Self-Care at the Beach
Read Time: 6 Minutes
Words by Rachel Nevergall
It’s another hot day in early July and the children tear across the lawn ahead of me towards the beach. Their squeals of delight at the water splashing their faces tells me they wasted little time before plunging into the lake with abandon. They have little patience for the slow arrival of my 39 weeks pregnant body. I find their sandals and cover-ups deserted on the shore in the same trailing manner they shed their apparel in our home. But to them, this might as well be our home. We are here nearly every day. It is summer in Minnesota, the trophy earned after a long, frozen winter.
The beach is busy, but I am relieved to see a shady spot open under the giant elm canopy.
"Is this a good place?" my husband, Mike, asks, walking up behind me, his arms weighed down with bags.
"Yes, the beach blanket should be in that bag." The weekends are a relief to me when he can join us, for the company but also, if I'm honest, for the carrying of all of the things. Four towels, three sand buckets, two life jackets, two changes of clothes, three water bottles, a cooler of snacks, and a large blanket is surprisingly heavy when the beach ball in the front of your body is growing by the minute.
I am eager for the water, too. I shed my maternity dress, the one I plan on burning when this is all said and done, and make my way to the shore like a camel to a watering hole. I say camel because this is how I feel at this point—round, humpy, slow, hot. I ignore the sideways glances at my body by the other beach patrons. I don’t care, not anymore. The shelter of the water is in my sight and it calls to me—come, enter, release.
My feet squish into the sand as I walk further into the lake. While the air temperatures today are well into the 90’s, the water is still frigid from the ice that melted only two months ago. (Did I mention the long winters?) The water is like that first sip of lemonade, ice clinking in the glass before the sun melts it away. But I don’t squeal like the children. Instead the water welcomes me, and I her. Surround me, I say to her. Gather me in. Hold me up. Give me comfort.
And she does. I reach waist deep water, let my legs float, close my eyes, and release an audible groan. The sensation is as if I removed my pregnant belly like the dress on the shore. At a time when gravity taunts me, in the water I am weightless and free.
Content now, I leave the lake to settle myself under the shade. I drape a towel over my belly, now very much aware of its obtrusive presence. Soon, Mike escapes the kid’s game of tag and joins me on the blanket, splashing the cool water on my body while he towels off. Normally this would cause me to complain. Today, I welcome the water.
We sit quietly, our shared attention on the children. I wonder if his thoughts match mine, about how our lives will change in only four days’ time. I say this with confidence for the delivery is scheduled. After two emergency C-sections, you succumb to what your body requires and schedule the surgery. I felt a wash of relief that day, too.
I should be worried right now, of the unknowns that lie ahead. But whether it's the sun on my back, the joy in my children’s voices, or the comfort that comes from experience, today I only feel happiness.
My mind doesn’t let me linger too long, though. The cool water has already evaporated from my skin. The heat of the sun shocks me back into the present.
Our lives will change in only four days’ time, I think again, this time with trepidation.
It’s nearly dinner time and I will need to call them out of the water soon. There will be whining, and it will be annoying, but I will understand. I don’t want to go yet either.
For while I can’t predict life with three children, I know enough to admit those early days will be challenging. They always are. Postpartum depression has followed me after each previous pregnancy and I don’t expect this time to be any different. Maybe there will be relief on this aching belly, but a baby is just as heavy in your arms, and in your heart. I will need grace. I will need help.
I will need relief.
"Bring me back," My words come out a choked whisper, as I fight back hot tears gathering in my eyes. I link my arm in his and lean my head on his shoulder, his skin, still cool from the water, a relief to mine. He doesn’t ask me what I am talking about. He knows about my worries. This isn’t his first time either.
"Bring me back. To this water. To this beach. When it’s hard. I’m going to need this. I’m going to need to be reminded of what it feels like to be free."
"Of course we will," he answers back. Then he kisses the top of my forehead and I inhale his touch like a promise.
****
I crank up the window air conditioning unit before settling myself awkwardly on the bed. The blast of cool air is welcome to my sweaty hormonal body, but mostly I need the white noise to drown out the shrieks of noisy children downstairs. I try to find a position on the bed that doesn’t put strain on my abdominal scar while also keeping the baby asleep. Eight pounds of sleepy newborn is surprisingly heavy.
I am trapped, I think, by the weight of his body as much as the weight on my spirit. Even locked in my room while Mike, home on family leave, tends to the older siblings, I feel the weight of responsibility. There are so many needs to balance. How will I ever hold them all?
My phone alerts me to a text from Mike.
Want to go to the beach after nap?
I reach for the phone to decline. I want to tell him I can’t, that I’m overwhelmed and overstimulated, that the idea of sitting my postpartum body in the hot sun sounds worse than child labor, and clearly I know a thing, or three, about that. But I don’t always know how to admit my darkness in a text. All I can tap back with my one free hand is, Sure.
****
Again, we parade to our familiar spot on the beach. Again, the children shed clothes and sprint for the water. Again, Mike carries all of the things, but this time with the added weight of a car seat dangling over one arm. He sets it down with an abrupt thud on the grass, startling the baby but thankfully not waking him.
“Go,” he says before I have a chance to sit down. “Go in the water, cool off. I’ll sit with him.”
Again, I want to say no. The baby will wake soon, he’ll need me to feed him. I can’t swim anyway, not while my scars are still healing.
But while I watch him untangle the beach bags from his arms, snap life jackets around their drippy bodies, and gently rock a car seat to keep a newborn from stirring, I understand. This weight I carry, he carries, it is meant to be shared.
My maternity dress drapes in all the wrong places on my body and I’m not ready to remove it. Body conscious thoughts have returned. Instead, I decide I’ll just slip my feet into the lake. Reaching the water’s edge I inhale sharply from the shock of cool water on my skin, followed then by a long and slow exhale of relief.
Surround me, I say again. Gather me in. Hold me up. Give me comfort.
I’ve always said this to the water, but turning to see Mike on the shore keeping watch, I realize he heard me, too.
Even when I forgot, as the darkness settled heavy and suffocating on my spirit, he knew what I needed. He knew I would need to remember what it feels like to be content, to be free, to be weightless. And he knew this because I told him. Maybe I can’t escape the weight of postpartum depression, but this time I recognized what could bring relief, and asked for it.
I am only ankle deep in the water, but I close my eyes all the same, breathing in the familiar sensations of the beach, our home. I’m not weightless in the water, but I feel lighter, as if I removed the weight of overwhelm and left it on the shore for someone else to carry for a while. And he does, just as he promised he would.
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About the Author:
Rachel Nevergall lives in Minnesota with her husband Mike and three children. She is the curator of family adventures, lover of all of the library books, mixer of fancy cocktails, and writer in the in-between. She shares her stories as a regular contributor at Twin Cities Mom Collective, other online publications such as Coffee+Crumbs, The Kindred Voice Magazine, and Kindred Mom, as well as on her own blog RachelNevergall.com.
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