‘Transforming into a parent is messy and primal: I drew it all’: Becky Barnicoat on turning motherhood into cartoons

The baby books promised so much, but failed to help at all – so I started making cartoons about the sweaty, sweary and often naked truth about new motherhood

• Read an extract from Cry When the Baby Cries

I was one week into parenthood, and in the worst physical condition of my life: greasy, bleeding, exhausted, with a swollen, purple wound across my abdomen. I was tired to the point of dissociation, but also performing a new role with impressive conviction. Smiling at my baby, moving him assuredly towards my nipple: I was playing the part of a mother who knows what she is doing and is loving it.

There was love, or at least a disorienting swell of emotion. It was all so very blurry. Tears streamed from my eyes in satisfying gushes, as I discovered the “smile” a newborn makes after drinking milk. I was happy – these were happy tears. Could I just have a moment to take all of this in? Could someone take the baby for a few days while I recover? No?

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