothers everywhere.Reading through that collection, I was struck by the threads that unite us—resilience, tenderness, struggle, and the deep, unwavering love that shapes everything we do.
