Realities of Motherhood

Justin Ryan, Junior 12/22/2009

While I was pregnant, I loved the baby growing inside of me. Sort of. Well, I loved the idea of him. I loved picturing myself with a perfect pink baby swaddled in a blue blanket while I calmly nursed him, all aglow with motherhood. Perhaps there would be an aura of light surrounding my head, much like a halo. Certainly there would be one around his perfect head. There would be lots of coos, and eye contact, and bonding, and when I was done nursing him, I would place him in all his baby perfection in his bed, where he would sleep for 5 or 6 hours.

And then I had a baby. A real one. Not the one in my head.

Of course he was perfect - he looked just like his daddy, and had the requisite 10 fingers and 10 toes…and a raging case of baby acne. And yes, I felt a rush of love unlike anything I had ever felt before. Here was my son. Here was a person only an hour old and I would lay down my life for him. Without question. If he needed a heart, I’d totally pull a weird Will Smith jellyfish move and give him my own. And I was surrounded by a team of capable nurses who helped me latch him on each time, and a husband who changed diapers since I had to have an emergency c-section. And I lay in my hospital bed and watched my baby (my son) and when I got sleepy, the nurse would wheel him away. Ahh, motherhood was easy.

And then we went home.

Now, my son was a good baby. He didn’t cry unless there was something wrong. He latched on like a pro. He slept 16 - 18 hours a day. He was a professional baby.

I was a mess.

There was no aura of holy light around my head - my hair was too dirty and unbrushed to let any of that happen. I had 30 staples in a suddenly very empty, very flabby tummy and they burned. No one told me how tremendously my legs would swell. My milk wasn’t in. Would it come in? What if my milk never came in? Oh my God, my milk came in…and then I was walking around with rock-hard boobs that gushed milk at the slightest provocation. Was that a baby crying? Oh, it was only the TV? Didn’t matter…my milk let down. I was soaked to the waist. Why couldn’t I get anything accomplished when my baby was sleeping those 16-18 hours? I don’t know. It’s still a mystery. Wait…he’s sleeping a lot. Maybe too much. Maybe he’s lethargic. Maybe something’s wrong. No, wait, he’s awake. Okay.

The first night we were home, my son was up all night. I was up with him. I was tired, and I didn’t feel well. I fed him, changed him, rocked him, sang to him…and then, at 3 a.m., I cried uncle. I woke my husband Justin up and said, “I have to get some rest.” Justin took the baby into the nursery. “I just changed him,” I called after him, but if he wanted to, oh well.  I carefully settled myself into bed, oh, my aching incision and swollen legs and…

“Holy Jesus!” My husband’s voice was full of both awe and panic. I was up and in the nursery in a flash.

My son, dressed in my favorite little pajama set (all primary-colored circus cuteness…he matched his nursery), lay innocently on t he changing table…and everything was covered in black poop. He was, the changing table, his jammies, my husband…Justin was cursing, baby was screaming, I started to cry, because I knew there was no longer a team of capable nurses at my beck-and-call, and no one else was going to clean up that black poop but me. And then my son peed on me.

A few nights later, as my son was dozing peacefully in what Justin and I had dubbed “chill zone” (swaddled up and nestled in his boppy pillow on the couch between us), I began to cry. He was so perfect. He was so new. He was so little. And we were responsible for him. Even down to the milk he drank - it was all on us. What about SIDs? What about drunk drivers? What about me? I love him, but do I love him enough? Where’s my bliss? Where in the hell was my bliss? “I don’t know if I can do this,” I sobbed. “We should have gotten a puppy.”

It took me about six weeks to regain control of my life, my hormones, my emotions, my body. Six weeks of calling the pediatrician’s office and explaining the color, consistency and smell of my son’s stools to very patient nurses on a nearly-daily basis. Six weeks of engorgement and sore nipples and getting peed on. Six weeks of dazed days when I walked around stunned, and nights full of reruns of The Munsters and too many infomercials to count. Six weeks of being too stressed and terrified to enjoy my son as an infant, because at 6 weeks, he woke up and became a baby. A baby whose eyes could focus on my face and who lifted his head up to look at me when he laid on my chest, who gave great, big, loose, gummy smiles and who seemed to be soothed best by me. His mom. (Probably “His mom’s boobs” would be a more truthful statement, but this is my blog, and I would prefer to think my son was more attached to me than my boobs.)

I had a lot of pregnant friends when my son was around 3 months old, and I never breathed a word of this to any of them...not until they would call or text, feeling overwhelmed and, like me, not knowing why they couldn't seem to get anything accomplished and how it was nothing like they had planned.  "It's okay," I would tell them.  "I was like that, too.  Just wait.  You've only got six weeks of this.  You carried that baby inside of you for 40 weeks...you can handle six."

Some women enjoy the newborn phase.  I was not one of them.  And I think that's normal now.  I didn't think it was normal then.  And it's okay to admit to it, too...because if you do, you may be surprised at how many other moms agree with you, with relief evident in their voices.  And I've noticed that those women who love the newborn phase...well, they tend to have 2 or 3 kids.  I think it comes with practice or something.  Because I look back at those first 6 weeks, and realize that, in some ways, they should have been the easiest six weeks.   I wish I had cuddled more and cried less.  I wish I had stressed less and slept more.  I wish I had worried less about his breathing and taken a few deep breaths myself.

But I didn't...which is why I can't wait to start on round 2.