My baby is 4 weeks old. I can't even believe it. Later this week I have a post coming all about Sawyer and his first month of life, but today I wanted to talk about me. Selfish I know.
My mom and sister got to come visit me this weekend and it was wonderful. I love having them here. My mom and I got to talking about my pregnancy and having another baby. (We are definitely not planning baby 2 for quite some time, we were just talking.) Anyway, that got me reflecting on motherhood so far. And you know what? It's been hard.
I don't feel like I was properly prepared for how hard it would be. I didn't really enjoy being pregnant. What got me through some of the hard times was knowing I would have my baby at the end of it. I couldn't wait for Sawyer to get here. And I thought it was going to be pie. I like babies. Babies like me. I've changed babies, and calmed crying babies, and babysat. My mom raised 5 babies, and she made it look easy. I can totally do this. How hard could it be?
People told me I wouldn't be getting any sleep. People told me that my hormones would be a little crazy. People told me that breastfeeding can be tricky. But even with all of that, I was completely blindsided by how hard it was when all of that is combined, and how overwhelmed I felt.
There were days I just cried. For no reason, I couldn't help it. There were days, or nights rather, when I couldn't figure out how to calm my baby, or how to feed him, and he was crying and I was crying and I just felt completely helpless. And overwhelmed. And scared.
Normally I would never be able to admit all of this, and expose this scary, emotional, part of my life out here in this space. But you know what? We survived. Sawyer and me.
And now things are getting better. I can almost always calm him when he's crying. Last night he slept for 5 hours straight. We are almost nursing pros. It's getting easier each day. And I'm getting more and more confidant in this new role. And I love him. Boy do I love him. A little smile from him even in the hardest time, makes my heart melt.
We're still figuring some things out (like the moby wrap? Why is this thing so hard!?), but we're making it.
I don't think anyone can warn about how hard it is, it's a "you gotta go through it to know."" Lol. As you said though you make it through. Hey wait, wasnt I the one who told you the story of me saying I was gonna throw Ellie out the window ;)
ReplyDeleteLindy<3