The "fifth" trimester

How life returned in the spring

My son was born, a week late and a little after sunrise, on December 21st, the winter solstice. Arriving at such an auspicious time in the natural calendar—at the end of the longest night, as the sun begins his annual return—might make it seem like he must have been delivered in the woods, summoned by the burning of sage. Alas, not. He was summoned by pre-labour rupture of membranes, Pitocin, a failure to progress in the second stage and delivered via Cesarean-section.

Still, that he arrived at the official shifting of the seasons has made it impossible to ignore that his life, and mine, have seemed to keep a cadence with them ever since. In the depths of winter, when he was a tiny newborn, we stayed cloistered and cosy inside. The days felt short, the nights endless. He graduated to a proper “baby”—and I from the insular chaos of the fourth trimester—as the daffodils poked their heads up. We became creatures of the daytime, of the park. He can now go hours between feeds, which only take ten minutes, and a couple between naps. He learned how to roll over on a sun-dappled picnic blanket and started to grasp at the newly emerging leaves. It feels like he has blossomed. He smiles easily and often, has discovered toys and books and play.

my friend studio-ghiblified (via ChatGPT) a picture of my son and I visiting the cherry blossoms in DC

That things are “easier” is clear in all kinds of weird metrics I never knew existed. I have not had to pull the car over, put the hazards on and emergency feed my son in the backseat for weeks now. I can put him down for long enough to go to the bathroom alone. I used to get a bad case of the “sundown scaries” and prepared for the nighttime with all the diligence of a solider headed off to war. I would stuff diapers, wipes, spare clothes, swaddles and crib sheets into a caddy to take into the bedroom; refill my gigantic water bottle and amass a collection of snacks, nipple shields and letdown collectors on my nightstand. Now, I put my son to bed in his own room and expect to nip back in there, on a good night, just once or twice to feed him. I do other things now, like read books and write newsletters. As new life emerged my own life returned: I go to museums and parks and even travel. Many of my friends are now heading back to the office (although I am on mat leave a while longer).

I think this is the big process that takes place in the “fifth trimester”, if we are still counting them. (The word trimester comes from the Latin for “three” and “months”—so I figure we can have as many as we want). It is when life—beyond baby, with baby—really begins again.

At the risk of mixing metaphors, the fourth trimester is like a thunderstorm. It feels wild, powerful and terrifying. Mother nature swallows you whole, converting you to her kind. The chaos is exhilarating, all-consuming and at times very joyful—in the same way you might laugh in surrender when caught in a downpour. While it is happening the storm is all there is: you are living it, dealing with it, it is all that matters until it passes. The fifth is about more than just survival—it is about adaptation. It is, in many ways, is the process of trying to claw little pieces of your life back.

As I reach the other side of this period I think I have learned two things. The first is that you have to claw, well, kind of hard—squeeze whatever it is you want to do into short and specific windows of opportunity. Yes, it is now possible to shower everyday! But you either use one of three precious nap times a day to do it—or you pop your child, after he is fed and changed, into a baby Björn bouncer in the bathroom, strap on the toy bar and hope it keeps him entertained long enough for you to wash your hair. The storm might have passed—but running errands is a bit like running them in the rain. You are always slightly damp, a bit disheleved, in a rush to just get things done and get home.

The second is that this sense that you should be doing more than surviving by now—in some ways it can make problems that arise during the fifth trimester harder to endure. Just making it through the day was fine a couple months ago, but it should be easier now. Yet it is a period marked by all the unevenness of spring: there are sleep regressions and surprising feeding issues. In real time it felt as though I was back in survival mode, barely hanging on. But in hindsight it is easier to see that these were blips—a late frost that nipped off a few buds, not a catastrophe.

My fifth trimester has been bookended, somewhat randomly, by two trips to Boston. The first was kind of a disaster: it drizzled endlessly (clock the inspiration for my many weather-based metaphors). The baby hated being in his stroller and hated his carrier too. We spent the whole time clutching a fussing child in our arms, praying we would not trip as we carried him over slippery and uneven cobblestones. He was going through his sleep regression phase. His diapers, weirdly, kept leaking. When we boarded the flight home my son was down to the very last outfit I had for him—the only one that was not soiled. It was, in short, miserable—and it felt like a cruel trick that we had to return here only a few weeks later.

But my husband and I have been on the road for the last two weeks or so—attending a wedding, spending a week on Cape Cod and going to a younger sibling’s graduation—and it has been a delight. My son has napped happily in his car seat, or in our carrier. I have fed him quickly in the backseat, parked by a beach, or in an armchair in a cafe. We know how the travel stroller folds, now. He has started giggling: at flight attendants, at strangers on buses, when we kiss his belly. We are adapted now, at least a little bit. Our lives returned in the spring.