So you get home with the little one, and start trying to set up a routine that works for you, the baby, and your spouse. You have time to reflect on the entire 9 months of "old sage advice" that was provided to you from the time you announced you were expecting.
Some, you find really works.. while most of it is absolutely worthless. While it may have worked for them, it really doesn't work for you.
Then the first growth spurt hits a week in.. you're up all night long with cluster feedings and a cranky baby. And your once harmonious home is now turned into diaper central, with two grouchy adults to accompany the cranky baby. Heaven forbid there's something like colic to throw in the mix.
You start going back through and cataloging the helpful advice in your mental files.. and you realize that nobody told you how exhausted you would be.
Another few days of sleepless nights and days roll by, and suddenly, you realize you cannot stand your spouse. When did this happen? HOW did this happen? For the last 7 years, you've lived harmoniously, happily, and joyously with this person who was your best friend.. now, even the sound of their voice annoys the living crap out of you. WHY did nobody tell me this?..you know they didn't tell you this, because you've cataloged it all, and you would vividly remember if someone told you this little tidbit of information.
At least you're realistic enough to have the forethought to NOT say anything to him about it..yet. It could be hormones, sleepless nights, or the fact that you are no longer YOU.. you are now Mommy. Nobody prepares you for that fact either.. you've been your own person for however many years (for me, it was 34) and all of a sudden that existence and identity no longer exists, because that precious package you look after day in and day out is going to call you Mommy, and you're his/her world. You still have happy sappy moments with your spouse, but gone is the contentment...in it's place, resignation. Especially after you spend all night long looking after a very cranky baby (while your spouse sleeps), crawl in bed at 2am when he's finally asleep, only to be shaken awake what feels like moments later by your spouse telling you he's had him for the last hour, and it's your turn again...you go get the baby from his nursery, and come back to the couch with a bottle.. look over at the clock, and even without your glasses, you see that it's 2:30am... WHAAAAT?.... So you lay on the couch for the next 3 hours, absolutely so mad that you couldn't sleep even if you were brave enough to lay your little angel down.. and you imagine ALLLL the ways you could kill your spouse and get away with it. (Incidentally, this is when you realize that it's most likely hormones that's making you hate him right now.. but you can't force yourself to care.).. The conversation when he finally got out of bed at 8am that morning was not a pretty one.. he laughed about it when he admitted to lying. Which very nearly sent me back to the plan making stage.. but then he let me sleep the entire day while he kept an eye on the baby. Redemption. :)
So after the first 6 months, it DOES get better...you and your spouse have started talking (after a few massive blow out arguments) and sharing how you're feeling rather than bottling those emotions up and allowing them to spew forth in a terribly corrosive & toxic stream of foulness when you have an argument. - And then you spend the next 2 years trying to repair the damage that the first 6 months of sleep deprivation and hormone imbalanced driven identity crisis caused.
I'm happy to say that 2 years later, I can say I didn't actually hate him.. and I only wish for a shovel and the energy to dig a body sized hole in the back yard on rare occasions...but I don't visualize it anymore. :) (I also stopped watching CSI and the real life crime shows on cable..they teach you WAY too much)..
Anyway, it's all normal. - What we have to remember, and what the men who love us have to remember.. is that for 9 months, we are walking around with enough hormones in our bodies to sustain TWO human beings. Never mind the fact that we are incubating and growing an actual human (how cool is that!?).. And then, suddenly, in ONE day, those hormones start depleting at a runaway bus down a winding icy mountain road speed... Sometimes they don't understand or realize what a roller coaster that takes us on..and we don't even realize it until we're in the midst of that ride, and we're floundering for a safety net. Just remember how awesome it was, and how much you loved your spouse before hand.. I don't think it will ever be the same as it was before you were more than a couple.. 99% of the time, it's better...and ever the optimist, I hold out hope that it will always be better than it was before. :)
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Life's Lessons: Becoming A Parent
Where SHOULD I start?
All of those feelings, all of those emotions...ALL of that waiting to get that precious miracle here and FINALLY be able to touch him (or her). All of those tears you've cried, and the plans you've made. All of the talks with your significant other/spouse, that run into the early hours of the morning. The wonder of the first flutter, the agony of the feet that seem to be permanently hooked on the bottom of your ribs as your child dangles bat style with his elbows out. The wondrous feeling as it feels as if your little bundle of joy is literally trying to pull the plug and let the water out of your womb. All of those late night trips to the bathroom, and there at the very end, all of those can't-get-comfortable nights.
The horrible (yes, I said HOR-RI-BLE..pronounce it with me.. HOAR-IH-BULLLLLL) labor. Mine was 27 hours and 49 minutes of HELLLLLLLLL. But (buffing my nails on my shirt)...I made it through the entire labor without screaming my lungs out like the poor woman who was giving birth to a small village AND a baby water buffalo in the room next to us the entire time I was trying to sleep the night before.
It's allllllllllll worth it. Every single pain, tear, heartache, fear. It's ALL worth it. It becomes worth it the moment the doctor lays that warm little body on your tummy and you feel that baby move.
My Mom, bless her heart, had 5 kids...well, 4 kids, and a clutz.. I'm the clutz. Anyway, she always told us that the pain of the birth is forgotten once you have your child in your arms. Oddly enough, I've heard other women lament the very same thing..
I call BULLSHIT. (Yes, the use of shouty capitals while accompanied by an underline should stress to you my vehemence when I typed that.)
While it was worth it.. 31 months later, I still haven't forgotten the pain or the struggle (neither has my bottom! but that's another story that I don't think I'll share. Ever.)...
Whether you are one of the lucky ones who realized you were 5 days late and got to pee on a stick to find out that you were pregnant, or like my husband & I (and untold thousands of other couples in the country) who had to beg, plead, cry, beg, and finally realize we'd tried everything but what we should have done all along.. PRAY, to get the chance to see the positive sign on a pregnancy test, that baby was worth EVERY. SINGLE. MOMENT of the effort. We will always be so very thankful to the REACH Clinic in Charlotte, NC and it's fantastic staff of miracle workers for the miracle they helped us make, but God showed us - all in HIS time...
That baby is now 31 months old (it seems to grown up to call him 2 & a half...I need him to be a baby just a little longer!)...and he's the shining light in our lives. He teaches us things daily.. usually it's how resilient he is as he stands at the back of the couch and skydives off to the floor, face first... or it's that no matter how long we have to put him in time out for riding the dachshund like it's a shetland pony, when we tell him we love him, he replies with "all my heart". It's that 2 or 3am run across the upstairs hallway where he climbs in bed with us and tells us he's scared and asks us to hold him... or the 4am "I want a honeybun.".... He's the breath I breathe, and if someone told me today that I could keep him free from harm, hurt, heartache, and keep him alive and breathing forever, if I would give them my last breath.. I'd do it in a heartbeat.
It's been a hard 2 and a half years.. but he's only little once.. so I'll take the sleepless nights, and the terrible 2's temper tantrums.. because one of these days, all too soon, Mommy's not going to be cool enough to hang with, and my bathroom trips will once again become mine...no more "What you doin' Mom?" as I try to do my business.. :)
It's nap time on a Saturday.. so my next revelations will have to wait. Hug your babies close!
All of those feelings, all of those emotions...ALL of that waiting to get that precious miracle here and FINALLY be able to touch him (or her). All of those tears you've cried, and the plans you've made. All of the talks with your significant other/spouse, that run into the early hours of the morning. The wonder of the first flutter, the agony of the feet that seem to be permanently hooked on the bottom of your ribs as your child dangles bat style with his elbows out. The wondrous feeling as it feels as if your little bundle of joy is literally trying to pull the plug and let the water out of your womb. All of those late night trips to the bathroom, and there at the very end, all of those can't-get-comfortable nights.
The horrible (yes, I said HOR-RI-BLE..pronounce it with me.. HOAR-IH-BULLLLLL) labor. Mine was 27 hours and 49 minutes of HELLLLLLLLL. But (buffing my nails on my shirt)...I made it through the entire labor without screaming my lungs out like the poor woman who was giving birth to a small village AND a baby water buffalo in the room next to us the entire time I was trying to sleep the night before.
It's allllllllllll worth it. Every single pain, tear, heartache, fear. It's ALL worth it. It becomes worth it the moment the doctor lays that warm little body on your tummy and you feel that baby move.
My Mom, bless her heart, had 5 kids...well, 4 kids, and a clutz.. I'm the clutz. Anyway, she always told us that the pain of the birth is forgotten once you have your child in your arms. Oddly enough, I've heard other women lament the very same thing..
I call BULLSHIT. (Yes, the use of shouty capitals while accompanied by an underline should stress to you my vehemence when I typed that.)
While it was worth it.. 31 months later, I still haven't forgotten the pain or the struggle (neither has my bottom! but that's another story that I don't think I'll share. Ever.)...
Whether you are one of the lucky ones who realized you were 5 days late and got to pee on a stick to find out that you were pregnant, or like my husband & I (and untold thousands of other couples in the country) who had to beg, plead, cry, beg, and finally realize we'd tried everything but what we should have done all along.. PRAY, to get the chance to see the positive sign on a pregnancy test, that baby was worth EVERY. SINGLE. MOMENT of the effort. We will always be so very thankful to the REACH Clinic in Charlotte, NC and it's fantastic staff of miracle workers for the miracle they helped us make, but God showed us - all in HIS time...
That baby is now 31 months old (it seems to grown up to call him 2 & a half...I need him to be a baby just a little longer!)...and he's the shining light in our lives. He teaches us things daily.. usually it's how resilient he is as he stands at the back of the couch and skydives off to the floor, face first... or it's that no matter how long we have to put him in time out for riding the dachshund like it's a shetland pony, when we tell him we love him, he replies with "all my heart". It's that 2 or 3am run across the upstairs hallway where he climbs in bed with us and tells us he's scared and asks us to hold him... or the 4am "I want a honeybun.".... He's the breath I breathe, and if someone told me today that I could keep him free from harm, hurt, heartache, and keep him alive and breathing forever, if I would give them my last breath.. I'd do it in a heartbeat.
It's been a hard 2 and a half years.. but he's only little once.. so I'll take the sleepless nights, and the terrible 2's temper tantrums.. because one of these days, all too soon, Mommy's not going to be cool enough to hang with, and my bathroom trips will once again become mine...no more "What you doin' Mom?" as I try to do my business.. :)
It's nap time on a Saturday.. so my next revelations will have to wait. Hug your babies close!
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