First and foremost, I hope you’ll enjoy the pics above of Rachel Madison McAllister. Rachel, because it's a classic and traditional name that will never go out of style and Madison after my late grandfather. She was born on January 6 after 24 hours of labor, which culminated in an emergency C-Section. If you are ever interested in hearing that story I’d be happy to tell you… although I don’t think you’d be that happy AFTER hearing it.
So having been a mom for just over a month now, I can say that literally every day is some new surprise, new worry, new form of exhaustion. I have been trying to figure out what to blog about since Rachel came that might be of some interest. Because let’s face it – while newborns are really cute they pretty much just pee, poop, eat and sleep for the first two months or so. There really aren’t that many funny baby anecdotes to share yet.
What has struck me is how you can read every book they make on motherhood and child rearing and be so inexplicably, irrefutably unprepared to become a parent. There is no book out there that can sum up how hard this is. So I thought maybe I would touch on a few of the thing I wish the books had covered a little better:
First of all they don’t really touch on the fact that part of the baby blues is an all consuming fear… the sheer terror that you will lay the baby down to sleep and somehow by the sheer force of your lack of parenting skills something will happen to her. That you will turn around and she won’t be there (or worse) and that it will be all your fault.
You will mourn losing your old life. Somehow I thought this only happened to men, but when I got home from the hospital and realized that what I wanted more than anything in the whole world was to lay down with Rhett, cuddle up and sleep for the next 10 hours uninterrupted… and then subsequently realized that may not happen again for many years… it hit me like a ton of bricks that my old life was over and nothing would ever be the same. I mean I literally couldn’t focus on anything else but this realization for about 3 days. Don’t get me wrong. One look Rachel and I melt, but I also get reminded that late nights out and later mornings in, calling whatever schedule I want for myself and focusing on nothing more than being Rhett’s wife and friend… those things are over. And I really liked those things. So I am pretty sad about losing them.
Breastfeeding is awesome for bonding. It is also one of the hardest most frustrating things you may ever do. Babies aren’t born knowing how to do it and it does not just come naturally to mothers. It’s hard. It’s god awful hard and can make you feel like the best mom in the world when you get it right… or the biggest moron on Earth when it’s not going well.
When the baby just won’t stop crying you will get mad at him/her. I mean furious. And you’ll have to remind yourself again and again that this small creature cannot reason or communicate any other way to keep yourself calm and get through it. And you will totally understand why sleep deprivation and loud noises are used as forms of torture.
The three key pieces of advice you always hear: sleep when the baby sleeps - get plenty to eat and drink - don’t worry about visitors… they are a crock of shit. How exactly may I ask you am I supposed to get plenty of sleep when the baby eats every two hours and you are supposed to measure that two hours from the time they start feeding? Oh and by the way – sometimes it takes them a full hour to get a good feeding in. Leaving me with approximately an hour at a time (if I am lucky) to chose whether to sleep, or eat ,or drink, or answer the voicemails and emails from family and friends (which I want to answer because I feel completely disconnected from everything I ever knew). And you try to tell your mother (or mother-in-law or aunts and uncles and brothers and sisters) that they can’t come hold the baby that is now the main focus of joy and excitement in their lives. Tell me how that goes for ya.
And lastly – every time they look like they are smiling… every time they make a new funny noise or face… every time they fall asleep on your chest, nuzzle up under your chin and coo… and every SINGLE TIME they open those big eyes and look right at you... all of the aforementioned bitching loses out to a love you never knew existed before. Period.
