Bringing a life into the world for the first time is far from being a simple task, even disconcerting and painful, which is not exempt from love, tenderness and mutual learning.
For Erika, Estephanie and Daniela, everything they were told and read about motherhood fell short of their own experience.
Loneliness, sadness and insecurity are also elements of an equation in constant construction.
New mothers face endless situations and emotions to overcome, a mixture of intense feelings, where the euphoria of first contact and love at first meets natural uncertainties.
That is known by discard, at least in theory.
However, each case presents very particular challenges and difficulties, which can trigger a permanent feeling of anguish, guilt and fear.
This added to the expected physical and psycho-emotional fatigue, but above all to a social pressure inherited by old patterns, today in question.
For the psychotherapist Guadalupe Esperanza García García, individual and group psychoanalyst for more than 20 years, the maxim “being a good mother” is a cross that mothers have historically carried on their backs and that only recently has moved from place.
“Many stigmas are made, being a good mother is one of them and all parents are disobedient and bad people is another.
No. I think we should have a balance because there are good, committed men who care and who have to get up at night, lull them to sleep, feed them or take them to what she works with, those people do exist.
The new generations even want to have them, take care of them and love them (...).
But the issue is also that as women we give the other a chance to enter and leave aside that part of being a good mother, which does not necessarily have to do with being with the child all the time or giving him everything, or loving him ideally, " assures the specialist.
No one told me... but I learned
One of the first recurring challenges is the care and feeding of the baby.
For Erika Rivadeneyra, a 40-year-old mother, the lack of references led her down an empirical path of trial and error that, although painful and problematic at first, in the long run became a pillar of help for other mothers.
“No matter how much information you find on the internet, and there is too much, not only hard data but also opinions and experiences, no matter how much they tell you, the experience is very different.
For example, nobody told me that babies make noises at night.
I woke up worried during the first nights of my son's newborn, afraid because I had heard about the famous 'crib death'.
What I solved by myself was with a mirror close to his face to make sure he was steaming.
And I stayed like that for more than a month, because I didn't know if he really had something or if he just moved, accommodated himself.
“Also when I breastfed him, it hurt quite a bit.
I was close with the breast milk league information, so I knew it shouldn't hurt, but I never produced enough milk.
I thought I was doing something wrong: my skin was falling off and when I took a bath, the water caused me pain.
I went to courses and informed myself but it was still the same, and my son cried all the time, unless he was glued to me.
What happened was that he was very hungry and I went with what they told me, that the milk was enough, that his stomach was filling up quickly and the truth is that it wasn't.
There came a time when my nerves were very bad.
And then the bottle and the pacifier came in and it changed, my son was already sleeping longer”, says Erika.
In the case of Daniela de la Rosa, a 33-year-old mother, the unexpected arrival of her little girl added the condition of congenital hypothyroidism, which required special care and learning far from the canons.
For Daniela, the best way to raise her daughter was through what she herself communicated to her.
“Medical things or things related to food, raising my daughter from this condition, making decisions based more on the information I receive from Aurea herself (her daughter), how she reacts and others, and not so much because of what the parents told me. the rest.
“Or for example the issue of processed foods.
I'm not against it, but my daughter doesn't like them, so I had to get involved with a vegetable processor.
And there are more practical moms, but everyone handles things as she can.
And an important message also emerges there: stop criticizing maternity hospitals that are not like yours.
I learned it from my daughter's condition, because you also don't know what the others are suffering”, emphasizes Daniela.
For a journalist focused on corroborating information and seeking highly valuable advice like Estephanie Suárez, 32, the most practical path was to become more independent from her skills, instinct, and technological tools.
“If Luciano (his son) gets sick, the first thing I do is look him up on the internet.
It's risky because there is too much information and recommendations on home remedies, etc., but I'm going to the basics: if he has a fever, bathe him on the back of the neck, on the forehead.
I also begin to segment and contrast this type of information, not only when he gets sick, in the process of growing up I have also looked for things about food, what he could eat at what age, recommendations.
But when it comes to illnesses, I am even more careful,” says Estephanie.
Between clumsiness, fear of trial and error, intuition, deep love, and learning that is more practical and self-taught than theoretical, for some new mothers the key is to do what you can with what you have, by far detail in the observation and in what works for them without aspiring to perfection.
As Erika says: “the mother-child binomial has its own ecosystem, it is unique.
Even as mothers with more children say, who recognize that each one is different and represents different challenges.
In that search I discovered a cream that is very good and that I recommend to everyone, whether they are lactating or not, and so I have been discovering things on my own”.
“I did not bring Aurea into the world to satisfy myself, but because of the love she had with her father.
And I felt that a 'product' of that love was only going to bring more love into the world.
But those things tend to end in many cases, not all.
And if you did not work on your individuality, it is very likely that you will feel empty, even if you have the most adorable child in the world.
It happened to me.
And it's an everyday battle between being the most amazing mom in the world or being a witch.
I do not know what person Aurea will be because she is an individual in training and I have to respect that, ”reflects Daniela de la Rosa.
In this sense, Estephanie Suárez concludes: “If you are not thinking of having children, it is better that you do not do it, because it takes time and if you are not willing, no.
But for those who do, what I can tell you is that it is an inexplicable feeling and the tiredness ceases to exist when your baby calls you mom and stretches out his arms towards you.