My First Two Weeks As a Mom

You know the episode of The Twilight Zone where the guy shows up at the people’s house with a button and he tells them that if they press the button, they’ll get a million dollars, but that someone, somewhere, will die?

Well, had that man shown up at our house during the first two weeks of bringing home baby and told my husband and I that we could press that button and we’d go back to not having a child, back to before I got pregnant, back to our regular lives and our regular routine and we’d have no recollection of ANY of it...I MIGHT have pressed that button.  My husband said he WOULD have pressed that button.

It was the biggest upheaval I have ever known in my life.  Bigger than moving 2000 miles across the country to go to college where I didn’t know anyone, bigger than marriage, bigger than “giving up” on Los Angeles and moving back home to Tennessee.  It was an upheaval I’d heard about, but could have never, ever imagined.  And, I can do all the describing of it in the world, but unless you’ve been there, you can only guess.  And I can pretty much guarantee that your guestimate will be way off.

I suppose some might classify it as postpartum depression, but I don’t.  Yes, I was postpartum.  Yes, I was depressed.  But what it was for me (and many new parents, I’m sure) was this ADJUSTMENT.  This complete life re-alignment.

Now, I know moms who move into this new phase of life seemingly seamlessly.  I don’t know if they’ve just been ready for mommyhood for years, or if it’s...I don’t know.  I can’t even think of what else is must be.  I was definitely EXCITED for mommyhood, I felt READY for mommyhood, I was not PREPARED for mommyhood.  Especially out-of-the-gate mommyhood. 

And neither was my husband.

I cried every day.  Especially around sundown.  I dreaded the dark hours ahead of me.  Not knowing if my new baby would sleep, when she would need to eat, how long she would sleep, how long I would sleep, how long I had to wait until the faint blue of day began to light the room.  Not being able to talk to anyone or even simply see my house and see outside.  The daylight opened up my world a little - the night closed it in.

My husband told me later that he didn’t want to come home from work.  He said he had a baby who cried and a wife who cried and it was almost too much.

One day I was filling a PLASTIC cup up with water in the sink.  I dropped the PLASTIC cup, IN THE SINK with the water spilling IN THE SINK (so, no major emergency here) and started crying!

My mom stayed with us almost constantly for those two weeks.  Night and day.  Neither my husband nor myself knows how we would have survived without her.  In whatever semblance of sanity there was in our house during that time, it was brought by my mother.

Even with her there, and even with every single meal that she made and room that she cleaned and even with my dad coming over, too, to have dinner, I never thought I’d be happy again.

I never thought I’d be happy again.  Ever again. 

And my husband thought the same thing about himself.

If you’re any kind of regular on my blog you KNOW that I love to laugh and I love making people laugh. 

During those two weeks, I didn’t laugh.  I barely smiled.  If I did, just on the other side of it were tears.

I couldn’t even blog about this at the beginning.  I hardly got on the computer.  I walked around like a zombie.  A zombie who had made the worst mistake of her life.  I reached out to some online friends who assured me they had felt the same and that it got better.  I felt less black and more dark grey reading their stories.

Part of all this was due to breastfeeding and the physical toll it took on me.  Lack of sleep, obviously.  Nipple cracking and soreness.  Pain during feedings.  A feeling that I couldn’t escape any of it and a feeling that I wanted to so bad.   But not only nipple pain -  I just pushed a baby out of my vagina.  My body was wrecked.  My stomach fat and flabby and embarrassing.  All the weight I had gained now looked like WEIGHT instead of the kindly “oh, she’s having a baby!”  I was on painkillers from tearing and stitches, wearing mesh hospital undies, and an ice pack the size of Rhode Island was wedged between my legs at all times. And there’s no wiping after you give birth, just a lovely spray bottle.

Somehow, our daughter KNEW when we were sitting down and refused to let us rest so, quieting only when being toted around the house.

We used to be a couple who made dinner, grabbed a glass of wine for me and a beer for him, and slapped ourselves on our old person recliners while kicking back watching our DVR’d TV shows. 

Not no more.  Not immediately after having a baby.  We couldn’t even get through a half-hour episode of ANYTHING.  And I must tell you, TV is our way of RELAXING.

Everything was awful.  It was depressing and sad and dark and neither of us thought it would ever end.  Ever.  We had even said things to each other such as, “I never want to do this again.”  And alluded to possibly having made the biggest mistake of our lives.

And then one day, we watched a full episode of The Bachelorette.  I know, it sounds so obscenely ridiculous.  The Bachelorette of all things.  TELEVISION of all things!  But it was a big moment for our new family.  And this was a TWO HOUR episode.  We got through about 45 minutes at first.  Sailor had fed and was in and out of sleep in her rocker.  She fussed a little.  My husband asked if we should turn off the show.  I said no, I thought it might be okay.  I picked her up and rocked her while we watched TV.  (Thank God for our old person rocking recliners!) 

And we got through the whole episode.

And while it wasn’t perfect, it was the first time our night struck any resemblance to how I imagined our life would be with a baby.  What?  Watching TV??  Not quite.  It was finding a new way of life.  A way that melded the old with the new and created something that works for all of us.  A routine that we could smile about.

Not that a man with a button would have ever showed up at our door, but I’m glad he didn’t.  Because what we created that September day in 2009, what came into our lives on June 2, 2010, this little person we call Sailor, is a miracle.  She’s the miracle of life.  And she can’t be beat.  She’s the best thing that has EVER come into either of our lives.    And maybe, MAYBE one day in a few years we might “want to do this again.”