I made dinner for a friend whose husband had heart surgery on Friday. On my way out the door, baby boy, who had just had 3 1/2 oz of breast milk and 2 oz of formula was being fussy in a way that caught my attention. Husband couldn’t get him to settle down and things quickly escalated to the hot pokers scream that he does (baby, not husband) where his face gets beet red and the veins pop out of his skull. It makes me feel like he is in pain, so I scooped him from husband, changed his diaper, checked to make sure his onesie wasn’t gripping him anywhere, tried shushing him, all while his wails escal That cry cuts to my core and usually makes me cry, too, but I was focused on finding the source of his anguish. Even though he’d just consumed more than he ever had, I threw him on a boob. After 15 mins of nursing, he was sated, and his breathing was normal, his color returned.
I handed a milk drunk baby back to husband and headed out the door. I cried all the way to my friend’s house and texted her when I was there and warned her that I was in tears. I felt bad crying to her knowing how difficult a time this is for her (she has a 14 week old baby, her 2nd, and her husband has an enlarged heart necessitating surgery). I just couldn’t stop. I was crying because I can’t believe how much this baby boy eats and how slow to the uptake we usually are that he wants more food. I was crying because my oldest son has been holed up at home with us all weekend, even though both his daddy and I each took him on a separate excursion, and my heart breaks for the life he used to know. I was crying because my baby will be 4 weeks on Wednesday and my parents, who I KNOW I’m estranged from and who will be of no help anyway, haven’t so much as inquired about him since the week he was born. I was crying because we are alone in raising our sons and that is just plain hard a lot of the time.
How nice it would be to have someone, anyone, to count on to come over and lend a hand. To feed or hold baby so I can brush my teeth or shower or lie down or take a nap or run an errand. Or, to offer to take our older son out or have him over. I’ve worked so hard to cultivate the friendships I have but it doesn’t translate into anyone offering to help in a measurable way. I know it is because I am otherwise so capable and likely people just don’t think I need the help. And, I had 2 friends scheduled to come over last week both of which I cancelled when I hadn’t gotten any sleep the night before and didn’t have the energy to pick up the house or make myself presentable.
I feel like I should have the hang of this already, or should know to cut myself some slack, to better go with the flow, to just be. But that is just not how things have gone down. I have this precious life, that I love so deeply and enjoy caring for, but it comes at a price. I’m either nursing or pumping seemingly all.the.time. And, if I’m not actually doing it, I’m thinking about when I will be doing it next and will I nurse him (I have a blocked duct on the right and a sore/cracked nipple on the left) or pump. I’m wondering if/when/how I’ll get even a 12 minute power nap during the day and since he’s been here, I’ve only done that once. With my first son, I heeded everyone’s advice and I napped when he slept. But, now that we have this full family life, that just doesn’t seem to happen, ever.
I know it is the sleep deprivation, the cluster feeding, the hormone regulation, but I am just depleted. I feel alone. I want someone to rescue me or offer to anyway. I’m not even sure what that would look like, it’s never been attempted.
We have no help. No family who is offering to have our son over or to take him out. No one checking in on me and baby boy. And, yes, I knew this when I endeavored to have another child but I underestimated how much harder this one would be while having another child at home.
I was crying to my husband, just how fucked up it is with my family. I know it can’t be any different. I know it. My parents wouldn’t/couldn’t help anyway and even if they could, it’s not the kind of help I’d want. And I said that baby boy is going to be 4 weeks this week and they haven’t so much as emailed to check in. And, I KNOW better than to have any expectation. We are estranged, I KNOW this. And he said, “it’s not right’. And, it’s not. But, it is what it is.
At any rate, I am struggling to get my footing in this new life. I’m not feeling depressed nor do I have thoughts of hurting myself or the baby. But, I am not going to lie, it is hard, day in and day out, alone for most of the day and then mostly alone over night. I’ll have one day when I’ll think, ok, I’ve got this, but it is short-lived.
I wish I were some kind of zen earth mother, who could abandoned my life and just ‘be’ with and for the baby. But, that is just not how I’m wired. I want to live some semblance of my life AND be a good mother to both my boys, a good wife to my husband, a good friend to myself. Right now, it’s an epic fail on all accounts.
Oh, Mama, I hear you. I know how hard this is. I had my second 9 months ago, and it definitely has taken a while to adjust. She, too, ate every 2 hours (or more frequently!) and was very colicky and had bad reflux. And though she was wanted dearly — after infertility and losses, oh, so dearly — her arrival brought no rainbow in sight. It wasn’t so much the crying that got to me (my first daughter, who had been born 3 years earlier, was much worse.) It was that everyone always says that your love for your firstborn is so all-consuming, and, before you have another baby, you think that you cannot possibly match your love for him, that you don’t really have any more room in your heart for another; and then, voila, another baby comes along and your heart magically expands. And all I could think was “when in the world is that going to happen to me, because it sure ain’t true now!” As a matter of fact, not only did I not feel my heart expanding, I felt it constricting, in a sense: My beautiful connection with my first daughter was gone AND I had not bonded with my second… But I just tried not to think about it. I just hoped the day would come when I would feel the way I was “supposed” to.
I know everyone is different, so I don’t pretend to have any solutions here. But just in case it helps provide any insights , this was my approach:
I tried to make the baby just “fit in.” I tried to go about my business and keep my eldest’s routine as much as possible. I didn’t keep the baby on a schedule. Whatever I needed to do, I just took the baby along in a baby carrier. If she fussed, I just gave her the boob, no matter how often. She even learned to nurse while in the carrier. All my focus went to my eldest, to make sure she was ok, and had some semblance of normalcy. I took her to parks and playdates, we did the shopping and the cooking together — whatever i could. Often, I even bathed her while the baby was in the carrier. If I actually needed to sit down and nurse the baby, I read books to my eldest, or we played board games, or we made drawings, or we simply talked and joked around. I tried to give the baby to dad during bed-time routine, but if that was not possible, or if the baby was too fussy, I would actually lie down with the baby on my eldest’s bad, and nurse during story-time, song-time, etc. (Of course having a baby attached to you all the time takes away from the cuddles with the older one, but we just made sure we were extra cuddly when the little one was not physically attached to me.)
Of course, the baby ended up feeling like an after-thought, an appendage that sometimes made noise. I carried her around and nursed her, but I was always multitasking, so I never had a chance to NOTICE her, to be in awe of her during the day, So my nights, I wanted devoted to the baby. Of course I didn’t have the energy to get up and do the singing, dancing routine with her all night long, we we just co-slept. We cuddled all night long, and I learned to just turn around and give her the boob with out even waking.
I still feel inadequate. The house is still a mess — especially after a trip or something, when it takes me over a week to unpack the suitcases. Sometimes I don’t realise I have nothing prepared for dinner until 30 minutes before dinnertime. I won’t even mention work (supposedly I do that from home, but I have had literally zero productivity since the baby was born.) I still feel like I do none of the two kids justice — like I’m not stimulating or paying enough attention to either of them. And though in theory I want three, I am seriously re-thinking that, because, how in the world would I be a good mother to three, when I am so mediocre with two? I am beginning to think that having many children is a perfectionists nightmare. So I am trying to train myself to be ok with “good enough.” (Still, that might be ok with the home or with dinner, or even.. gasp… with work…but how in the world can it be ok when talking about a child’s life?!?!?)
Yes, I feel inadequate. But boy, I can tell you that ,9 months later, I am also so very happy. Somehow things work out. Somehow your heart finally does expand. Somehow, despite my shortcomings, both kids seem to be fine. And watching your kids make each other laugh has got to be the most satisfying sight in the world…
Just hang in there, mama. One day at a time. You are doing a fantastic job.
No, no, no, no, you are NOT a failure!!! You are a new mum and being a new mum is always like walking with sharp razors in your shoes every day, and it bleeds, and it cuts and it stings and it bloody hurts day after day after night. It will take a while until the razors get blunt, and then things get easier. They really, really do. You are not a failure, and you are not a bad mum. You are being WAY too hard on yourself. You cannot do everything you think you should do, it is too much and it only sets you up for feeling like a failure which is wrong, my dear. You should take it easier and be gentle to yourself. the turmoil af settling in new motherhood is hard, if you read this post on someone else’s blog, you would be full of helpful advice and you would tell her to be nicer to herself – why can’t you tell yourself that too?
I too have no one around to help, except my husband that is. It is scary. I had cut my pinky rather badly and had to go to the ER and had to wait until my husband got home, because I couldn’t go with two small children and that scared me more than the bleeding finger. It is what it is though, eh?
Things get better. The infant leaves the newbornhood days behind and he starts crawling and babbling and things get more predictable, and it all gets easier overall.
Be gentle with yourself. You don’t have to prove anybody anything. You are a fantastic mother to your children, your children adapt better than you give them credit for, and you just have to have a little patience until it gets easier. Which it does. Come on. Doing your best is good enough – repeat that until you believe it. It is true. You are no slacker. You are a human being with limitations. You should treat yourself better…
I am really sad to hear that instead of concentrating on tiny toes and fingers, you are blaming yourself for not being superhuman. Your older son has to adapt to being an older brother. Try the divide and conquer method: one parent-one child. For us it works best. We switch from time to time, and the children are fine with that.
Give yourself a break, lady. Much love to you.
It is so hard raising a baby, my husband still doesn’t know how hard it was, I couldn’t make him see. I wasn’t depressed either, but I totally squashed myself, I had to barely be myself to just keep going. I was also isolated, a distance from all friends and family – we had maybe 6 visits in total from friends across my daughter’s first year. I am not bitter, but I could have really done with input from people who understood how hard it was (my husband has the days at work, a shower, a leisurely lunch and recuperated before returning to the babyzone, he didn’t feel the pressure). I remember one of my friends saying of her 2nd that she had felt so desperate when he was a baby, she just wanted somebody to take him, just for half an hour, to relieve the pressure. So, I empathise with your feelings about isolation and about hardness. Things are still very new there, you will pull through – your new son will be a lifelong fixture in your older boys life, this survival part will not dominate his memories or their relationship. You are in this for the long term and it will gradually fall into place. I pray that you get some rest/a moment to yourself in all the inevitable chaos.x
I have no words except to say your husband is very right about your family, it just plain sucks that you all are in this situation, an offer of help or just plain interest would go such a long way. BUT this WILL pass, there will be a point hopefully within the next few weeksor so where you will think “I’ve got this!”, it will happen and it will start to happen more often than not, because baby boy will grow and grow and you will become more cohesive as a family unit. Give it time and please know it will get better. Thinking good thoughts for you always.
No words, just a big hug through the internet. I’m sorry you are struggling so much right now. It will get better. Lots of love and hugs, sweetie. One step at a time.
xoxo
Hi from ICLW. Wow I can only begin to imagine how you must feel right now. Wishing someone would just stop by and help you out.
Get a mothers helper or a postpartum doula. My family couldn’t help–too old, and we would have truly drowned without the help. If you can reframe it, try to remember that his appurtenances is assign of his abundant health and the amazing job you did bringing him into this world. (((((((((((((hugs and virtual casseroles)))))))))))))))
Oh lady, I totally can understand this — and I have many of the same fears already about what’s to come for us. I’m hoping our trusted occasional sitters will still be available to take my son out to the playground and stuff during this time and keep him happy/distracted. No matter how bad things look to you, I doubt your son will remember you struggling during this time at all.
A lot of folks who live near me have big extended families (often Greek, Italian) who are so involved with the kids’ lives — it’s heartbreaking for me to see, and tough to listen to folks who complain about a grandma who brings too many gifts, wants to do too much, etc. It’s such a different deal with no support at all!
I seem to recall this period where you’re at — 1 month after delivery — being an especially tough time for me hormonally. I just wasn’t my usual self, and really felt extra anxious and overwhelmed.
Sending big hugs — also wondering how your pericarditis is doing, speaking of hearts? Forgive me if you mentioned this recently and I missed it!
I so wish that I could be that person for you, that one person that could just come cuddle your baby and play with your older son while you could go take a nap. I’m sorry you are estranged from your parents. That just plain sucks. Congrats on your new baby though! Hang in there!