Despite all the anticipatory parenting done during pregnancy, despite weeks of feeling movement within and fantasizing about my baby, despite months of having strange dreams, worrisome thoughts, and musings about what kind of parent I was going to be, the first time I held Ethan in my arms and was called mommy... an awareness (up to this day) floods over me that life will never be the same again. Another human being is now dependent on me for survival... and guidance. And more than anything else, I want to be the best parent I can possibly be. That's a big responsibility.
I guess in a way, it's a bit similar to when my parents decided to teach me responsibility by giving me a dog -- except with cocker spaniels, you don't have to worry a couple of years down the line about midnight phone calls from the precinct or a gold-digging whore they might call a girlfriend. But I digress...
The past 4 weeks have been an experience beyond words. I never thought I could worry so much about miniscule skin imperfections, or whether 4 hours of inconsolable crying warrants a call to the pediatrician. It's like being in a maze, completely oblivious to where I should go and when I'm going to get there. Getting out of the house takes all day (no matter how much planning gets done beforehand) and some days I don't even achieve that. Part of the problem is sleep deprivation which makes every chore twice as hard. Night feeds mean having been up two or three times, possibly up to two hours at a stretch to 'settle' Ethan back to sleep. I wish sometimes Mike would make the extra effort to get up at least once during the night to change him, but I guess they're not programmed quite the same (That's something we'll have to seriously work on when I get back to work). And I have yet to master the obvious advise to pass out whenever he does during the day... especially when that is the only time I find I can use to get anything done around the house... including finding time to fix myself something to eat. Many times, I have to resort to TV dinners since I can at least handle holding Ethan on one arm while maneuvering the microwave on the other.
The conspiracy of silence surrounding these first few weeks have left me feeling like I was ALL ALONE in facing a minefield of identity crisis, confusion, out-of-control emotions, exhaustion, lasting physical pain, and sometimes mourning for my former life. Until I realized that I got a bout of what they nonchalantly call the baby blues, around a week after giving birth... not too long after my mom went back home and Mike permanently back at work. But let's just look at the facts: crying baby (seemingly for no reason at times), no sleep, hormones all over the place, sore breasts, and going back to sanitary wear not seen since the age of 13. Is it any wonder I was in tears? Mike sneered everytime I showed the slightest evidence of a mood swing, but I didn't care. Eventually, I just told him I was sad, and he understood that was his cue to try to be the understanding one. I'll take all the sympathy I get.....
1 comment:
Those hormones really do a job on you. It gets easier. It's good advice to "sleep when the baby sleeps" but I did not do that either. Somehow sleeping in two-hour snatches throughout the day did very little for my sheer exhaustion. Plus, it just wasn't practical. Those first six weeks were so unbelievably difficult! But they go by in a blur and now the memory of them is foggy, to say the least. You'll be alright!
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