Mom's Posts About Non-Stop Hospital Visitors After Giving Birth Goes Viral

Having a baby isn’t just a major milestone. It also involves a lot of changes to the mother’s mind and body. Going into labor is stressful and, most of all, exhausting, so it’s important that women have time to recuperate afterwards.

Blogger and new mother Katie Bowman wrote about her labor and delivery experience, including the difficult part she wasn’t anticipating at all: dealing with visitors so soon after having her baby.

Her post went viral.

We all know that people, especially family, want to see a newborn, but that also can translate into surprisingly little regard for the mother who just brought this new life into the world. She needs some rest, people!

Bowman posted an intimate picture of herself looking exhausted on a hospital bed. She went on to write about her experiences giving birth and dealing with visitors who had good intentions but totally failed to consider her needs.

“A picture really is worth 1000 words.

This is me, roughly 24 hours after giving birth to my eldest. I have no idea who took the picture, but you can probably already tell how I feel just by looking at it.

1 or 2 days. Is that too much to ask for?
1 or 2 days for a new mum to come to terms with the fact she had a tiny human emerge from her body. 1 or 2 days for her to finally have a shower and wash the sweat and blood from her body. 1 or 2 days for her to push through the pain of her sore nipples as she learns to breastfeed. 1 or 2 days for her to try to have some sleep because she is absolutely exhausted.”

She spoke about the physical pains and difficulties of being immediately post-childbirth, and how even if you want privacy, it’s almost impossible to get. And somehow, while all the visitors are getting pictures taken with the newborn, she had to ask for one.

“Everyone is so excited to have a photo with the new baby, the new mum doesn’t get a photo with her own damn baby! I had to ask for a photo with mine, other than that one photo, the only others I have are of her fresh out of my uterus, with us laying there naked and covered in blood. Thank you to the saintly midwife who was kind enough to grab my phone and capture the most precious photos that exist to me. From there on, it’s mostly selfies.”

Bowman’s post is still live and resonated with so many other moms.