Reflecting on New Motherhood

I can remember the arrival of my first child into the world like it happened yesterday. My second actually seems like longer ago than the first.

The first was a fairy tale delivery. The labor every woman dreams of. Fast with some cramping, then pushing and 4 hours later, a baby to hold! This all happened between the hours of 8:45pm and 12:44am. I never slept that night. Filled with excitment and questions of what just happened, and was that really labor? Then the stream of visitors to the hospital. First grandbaby on both sides of the family.

That night I was ready to crash, but I felt pressured to give nursing a try which seemed like an every 30 minute ordeal. I figured that I could sleep when I went home the next day. Babies sleep a lot, right? Sleep when the baby sleeps was the advice everyone gave.

He came home on a crisp fall day. I should have known something was in the air, as he was born on a hot and humid summer night, just 2 days before. Everything had changed. I walked up the driveway a different person than I had walked down it just 2 days ago. I look back on the first 4 weeks of his life as hellish and a complete absence of sleep. I learned that post partum depression is more than just crying about nothing, or feeling a little sad when you should really be happy. For me it meant wanting my body back, wanting to sleep, wanting to be a human again. I knew I hit rock bottom when my husband came home from work 2 weeks into the motherhood thing, took one look at me and said, You really don't like him, do you? I broke down crying because ya know what? I really did not like him. He refused to sleep more than a half hour at any given time, refused to nurse, and basically cried between all of that. I handed my husband the baby and went and packed up the breast pump. I was done. I couldn't wait to wake up (from a half hour sleep of course) dry, fit into my normal bras, and not spend hours pumping only to pour it into a bottle to feed to him.

Then there was the issues of visitors. During his first couple weeks...people came out of the woodwork to visit. Not at the best hours or on the best days. I think I can even recall hiding and pretending that we weren't home for one visitor. When one visitor called to ask when would be a good time, I told her in 10 months? I was serious...but she laughed and came an hour later bearing a seasonally inappropriate outfit and a basket of scary bath gels for me. I was in no mood to visit. My favorite visitors were my husband's friends we had not seen or heard from in 3 years. They had heard through the grapevine that we were expecting, and thought they'd drop in to see. Weren't they excited to be able to see the baby on just our second night home from the hospital! They showed up at 8pm and stayed till 10pm. I was exhausted and very pissed off.

Of course things settled a bit (just in time to return to work and take him to a babysitter!) and I got glimpses of what it was like to enjoy your baby. I was allowed a small chunk of sleep here and there and granted myself a hot shower and at least a blow dry a day, whether he was crying or not.

Baby number 2 joins the life you already have in progress, as opposed to your joining the life of your first. There were other issues going on and that is a separate blog posting, but all in all the second, the girl, was much smoother.

Since becoming a Mom, I have become an aunt to 3 nieces, the 3rd being born just over a week ago. She lives a couple of hours away with my brother and sister in law. I haven't been able to see her yet, due to logistics, life and their own new parenting jigsaw puzzle they are trying to sort through. My brother emailed me just last night to cancel our planned visit today to meet her, due to exhaustion and plans to catch up on sleep and pumping. While a bit hurt, and saddened, I can recall all too well the feeling of wanting the world to go away and just be able to find a piece of myself again...