You’ve had your baby. You’re in the thick of the newborn haze, soaking in the snuggles, healing your body. But your house is also a wreck, you’ve been eating takeout for weeks, and you don’t know the last time you showered. Perhaps your partner has returned to paid work (if they were able to get any time off at all) and you are spending hours alone, caring for a newborn. You might be wondering, at this point: “Where the heck is my village?”

Modern medicine has tricked us into thinking that postpartum only lasts the first 6-8 weeks, but in reality, it lasts a lot longer. Some say the entire first year, some say until you stop chestfeeding, others say it can last up to 7 years, and then there’s the fact that infancy lasts up to age 3. The truth is, the identity shift you experience as a mother, even if it’s not your first baby, lasts forever. You are always discovering new parts of yourself as your children age and come into their own.

Having a baby should be the happiest time of your life, right? After 9-10 long months, several hours of labor, to say nothing of the planning you may have gone through to even get pregnant, your bundle of joy is finally here. But you feel…lonely. Why is that? And why does no one talk about it?