My Journey to Mommyhood: I'm HERE!

This is where the journey makes a slight adjustment from "To" to "Through". With the birth of my wonderful son I'm now making my way through mommyhood. Wading through diapers, and breastfeeding, wakeful nights and everything else that happens with a baby. They are messy, loud, and incredibly draining but once you get past that you get the rewarding part. The part where a single smile melts your heart, and a baby giggle melts your soul.

This new adventure has been crazy hard for me, there's really NO preparing for it. You can't possibly know just how little sleep you can survive on, or how exhausted you can actually get, how mentally drained, or how emotional it will be just looking at your baby sleeping in your arms. But it wouldn't be much of a story if I didn't tell you how it was for me now would it?

1) Lack of Sleep:

I am a sleeper. I have always enjoyed sleep. I'm not a morning person, I hate being woken up and if I don't get 8 hours, I simply just don't function on my higher levels. I don't remember anybody warning me that the lack of sleep starts in pregnancy either! I remember lots of people saying "Sleep now while you can", like that's any help, but I do not remember anybody saying "hey, you like sleep, you maybe shouldn't have a kid cuz you aren't going to sleep through an entire night for at least a year". Would've been helpful but I probably wouldn't have listened anyways, I'm stubborn like that.

A very lucky few will end up with a baby who sleeps through the night right from the get go. I was one of these babies (told you I've always liked sleep) so I'm not sure how I deserved a kid that would wake every hour, but that's what I got. Actually at first he was pretty good. He would sleep 2-3 hours round the clock, he'd stay awake for short play times throughout the day but at night it was eat and right back to sleep. It wasn't till he was almost 5 months that the 2-3 hours became 1-2 hours (don't forget that's how long HE slept, but for me it was at least half an hour to get back to sleep each time he woke) which we almost didn't live through by the way. Then around 6 months he also decided he wanted to be awake for 2-3 hours in the middle of the night for no reason. I prayed that somebody would shoot me so I didn't have to keep getting up. I was a zombie if anything, barely living, not conscious, useless to anybody but my son and even then only the most basic needs were met. I begged for the 2-3 hour stretches to come back. Then it hit me one day that I hadn't slept well in easily 8 months with pregnancy added in and I just cried.

4 weeks old

I survived (barely) by keeping my eyes closed while he nursed his way back to blissful sleep, which seemed to trick my body into thinking it never woke up. I read all the time about women who get up and watch tv, or read or play on their iphones while they get their babies back to sleep, and I can't for the life of me fathom how they do it. I mean, in the early days I mastered the art of a blind diaper change just so I didn't have to turn on the light or really open my eyes! Some nights I would even bring him to bed with me, but I tried not to do this for fear of starting something that wouldn't end till he was nearing his teenage years. For the record, that won't happen, any habit can be broken with a little effort, I needn't have had so much guilt over it. When you are getting that little of sleep you take what you can get how you can get it!

2) Diapers

Nobody can prepare you for the number of diapers, or how messy they will be. They can't tell you what it's like to get peed on at 3am or how you'll burst into tears when the diaper explodes in your lap after a really really long night. The smells are indescribable, except that in the early stages it really just smells like microwave popcorn (your welcome, that stuff's no good for you anyways!).

My little guy would poop with every fart (shart) for the first 2 months. So we went through way more diapers than I could have ever imagined we would. This one time my mom was in town and convinced me that he should have diaper free time to help clear up some redness on his bum. I warned her that he tooted every 10-20 minutes and it was gonna spray but she insisted that it would be alright. Well, about 5 minutes later he gave a good ole shart right in her direction! Her mommy instincts are still in tact though so she covered him fast enough to not get a poop shower but it was pretty funny (only cuz it wasn't me).

3) Breastfeeding

Nobody can tell you what it will be like to have a baby suck on your nipple for any length of time every couple hours for months on end. You can't be fully prepared for the embarrassment of leaking in public the first time as the dark circle on your shirt grows so does the red in your cheeks. You can't know how it will feel to be engorged, have your boobs stretch to almost three sizes bigger than what you're used to, how hard they are when they are full, or how your nipple all but disappears at that point making it virtually impossible for babe to get a good latch. Nobody warns you what thrush looks or feels like so you can get it treated as soon as you suspect its presence. You can't know how drained you'll get, how hungry you'll be (worse than pregnancy) or how thirsty. I literally felt like he was draining my life force with every feeding.

Breastfeeding is a process, you just have to start, work with your baby and make adjustments every day to suit your needs at the time. It's not a set in stone sort of thing. You can't say "I'm going to breastfeed this many times a day for this long each time and I'm going to stop completely at this point". I've written about all of this already and you can click here if you are interested in reading further.

I really thought that we would breastfeed, it would be easy, my biggest problem would be feeling like a milk bag, and that we'd be done at 6 months unless he bit me. It wasn't easy. My biggest problem was undiagnosed thrush, which went on long enough to make me very very uncomfortable and almost quit several times. We didn't stop at 6 months because he refused to take formula. I mean flat out wouldn't eat, made nasty faces at it, screamed for hours, throwing the bottle further than those little arms should've had the strength to do, refused formula. He bit me more before he had teeth than he does now that he has them AND strangely enough I feel nothing when he nurses now, no pain, no discomfort, no teeth nothing. If you're struggling with breastfeeding, seek help, it DOES get better!

The Great Formula Hate-On of  2011

4) The Emotional Toll - Postpartum Depression

I thought I was prepared for this one the most! I was wrong. Even before the depression your emotions are ruled by your hormones which are so out of whack you can't control yourself and before you know it you're crying over everything from spilled milk to the look of your baby when he coos at you.

My mom, as I've said before, suffered from postpartum depression. This means that I have a higher risk of getting it. Well, I can tell you that I haven't been treated for it, but know I suffered through it. It's really a scary thing and I think there needs to be more out there to support women. I know that I had to fill out several forms at the doctor and the health nurses would ask me questions and when we went to get CBear's shots the first couple of times they check on you but if you don't seek the help it doesn't come to you. It's one of those things that people are ashamed of and don't talk about. It shouldn't be but it is so here's my honest look at Postpartum Depression.

I have been to hell and back several times now. Every time I reached a breaking point, I somehow managed to step over it and continue on. I can't tell you how many I've blown past one of these points or even how completely surprised I was that I survived each and every time. I remember saying on a few occasions that if something didn't 'give' I was going to the doctor by such and such a time.  Somehow, something 'gave' each time. I guess it must've been me that just became okay with whatever I deemed wrong at the time because I don't believe circumstances have changed much.

I remember holding CBear and crying, sobbing, for no reason other than I just didn't want to be me anymore in that moment. I remember getting angry at him for waking up AGAIN, or spitting up on me AGAIN, or pooping AGAIN (cuz you know, what else do babies do right?). I remember around 6-7 months I was exhausted and I couldn't take it anymore and I realized I understood why mothers lose it and hurt their babies. Can you believe that??? I didn't for a SECOND think about hurting my little man but for a moment I understood why others had done it, or how some women can walk out and never look back. In those moments I could feel it, the need to have a fair godmother that would twinkle her wand and take it all away. The only thing that ever brought me back was the fact that no matter what, I would never trade my boy for anything. I would look at him and know that I had to keep on swimming because he needed me and I love him more than there are words to say. 

How can you not want to spend your life with this guy?

I was lucky - I know this to be true and I appreciate God, or the Universe or whatever it was that got me through, because I was LUCKY. If you are suffering from depression and you are at the end of your rope PICK UP THE PHONE. Call your mother, your sister, your friend, your doctor ANYBODY that will HELP you. I should have and I didn't and things could have gotten a lot worse for me but I was lucky. I wasn't stronger, or better or smarter than you I was LUCKY. Get help. And after you've done that if you want somebody to talk to, pop me a message on here or find me on Twitter @Cbearsmamma anytime!

5) The Change in Relationships

I was prepared for a new element in my relationship with my husband but I wasn't prepared for how drastically it would change, or how my other relationships would change as well!

Friends that don't have kids might distance themselves - I didn't have this particular problem but I don't have a ton of friends where I live now. As I mentioned before, my husband and I moved pretty far away from 'home' to start our life together. Most of my friends here have kids and the ones that don't are people I work with so they're not going anywhere either. I have noticed that I don't have patience for the kinds of friend 'drama' that come up from time to time. I have far too much to focus on with my little man learning things and running around and sapping every ounce of energy from my body to worry about how my not calling may have hurt your feelings (not a real life example just something I heard recently from somebody else's life). That sucks I know but it is what it is right now.

Family is HUGE to me now. I've always felt really close to my family but now even more so. I somehow DO have the energy to make sure I send out pictures and answer emails and keep in contact with our families. I feel it's really important since we aren't around every day for them to watch CBear grow. I have a new appreciation for what our mother's went through and what they must feel now watching us start our own family. It gets me all wishy washy when I think about it.

The big doozy has been my relationship with my husband. It has definitely changed a LOT. Things that never used to bother me too much are now these HUGE cracks in the foundation that we've built our life on. They say that you realize these things when you get married. We've been together 12 years this year and married for 3, it was having a kid that made the cracks apparent more than anything. They say that more marriages end in the first year after having a baby. I can see how that would be true! There are so many things to stress about: Finances, Exhaustion, Who's on Baby Duty, Who's on Housework Detail. There are probably a bajillion more things than that too.

I'm the kind of person that worries about bills and money and I don't want to be in debt if I can help it. My husband doesn't care about debt, he knows the bills will be paid 'somehow' (maybe a magic elf I'm not aware of), and he wants to enjoy 'things' with the time he has here. "You can't take the money with you" is his way of describing this to me. My response is "You leave the ones you love saddled with your debt when you go".

I'm not the kind of girl that will ask for help or anything really. I feel like the help should just be mandatory and a request is therefore not necessary. My husband, on the other hand, well he doesn't do anything that isn't for himself unless he is asked to do it. Granted it's not always obvious what I need at any given moment and I'm well aware of the lack of mind reading capabilities (how cool would it be to be able to read the baby's mind??).

I feel like "Baby Duty" is a shared position and we should put in equal time doing the 'dirty' work. D feels like when he's not working he should be playing and I think maybe he thinks I do a better job than he does but I hesitate to put words in his mouth so we'll call that a guess. I have really probably added to this issue because I tend to like to have things done the way I do them. Silly me I know, take what you can get when you can right? Well I buggered that one up and apparently there's no going back! SO word to the wise, if your man is helping and he's not in danger of dropping the baby on it's head, SHUT UP, do NOT correct them, do not tell them how they can do it better, let them figure it out on their own!

I hate chores. I always have, I'm not a dirty person but I don't like cleaning. I would procrastinate until I turned into a Smurf if I thought it would help me find somebody else to do the cleaning. That being said I will do it, eventually. The problem here is that my husband has turned into a clutterbug over the years, and while he tends to keep it in one area, that area just grows and grows until I'm scared it will eat us in our sleep. He also figures he should do the outside and I do the inside. I've agreed to this in the past because he's a hell of a damn fine chef and he feeds me well, but the fact is I got the short end of the stick on that arrangement, and there have been no adjustments since the little Mr came into the world. It really is hard to get anything done when you're running around after a toddler that has one goal - Get into EVERYTHING. He only naps for a couple hours and I find that's just not enough time to clean and enjoy ME time (which I have to have or we end up with crazy Shelly as in #4). I don't anticipate this getting any better once I go back to work so I'm thinking these arguments aren't going to end anytime soon.

I honestly don't think it's one person's fault or the other. I think we are both to blame for the state we find ourselves in now. I DO think that it's a good thing we made it out of that 'marriage-ender' known as Baby's First Year. I also think it's going to take a lot of effort to repair the damage we've done to each other over the last year. Nobody could have prepared me for that.

So that's it, I'm a mommy. My life isn't glamorous. I'm just an exhausted shell of the woman I once was but I'm hoping with time I will be able to return to being me. I've enjoyed writing this series and getting words on paper once again. Who knows, maybe now that I've proven to myself I can do it, I'll keep blogging and maybe even get back to that book I started once upon a time. Baby steps though right?


Stay tuned for more exciting mommyhood stories as my son turns 1 and I venture back into the work force!