Coming Out of the Fog

In all the copious amounts of information about pregnancy, birth, and childcare that I have been reading, really nowhere does it quite prepare you for that first week postpartum. So I hope to shed some light on this topic for all of you out there thinking about having your own little one. You know all those smiley happy photos you see of new parents..well that's maybe a tiny percentace of what is actually going on in that household-I'll bet you anything.

First of all, today is the 10th day of little Jonah's life. That means that I have fed him about 100 times. That's me, the lone source of food, the only person in the entire universe who can feed this kid. Can you imagine? At this point we can't really travel anywhere except on short excursions-because he's so little, and also, honestly, because I have no idea how to discreetly breastfeed a baby in public (yet another thing Jonah and I will learn together). So here we are at home. Second-crazy hormonal shifts-like you've never had before. I would find myself crying my eyes out and not believing I was EVER going to get through this, and this kid would never grow up and I would be chained to nursing him every three hours forever. I mean, really some of the saddest episodes I've had in my life.

Third-Jonah eats every three hours from the start of one feeding to the start of the next. Think about this...you feed him at 11pm, change his diaper, and get him back to sleep. It is now 11:45 pm. The next time he's going to wake up hungry is 2am. That means you have the opportunity of sleeping 2 hours and 15 minutes before having to wake up again for 45 minutes. Now try doing this with all the raging hormones, your body still in a state of shock from the delivery, and the major life shift that just took place and WHAM-this is not for the weak spirited.

So that first week felt like years-but we did get through it-a lot of that was from our wonderful friends coming over and bringing us food, chatting with us, and keeping us a little sane. But a lot of it was just waiting it out, and getting through it. Now each day I wake up feeling a little more like myself, and I think Michael and I are finally beginning to accept that such a huge change has taken place in our lives. We love Jonah-don't get me wrong. But we are also set in our ways and used to doing our own thing..so now starts the process of integrating our lives with Jonah's. MAN-what a journey this will be.