So I would love to focus on the wonderful parts of parenthood as there are so many, but I don't feel I'm doing any future mommies good by doing what all others did to me. All I heard was "oh you'll fall in love the moment you see that little baby". Well, I didn't.
I spent nine months feeling like crap and donating my body to a sick science experiment. I woke up daily and did a stretchmarks search and reeked of a nasty blend of Vaseline and Palmer's Cocoa Butter (the smell still makes my stomach turn to this day). I had heartburn from five days before I knew I was pregnant until the second Boo was out of my body. In the last few months of pregnancy I gave up sleep (you try to sleep after gaining 30 pounds in your gut with a strong set of arms in legs in you paired with constant heartburn) and took up sciatic nerve pain as a nightly ritual instead.
Labor itself was fine lasting just over nineteen and a half hours. As I mentioned previously, his heart rate was dropping and he had to have CPR just after birth. I saw him and.....well, he looked like a wrinkly old man. Cute wrinkly old man, don't get me wrong. Daddy held him first while I chugged my first drink of water sans heartburn in 40 plus weeks and a doctor stitched up what was left of me. I held him and looked at awe at what I created. But that was about it. Crazy shit there really was a baby in there. Ok, now I'm flipping exhausted let's go to bed. So we did.
Wake up seven hours later (nurses gave me lots of crap about that thinking duh, I should have woken him up every two hours to feed him...hell no!) and blood blisters all over my nipples. And oh my god are you SURE there isn't another baby in this tummy? AND holy crap am I going to need a blood transfusion or something if I bleed another drop?!?!? We go home and life starts...or ends?
I had spent nine months obsessing over my pregnancy week by week and then hours on end obsessing over labor itself. I had never really taken the time to focus on everything after being discharged from the hospital. Sure people told me the sleep deprivation was rough, but no one really told me that I would feel like I just ran a 19 plus hour marathon after not sleeping well for several months...not to mention that labor is basically a major surgery to your body and you will hurt! So here I am exhausted and looking at this always hungry life sucker that won't even smile at me (babies don't smile until about six weeks old....they literally have nothing to offer but poop and demands at all hours of the night and day for the first several weeks of like).
I had ruined my life. OMG I HAD RUINED MY LIFE! Crap. I can't give him back because this wasn't an adoption. Maybe I can run away and not look back. Or (here's where it gets really rough) maybe I'll get lucky and he'll die of SIDS. I never once thought to inflict harm on him, but after a few months I realized these thoughts were definitely postpartum.
However, I find it hard to believe that most first time mothers don't have similar thoughts. I have spoken to several moms who have...especially moms who have no immediate connection and feel guilty because they're "supposed" to.
Anyhow, everything fell into place when I gave up trying to breastfeed and switched to formula when he was two weeks old. The little booger started looking at me when I fed him and slept much longer stretches of time. My body became mine again (well, more than when I was breastfeeding). By the time he was two months old we were two peas in a pod and are to this day. I had a much healthier attitude the second time around (at least in my opinion). I looked at Bubbi's first 6 weeks as pure survival mode. Once that precious baby gives you a smile everything is worth it and you can start to feel all the good things that are to come.
No comments:
Post a Comment