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| *photo by my sister-in-law Carrie |
As of May 5th, I got a new boss and she is most definitely
the cutest boss I will ever have in my life, but she is by far the most
demanding boss I've ever had. It goes without saying that I
adore her and have wanted to be a mom for so long, but what I have found
to be so enlightening is just how hard the first month has been.
When
you're trying to get pregnant, all you focus on is wanting a baby. I
pictured fun activities we'd do together like going to the park,
snuggling while reading a story and hearing her say "mama" for first
time. I sort of skipped over the newborn phase during this daydreaming
process, as I knew the sleep deprivation and around the clock feedings
would be hard. I just didn't know how hard.
For years,
getting pregnant was my # 1 goal. Then once I was pregnant, I was in
this state of mild euphoria. Not the first trimester, because I spent
the majority of it in bed with debilitating nausea and migraines, but
once I hit the second trimester, I really hit my stride. I loved my
growing belly and saw it as a badge of honor. I know exactly where I
was the first time I felt the little flutter of her first kick and was
mesmerized every time she did thereafter. It never grew old to me that
there was a life forming inside me. I was so excited to be pregnant
that I went out and bought maternity clothes way before my belly had
truly formed and was fully registered for everything baby before I even
entered my second trimester.
And then there's all the
celebration that comes when you're pregnant. You receive so much joy
and love from everyone in your life, even those you don't know. I loved
having impromptu conversations with strangers at Starbucks, whom I
would otherwise never even make eye contact with. Let's face it,
everyone loves a pregnant woman. And people want to know what you're
having, do you have a name, and then they always, without fail, offer
you a bit of advice -- even if they put the disclaimer out there that
"you're gonna get a lot of unsolicited advice, but ..." Of course the
most popular bit is "get your sleep now," which of course now I
understand why they say it, but it doesn't make any sense. You can't
store up sleep and you can't comprehend what they really mean until you
are two days in, averaging 2 hours of sleep a night.
But
about halfway through my third trimester, I have to admit I was over
it. I was so uncomfortable, my belly was just taking over my life. I
couldn't sit comfortably. I couldn't stand comfortably and I definitely
could not sleep comfortably. My pregnancy pillow we nicknamed "The
Snoog" had taken over our bed and poor Jeff had maybe 1/4 left to sleep
on. I was no longer sleeping, waking up at 3 am and watching hours of
terrible television. I think my lowest point was watching "The
Flintstones: Viva Rock Vegas." Okay, in all honesty, my lowest point
was watching "The Flintsones: Viva Rock Vegas" for the
second
time, because I fell asleep during the last 30 minutes the time before.
I somehow loved watching these terrible movies during the wee hours of
the night. It was like my little secret. But then I got so tired of
being tired that I thought "can i just go ahead and have this baby? I
mean I'm already not sleeping, I might as well be taking care of my
baby." Little did I know.
So three days after my due
date, little Amelia decided it was time to get moving. Of course, as
with everything in my life, this didn't come easy. She was posterior.
For those of you who don't know what that means, babies are supposed to
come out face down, but she was coming out face up. This meant that the
hardest part of her body - her skull - was scraping up and down my
spine, causing a ton of back pain, which ultimately meant a very long
and painful labor. Normally, you get relief between contractions, but I
was having excruciating back pain in between each one. By the time we
got to the hospital and got into our delivery room, Jeff and I asked
roughly how long it would be before she arrived. When the nurse said
about 10 - 12 more hours, I maybe hesitated a few seconds before the
words "epidural" shot out from my mouth. I had been in labor since
Friday and it was Sunday morning, the thought of ten more hours was just
unbearable.
Once that beautiful epidural shot into my
spinal cord, things felt SO much better. Why had I not gotten to the
hospital earlier, instead of laboring in pain at home for so long? How
was I thinking about doing this without drugs? Props to you moms out
there who did it, but I reached a point where it just didn't seem
possible without some sort of intervention.
Jeff was the best labor coach I could have asked
for. He was with me every step of the way, pressing into my lower back
when I was moaning through each contraction, telling me "you're halfway
through the contraction. The pain will be going away now. You're doing
such a great job, baby!" He fed me italian ices (which felt so
decadent compared to ice chips), sneaked in a strawberry yogurt, held my
hand, rubbed my back and just made it all better. He was even helping the nurses by getting pillows, grabbing ice chips,
and playing good music, which of course, put him in their good graces.
In between checking on me, they would tell me how lucky I was to have such a committed partner. One even
asked if she could be our sister wife! I can't imagine what it was
like in the Don Draper years, when men stayed out in the waiting room
with their bourbon, smoking their cigarettes.
Throughout
my entire pregnancy, I was terrified of labor, but I have to admit it
wasn't that scary, but remember I had drugs. It's the one time in my
life where I truly felt in the
moment. I had no idea of what time it was, how many hours had passed, or
even what people were asking me sometimes. I just remember a ton of
pillows, italian ices, excellent nurses, our doula giving me a
phenomenal foot massage and Jeff being so supportive. And anytime I felt a twinge of pain, I just had them boost that epidural and all was good again.
Earlier
in the day, my nurse Malinda had said "you're gonna love pushing" and I
thought "you're insane." But when it was time to start pushing, I
realized I actually did like pushing. It was like, after nine months
of waiting and hours and hours of labor, I was finally going to meet her
- and I was actively doing my part to help her enter this world.
After 2 1/2 hours of it, our strong little girl finally made it under
my pelvic bone, turning at the last minute, and was on her way out. The
instant of grabbing her and putting her up on my chest ( I totally
pulled a Kourtney Kardashian) was so surreal. I had a baby. A
beautiful, sweet little love laying right there on my chest, fresh out
of the womb. Everything else in the room went away and for a few
minutes it was just me, my sweet baby girl and my husband. Just like
that we were a family of three.
I didn't notice the
delivery of the placenta, the uterine massage, or even the many stitches
that were being sewn into my poor, torn, swollen perineum. It wasn't
until our hour and a half of skin-to-skin time had ended and the
epidural had been turned off that I started to feel the pain. We left
our massive floor-to-ceiling windowed room with a view of the Hollywood
sign and I was wheeled into a TINY, dingy little postpartum room and I
thought "oh, how the mighty have fallen!"
Poor Jeff got
stuck "sleeping" on a tiny cot that was missing several springs and
every time that we thought we could get an hour of sleep, the door would
open, the fluorescent lights would jolt on and someone would barge in
to give me some sort of medicine, take Amelia to get her hearing test,
or ask if I wanted juice. And because she arrived just minutes before
midnight, we only got a day and a half in the hospital, which quite
honestly turned out to be a blessing, because we clearly got no rest
there.
On the day of our discharge I remember trying to
get Amelia swaddled and myself dressed, which was a feat as I could
barely even stand, while Jeff was running back and forth to the car,
getting everything ready for us to leave. All of a sudden, Amelia
started wailing and I couldn't get her to calm down. I started crying
and the nurse came in to rescue me. Jeff had walked in at this point
and took her, checked her diaper and realized she was wet. I looked at
our nurse and said "I didn't even think to check that"and she was like
"Oh baby, that's one of the first things you check!" That's when I
thought - "wait! I'm in charge of her! I can't even figure out one of
her most basic needs and now we're just taking over, here?"
I
was overwhelmed. This was not how I thought this moment would go. I
remember seeing pictures on Facebook of moms wearing cute outfits with
fresh makeup on, holding their new little bundles as they left the
hospital. Umm...I was wheeled out to our car in a nightgown, as I had
accidentally peed on my "going home" outfit, with no makeup and giant
bags under my eyes, forbidding Jeff to snap any photos, while I tried to
soothe our crying baby. Jeff cautiously drove us home and I think we
savored that drive. 1) because she was actually sleeping and 2) because
the slower the drive meant the more time we had to get home and getting
home was terrifying.
Once we got home I remained
overwhelmed, as we maybe slept two hours a day that week. I couldn't
believe how challenging it was. My mom arrived exactly a week later
(and yes I was counting) and we 100% could not have done this without
her. She took care of our little family for three weeks. It was
amazing to see her with Amelia and how she instinctively knew how to
soothe her. It was such a great bonding experience for me to have my
mom teach me how to mother.
I've asked her and my mom
friends why is this so hard for me and the response is always the same,
that the first six weeks are the worst. I just don't know why people
don't talk about this more. Maybe you feel guilty because this is
supposed to be a blissful period and you feel like an asshole to
complain in any way? Or maybe I'm just a wimp. As much as I love her,
this has been the hardest thing I've ever done. But it's getting better
every day. And everytime I have a breakdown I know I have Jeff or my
mom, or my girlfriends to call and they remind me that it's okay to feel
this way -- it's just part of the process. My body has gone through
trauma, I'm being tortured with no sleep, my hormones are absolutely
crazy and I'm feeding non-stop, around the clock.
So
for now, I celebrate the little moments where she snuggles into me while
nursing, taking her little hand and wrapping her fingers around my
pinky. Or the crazy faces she makes and the little laugh she lets out
when her belly is full. Or that beautiful baby smell. Or those chubby
little cheeks. Or how even after I've put her down, I sneak back over
to look at her, amazed that we created something so beautiful. That's
what makes me know that while she is demanding, she's going to be the
best boss I've ever had.
