I fully admit that I’ve been remiss in writing in my blog. Life with a new baby is hectic and I’ve resolved not to make apologies for not keeping up with outside responsibilities. Being a mom is a HUGE life change and, as y’all know, I’m always honest in this blog about how life is – no candy coating. While some women seem to take to a life of “mommy-dom” like a proverbial duck to water, for me, it’s been a massive, crazy adjustment.In the end, though – and by “the end” I mean, three months in now – I can say that while I may have been overwhelmed at the start, and I find I’m still overwhelmed by a general lack of sleep (and memory and maybe even a bit of sanity), I am most certainly also overwhelmed by my love for this little man whose come into my life to fill my days with smiles, inquisitiveness and poopy diapers.
Perhaps that’s where I should start – the fact that I had a baby boy. Who knew? Oh, wait. About two dozen people! Well, everyone had a 50/50 chance of getting the gender correct, I suppose, but if you know the Gomez family then you know that the chance of getting a boy was more like 90% since boys are simply what they make. So, I wasn’t surprised in the delivery room when they said it was a boy. It was still surreal, mind you, but even leaving for the hospital in labor I did sort of have this intuition that it was going to be a boy. And it’s hard to argue with intuition.
Labor, labor, labor…I’d regale you all with the story but it’s just too crazy for me to even want to tell for what would be the zillionth time now. Suffice it to say, after 28 hours of labor, four rounds of painkillers (including two rounds of epidural), a cervix that pretty much never wanted to dilate despite contractions that came one on top of the other and less than one minute apart, a fever (for me) and fetal distress (for the baby) set in so the doctor told us the baby needed to be delivered immediately. And since I was STILL only dilated to 7 cm, delivery had to come in the form of a c-section. Game over.
It sounds terrible to say but even though I broke into tears when she told me that, part of me also felt an incredible sense of relief that I wasn’t going to have to push the baby out. I was exhausted out of my mind by that point – physically and emotionally. I really don’t know how I would have pushed for three or more hours after what I’d already been through. Also, as we later found out, Jaggar was sunny-side up and wedged very firmly in my pelvis so, as the doctor put it, I likely would not have been able to push him out anyway and still would have needed a c-section. So, better to have gotten it before I gave myself an aneurysm pushing anyway!
Besides, by the time they were performing the surgery, I felt more calm and collected than I’d felt since labor started. Granted, the whole scene was completely surreal. The lower half of my body felt so disconnected from me it was like the surgery was happening in another room. But when they brought Jaggar around the curtain and put him on the warming table to clean him up, looking over my shoulder at him, I realized two profound things:
1.) I can’t believe that poor kid got my big, flat feet! Of all the traits I could have passed on to him! Good lord!
and
2.) I can’t believe it but I’m totally, completely and head-over-heels in love with that purplish, screaming, wet, gooshy baby! That’s MY baby! Give him to me now!!!
So, maybe getting the c-section was the right way to go, much as the recovery was a bear, the scar is quite unsightly, I was fairly traumatized for several weeks afterward and the whole situation was not at all the birth I thought I would have. It nevertheless gave me a peaceful break at just the moment it benefitted me the most – Jaggar’s birth. Many thankfully forthright parents had warned me that if I didn’t fall in love with the baby immediately upon birth that it was okay and I shouldn’t worry because eventually I would love him. And honestly, I totally thought I’d be like that. I thought it would take a while for me to feel a connection to a baby because, again, I’m just not the “mommy” type. But even I was amazed that I completely loved him upon first sight. He’s been the light of my life since the first moment I laid eyes on him.
And good thing, too, because that’s what got me through the first three harrowing weeks…
The baby blues are real. I will preface this by saying that, perhaps again to my amazement, I did not end up with too much in the way of genuine post-partum depression. This is not to say that I wouldn’t cry at the drop of a hat – sentimental movie or t.v. show, thoughtful gesture, a stressful moment, money worries – that all can get me tearing up pretty quick. But that crushing depression, which I was sure, with my own personal history of depression, was essentially a guarantee, never materialized. This is not to say that life has been a cake walk. I’ve had enough self-doubt and second-guessing myself as a mother to squash a mere mortal. However, my spirits have been easily salvageable, especially by my husband who seems to always know just the right thing to say or gesture to make to return me from the dumps to feeling like I can at least breathe again. Having a partner who’s in this with me 100% has been key to keeping my head above water in every sense. I truly do not know how I’d do this without Johann.
Having said that, though, the first three weeks were a melee of full-on baby blues. Hell, I think even Johann might have had them to some degree! The first week I honestly wondered what I had done and why it was that I thought that torpedoing my otherwise great life with a constantly-hungry, frequently crying and infrequently sleeping baby was a good idea. Again, it was very helpful that I was completely in love with the little guy. That feeling was compelling enough to bring me back from the brink a number of times and, as such, it was truly a blessing. In the rare moment that I’d get to take a nap while someone else cared for him, I’d wake up kind of refreshed and, for a split second life would feel like it did before I had a baby – easy and completely in control. And then I would remember the baby and think, What have I done? That’s when I’d remind myself that I love Jaggar and somehow I will get through this. Gradually, I did.
Sometime during my step-mom Cathy’s visit, I think her very sweet and positive attitude rubbed off on me and the dark skies over my head brightened. Johann and I went out on our first post-baby date to a yummy Indian restaurant and for the first time, life had a miniscule degree of “normalcy” to it again. I told him over dinner that despite our feeling overwhelmed, Jaggar was actually a pretty textbook baby. He’s not at all the spirited/grumpy/colicky baby I thought I’d get (these types run in my family, bless their fussy little hearts).
He’s logical. When he cries, there’s a reason. Figure it out and you can get him to stop crying. So, Johann started us out with our mental checklist – hungry, tired, dirty diaper, gas bubble – and we worked from there, solving the crying mystery and hitting on the culprit over 90% of the time. Somewhere between two and three weeks Jaggar developed a low grade bit of acid reflux that, combined with the fussiness the pediatrician said he’d experience until around 6 weeks, made for some interesting evenings of crying baby. But even these were deftly handled by my creative husband, a swaddling blanket and a bouncy chair which is truly remarkable to me considering how many parents I know have babies for whom nothing works to stop the crying. The baby gods have truly smiled on us and don’t think that I don’t know that because I very much do.
Nowadays, Jaggar is a joy – even more than he was before. Okay, I know, I’m not supposed to candy-coat things so I won’t. Truth be told: We haven’t got the least bit of a handle on the overnight sleeping situation. It’s almost a joke. We still have to put him to bed at night with a bottle of formula because my breast milk never came in en force like it seems to do for every other nursing woman on the planet (we theorize this is due, in part, to the c-section surgery and long recovery). So, even though it’s coming in better these days, it still does not begin to satiate Jaggar enough to get him to go to sleep in the evening. And then he still wakes up every three hours or less which I understand is normal for breastfed babies but is still crazy for me and Johann. We’ve reached several peaks of frustration over this but there seems no getting around it. Until he's older, we're sleeping in short increments whether we like it or not.
So, we have a baby that sleeps somewhat restlessly in his crib for three hours and then peacefully and soundly next to me for the rest of the night while he nurses every three hours and I get some semblance of sleep. The books say this should all get better from 4-6 months and don’t think we’re not looking forward to it. I do hope he will start sleeping more at some point before he goes off to college!!
Beyond this rather inconvenient sleeping arrangement, however, I will say again that Jaggar is a joy. Even his several “touchy” qualities are endearing. He’s a bit sensitive – especially sensitive to bright light (he has eyes that hate bright sunlight like my me and my mother) and noise, which he frequently startles and cries – so I do my best to expose him to these things in moderation so he can get used to them but slowly and on his terms. His touchiness, however, makes him very alert and aware. I know people with those sleepy babies who are always “good” and in a way I actually prefer Jaggar’s touchy-ness because he’s energetic, not lethargic. I think you know how a snoozy baby would bore me to tears after a while (at least after I was ridiculously well-rested anyway :P).
Jaggar loves to smile and coo and is on the verge of giggling. His hand-eye coordination is developing rapidly and he’s already starting to gain a bit of control over his hands to touch or move his toys a little. He can hold up his head fairly well and he’s tipping over on his right side so rolling over is definitely on his mind. It’s been amazing to see him develop from a little doll-like swaddled bun into a sentient being who can interact with us and is eagerly taking in the world around him. It’s so cool!
For the first time in my life, I’m following a schedule. That my child is the one who imposed this schedule upon me should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me. Ha! What can I say? I’ve always been ridiculously bored with routine so I tend to avoid it. However, Jaggar loves routine and since the focus of my life is keeping Jaggar happy, his sleep-eat-play-eat-sleep-and-repeat routine is now my life. Much to my relief, as of this week, his feedings are finally starting to space out from every hour and 45 minutes, which had been the norm since he was born, to more like three hours apart (hallelujah!). And yes, I realize how crazy that sounds. I’m still a total slave to the kid but my gratitude in life is now measured in minutes, not hours. I’m grateful to get those extra 75 minutes!
He’s also starting to spend time playing by himself with his play gym, etc. so it’s beginning to look like I *might* be able to figure out how to get back into the swing of my life now. Again, this is a huge relief since there are projects I’d love, and need, to work on (and a teensy bit of writing work that is coming my way next week). It is great to have Jaggar in a pattern that’s predictable enough to potentially give me small chunks of time to start working again. It’s going to be interesting, I’m sure. Babies seem to know when you need to go somewhere or must get something done and those are always the moments when they have their little meltdowns. I’m crossing my fingers that he lets me work a bit. We’ll see how it goes.
There’s a bunch of stuff I’ve left out, I’m sure, but since life has finally leveled off, I do hope to be back blogging now. Maybe I’ll get in here and write about some of the other interesting (and crazy and eye-opening) aspects of motherhood. And we haven’t even talked about my frightening post-baby body (eeeek!). That’s a whole other blog in itself!
Until then, I will say that I’m grateful I’ve survived this experience. It’s crazy to say but I wasn’t sure I would during those first couple of weeks. I still have moments of sheer frustration during a Jaggar crying jag (before I’ve used the checklist and figured out why he’s crying, of course :P) and there are days when I think my husband must seriously wonder if I’ve lost my mind. I totally have – hello! I had a baby and torpedoed my great life, didn’t I?! Clearly I'm nuts. But it’s okay. Jaggar’s the cutest baby ever and totally a keeper. I’ll just figure out how to salvage what’s left of my sanity and my thrashed life because I simply cannot live without the kid now. :)
And that’s the unvarnished truth. Motherhood is insane. I don’t recommend it for anyone who’s attached to their peaceful, calm and controlled life. Get a dog or something but don’t have a baby. Personally, though, I love it. It completely kicks ass. I’m glad I turned my “great” life completely upside down because it's even better now.
J.
