Disclaimer: The following is my personal, sometimes raw experiences of the first three months of my daughter's life, whom I love very much. I bow to the greatness of the millions of mothers who have come before me and have exhibited much more grace than I did even when blessed with a perfectly healthy baby. Any judgments are not welcomed, but all understanding comments are. If you are pregnant or love newborns, read at your own discretion and please remember all children are different.
The entire time I was pregnant, people kept congratulating us. They would tell us how exciting it would be and how much joy would follow.
Some were honest that the newborn stage wasn't their favorite, while others swore how sweet it would be.
Then Eleanor was born, and thus began our journey into the newborn stage.
It really is cruel. You're body is put under tremendous stress being pregnant, then the physicality of labor and to top it off, you'll never sleep for longer than 2-3 hours at a time at night for months if lucky.
And if you're breast feeding, like I was, all feedings are left to you.
I knew breast feeding would be difficult, but her first two weeks were filled with breast feeding angst (a whole post unto itself is needed), her losing weight and exhaustion. But, Eleanor was still sleeping most of the time, and we were able to make all the appointments we needed to.
Then something flipped. She hated naps and nighttime. From 3 weeks until somehaze around 2 months she would cry, fuss and would refuse to be put down from 6-10 p.m. every night.
EVERY NIGHT.
EVERY. SINGLE. NIGHT.
She would sleep fine during the night, waking to eat and going to sleep most of the time, but that process would still take me about an hour each feeding.
The morning would always start with such promise. First nap would happen, second nap, then usually the snowball would occur in the afternoon. By the time SmithCale would get home from work the fussiness would set in.
I hated the evenings. It seemed like SmithCale always found time to play video games while I would sit in the dark bouncing on the yoga ball with her and cluster feeding her every two hours for an hour just to keep her quiet.
My life was in free-fall. I've never been depressed in my life, but the buckets of tears I cried for weeks after her birth said otherwise. The uncertainty of everyday and my inability to understand newborn-ese would leave me in tears and praying I would just go to sleep in my exhaustion and not wake up.
One night, she wouldn't go back to sleep, luckily SmithCale woke up to help. I remember just opening the blinds in the office and staring out the window, unblinking for who knows how long thinking, "how is this my life?". Then once they had both gone back to bed, I still couldn't sleep, and stared at the ceiling until almost morning.
I mourned the loss of my former life, which I loved very much, before she was born. I was angry that SmithCale was the one who really wanted children, and here I was doing all the hard work seemingly all by myself and feeling like a failure the entire time.
I missed my freedom. I felt foreign in my post partum body. And I couldn't imagine how my life would be a semblance of normal ever again.
Whenever I'd share with other mothers, some would give me an understanding "I've been there" while others would just offer pity and the hope it would calm down soon.
Then by 8-weeks I headed back to work and SmithCale began working from home. That helped my morale more than anything. Getting out of the house alone for hours helped my return to normal.
After a few weeks, it became abundantly clear sleep training was necessary (once again, another post unto itself).
At 3-1/2 months I decided to start weaning, and now that she's almost 4 months (tomorrow!), I can say that my psychological state is so much improved.
To sum up the newborn period, it was trying to say the least. I couldn't understand why nobody was truly honest before she was born about how ridiculous it would be.
Until I realized, even if they would have told me, I wouldn't have believed them.
And that maybe all these other mothers knew something I didn't; It would get better and you will be ok.
Now I know they were right.
Food for Life Lessons,
BSmith, forging one day at a time
Coming up next time: something foodie and involving cute baby pictures.
