For the duration of my first two pregnancies (first one was lost at 12 weeks; second one resulted in a fat, black-haired, dimpled boy), all I heard was, "Babies are such a blessing! There is nothing like it! Cherish your baby for they grow up too quickly!" I nodded and smiled and placed a hand on my belly, stretched drum-tight, feeling the baby move as if it knew exactly what we'd been talking about. Oh, babies - how wonderful, how perfect!
Except - he wasn't.
I've only recently been able to talk about my experience following the birth of my first child. Initially, I was too ashamed. "Oh, I have a touch of the baby blues," I'd tell people, then I'd smile and nod when they said, "Oh, hormones! Isn't motherhood the most rewarding thing ever!?"
NOPE. To me, several weeks post-partum, it was not.
After 23 hours of labour, my son was born as I screamed, all 9 pounds of him. They lay his warm, bundled body in my arms and I looked down at him and waited for that instant oh-I-love-you-fiercely connection....and nothing happened. Oh, I was emotional, but more because I'd just pushed a pot roast out of a straw. The baby looked and felt like a stranger. I figured the feeling would come soon.
The next few days were a whirlwind of visitors, post-partum infection, fevers, and antibiotics. By the time we were finally released from the hospital five days later, I was exhausted - not only from nursing a baby every three hours, but also from incessant IV beeping, general hospital noise, and laying awake wondering when the nurse would bring the baby in again to eat. I was still recovering from an extremely high fever and stitches in places I'd never expected to have them.
The first night we were home was a disaster. I was still required to take my temp every hour to check for a recurrence of the fever. I remember taking a bath, and I remember my in-laws coming over to bring food and see the baby. They asked if I minded if they held him. No, I didn't mind - it was all I could do not to beg someone to take him from my arms anyway. It didn't feel natural.
He was up screaming until 5am and, suddenly, the months that stretched ahead of me looked bleak. Days and nights bled together and I found myself with no appetite and an inability to sleep despite being exhausted; instead, I'd lie awake with my heart racing, waiting for the baby to stir and open his mouth and root for my breast and scream when it wasn't there. I subsisted on Trisuits and cheese, eaten at 10 pm every night. One evening my husband took the baby to his folks' house so I could rest. I laid in bed and cried. I prayed nonsensically about somehow reversing time.
I felt like I'd made the biggest mistake of our lives.
My husband was perfect - he changed the diapers and bathed the baby and took him for drives in the middle of the night just to get him to sleep. I would nurse the baby, sobbing, then hand him over to my husband. I was so grateful for an understanding man, but I also resented him, because he had found this blissful post-birth haze of wonder and excitement and energy.
I can remember one afternoon, sitting in my rocking chair in the living room with the baby nursing for the millionth time. Outside it was warm and breezy and a perfectly Autumn day, and I was so sad. I wanted to die. Not the baby - everyone was smitten with him (except me). I wished a car would crash through our window and I would die and the baby would be fine and someone else could be his mother, because clearly, I was not fit. I was not like my friends who cooed to me that I would die FOR him immediately; guiltily, I thought, I'd die BECAUSE of him. I could not think even one hour ahead because the knowledge that every day would be a repeat of the last was enough to send me into a full panic attack. Before him, I could eat when I was hungry and sleep when I was tired; I could shop for ten hours or go for a walk alone or putter around the house or spend two hours cooking an amazing dinner. Now my life consisted of nursing for an hour, burping a baby, changing his diaper, changing both of our clothes once he spit up copious amounts of breastmilk, maybe handing him to my husband for a few minutes while I tried to pee at the same time that I used tepid water in a bottle to help with the never-ending crotch pain, and then the baby would scream, and I would start it all over again. Twenty-four hours a day. This was my life? People CHOSE this and talked about it like it was heaven itself!?
I am not being dramatic - this is how alone I felt, how destitute, how terrified, how awful. And, sunk deep into this haze of neverending misery, I told myself I was alone.
Of course, now I know I wasn't, but how I wished at the time that someone would say, "Hey, how ARE you? Those early days are rough, aren't they? Sometimes you just need a break!" or "Yes, when my baby was born he looked like a miniature Winston Churchill and I had approximately the same connection to him as I do to the actual Winston Churchill." You know - something besides gushing over the delight of newborns.
It's not that way anymore, of course. My sons is nearly six (!!!) and sometimes I look at him, doing nothing exceptional, at his blonde hair that all grows in one direction and his freckles and his full mouth and wide smile, and I find myself unable to breathe, for he is mine and I made him and he is perfect in his own way. And when my second came alone, I did not feel the same ineptitude and disconnection; I knew what to expect, and I knew she'd feel like a stranger to me at first, and I knew the nights would be long. I eased into it in my own way and found myself enjoying my newborn.
Now I tell fellow moms that it really is a wonderful thing, but you won't break your child if you don't particularly enjoy the sixth nursing session since you went to bed, or if you just kind of want the little babe OFF of your shoulder for ten minutes to have a warm shower. It's okay. Parenthood is hard. Not everything about it is sticky kisses and wide-eyed wonder. It's gritty and dirty and sometimes you need to cry and say, "Why did I sign up for this?" The answer always comes in due time.
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