17 diapers

The first few months after having a baby can feel like you're living in a fog. You're running off of little to not sleep, barely any food and almost no direct natural light. Sometimes opening the curtain in those first couple of weeks makes you feel like you've turned into a vampire who'll burst into flames because suddenly the sun seems overly aggressive.

But while in that haze of new parent survival, you're also overloaded with love chemicals from your baby as all of your hormones dive off of a cliff. It's really quite uncanny in so many ways, yet there doesn't seem to be enough appreciation for the hormonal, chemical, emotional and physical changes people go through to bring life into this world.

If you've ever had a baby then you completely understand why certain household tasks get dropped, especially if you're without a village. Hannah, a mom of two littles, one just barely 3 weeks and the other is almost two years old. She is overwhelmed as evidenced by a recent video that went viral, which also unfortunately opened her up to mom shaming.

Hannah wanted to show the realities of parenting two babies under two while her partner was out of town. The freshly postpartum mom shares that she wasn't really feeling well so diapers around her house piled up so she decided to collect them after the kids were asleep.

person wearing gray shirt putting baby on scale Photo by Christian Bowen on Unsplash

"Let's clean up all of the dirty diapers I have around my house right now. I kid you not, my guess is probably 15. I don't own a diaper pail or a Diaper Genie or whatever they're called. They just kinda get thrown around my house [the diapers] and then we just collect them in a bag at the end of the day and take them out to the dumpster, so I've been solo parenting for the last 24 hours so we're going to see how many dirty diapers we have lying around with just two kids," Hannah says.

She then gets a plastic shopping bag and collects the neatly rolled diapers. This seemed to trigger some people, specifically women who decided to tell her in the comments as well as make multiple videos shaming her for having diapers around her house. It was surprising to see so many women pile on with more than one saying she someone should call child protective services. But the shock from the unfortunate discourse caused a deeper conversation about the postpartum period.

Moms who weren't afraid to share the reality of the season of hard that is the postpartum period, also known as the 4th trimester, came out in droves to support the young mom. The ugly mom shaming turned into a beautifully raw expression from moms who are still in the trenches and those who remember what it was like in the trenches, with the trend, "My 17 Diapers." Under that hashtag videos of moms being vulnerable about their experience are drowning out the negative, causing some moms to apologize for their original judgmental stance.

One mom shares her experience saying, "I had all the luxuries and amenities that I thought I would need to take care of this baby. Two to three weeks after having this baby I felt like I was having a out of body experience. I was here, but I'm just here. I didn't feel connected to this baby, I didn't feel like myself and I didn't want to say anything because people are going to think that I'm crazy."

The woman explains that this went on for several weeks until she asked a neighbor for help while in tears because she couldn't bring herself to care for her child. She shares that the neighbor called her husband at work who came home and helped get her into the doctor, who then prescribed medication.

Another mother uploads a video sharing her postpartum experience, "I'm 10 weeks postpartum and I don't have 17 diapers but I don't remember the last time I showered. I don't have 17 diapers but I forget to take out my contacts every single night from exhaustion. I don't have 17 diapers but I cry in my car alone so my mom and my husband can't see."

Other moms shared that Hannah collecting 17 diapers around the house meant that her children were eating and clean, which is the most important part of the video. While one mom's video explains that 17 diapers around the house isn't necessarily normal but postpartum anxiety and depression can lead to situations like Hannah's which causes her to ask where is the village when someone notices this.

Overall the theme in every response video is that the struggles that happen during the postpartum period should be normalized and discussed so people can get the help that they need without feeling shame. While some of the responses are absolutely heartbreaking, it solidifies the need for this conversation which will hopefully continue on and off social media.