Taking Your First Postpartum Poop When Your Family Is In Zoom Meetings & Classes

It’s been almost a decade, and I can still remember every detail — one of those of moments of motherhood that forever imprints itself on your soul. Filled with dread, wonder, and finally relief, I accomplished a task so daunting every mother can harken back to a similar moment: the first postpartum poop with two kids under 2.

It almost goes without saying that the baby chose that day as her first to not be put down, even for a second. So, the most feared bathroom moment of my life was spent with a newborn in my arms.

Next came the toddler. The outrageous, rambunctious toddler with a tiny, broken basketball hoop in her hands and a net that needed to be rethreaded NOW. Tears streamed down her cheeks, wails screamed from her throat, and it was the one problem I knew I could actually solve.

So, I did, right then and there.

Eight and a half years later — almost to the day — I sat on the toilet again. This time, two new kids under 2 joined me: the baby in my arms and the toddler climbing on a stool between the toilet and the sink.

The toddler from the first story, now an equally rambunctious, but a bit more patient tween, stood just outside the open bathroom door and gawked. “Let me help you!” she said, stunned at the scene. “You’re trying to go to the bathroom, and you have two babies in there!”

It was a sweet bookend to the memory from so long ago.

The next day was not.

After days of waiting, it was finally time to have that first postpartum poop, again.

This time, the toddler was napping, and the newborn was asleep in the swing. It’s time, I thought.

But as we’ve learned in the year 2020, nothing is as simple as it seems.

The baby and toddler were indeed asleep, but the three older kids were downstairs Zoom-schooling and the husband was in another room in Zoom-working.

The younger two elementary-aged kids were between classes while that same rambunctious tween sat next to them, headphones in, camera on, and laugh roaring. The littles (as we used to call them, now the middles) ran back and forth across the hardwood floors squeaking and squealing and yelling and laughing. God only knows what was so damn funny, but it was loud enough to make me stop.

I stood up and waddled — my giant postpartum diaper stretched between my knees — all the way out of the bathroom, past the sleeping newborn, and out into the upstairs hallway.

“BE QUIET!” I hissed over the half-wall down the stairs. “We have two babies napping, one person in a meeting and another in a class!”

As I waddled back to the bathroom and prayed I wouldn’t drip … well, anything on the carpet on my way back in, my mind immediately rushed back to that tiny basketball hoop from so long ago.

No matter what gets thrown her way, a mother will get shit done. And it will be a slam dunk.