The Early Days

Lately I've been thinking back to the early days of parenthood and babyhood.  Between Carter's 10th birthday and two pregnant colleagues who both gave birth early, right around the same time as my three-week-early delivery, it's brought back a lot of memories.  I've tried to think back to what it felt like to be a brand-new parent, or even to remember some of the little details from my experiences as my colleagues prepared for their own first-time experiences.  Most of the time there are two feelings - one is complete overwhelm, and the other is absolute peace.

Having a newborn is amazing.  It's this whole new person you don't know but love intensely.  It's not easy to get to know them, and you're doing it while extremely sleep deprived, but yet it is totally worth it and completely enthralling.  Even though the days and nights feel long, it is an extremely short period of time where they're the tiny little scrunchy frog/alien babies who tuck their legs up high and whose butt nearly fits in your hand.  Before you know it, they're smiling and rolling and hopefully sleeping through.  But those early days are so precious and unique.   

When I think back, what I appreciate most about that period of time is that your main focus in life is to keep your baby alive and happy.  That is your top priority far beyond all else, and it's generally accepted that it's OK to let other things slide for a while.  At a period in my life where the housework feels like a Sisyphean task and wrangling my kids is a daily challenge, having that one sole focus be enough seems downright dreamy.  I know it wasn't always that simple--it was exhausting and nerve-wracking and even terrifying.  Late nights, inconsolable babies, sore boobs, yet another blowout...I know it wasn't easy.  But the mental weight was different and so much simpler in so many ways.  Life feels too complex right now, and I find myself a little jealous of the first-time parents who are in that honeymoon phase of just staring at their baby most of the time, the bonding time of figuring it out together, and where the biggest challenge is getting as much sleep as they can.  

Despite all those wonderful things, my maternity leave with Jacob was hard.  It started awkwardly with a week in the hospital, sleeping only a few hours, and being worried about getting him enough breast milk.  That week sort of ruined me in many ways, and by the time we got home, I think I felt discombobulated trying to figure out his schedule and habits since I hadn't had the natural, consistent bonding time that we should have had in his early days.  On top of it, I was feeling physically better by then and probably didn't get in the habit of just sitting around and focusing on the baby like you would while still sore and tired.  I think I was still nervous about "spoiling" him, so I wanted to let him be if he was laying there content.  I probably felt guilty just sitting around, so I often used that time or naps to clean something up, change over laundry, pay a bill, or try to be otherwise productive with whatever I had gotten behind on while I spent a week hanging out in the hospital.  I was so tired I could barely think, but I had a baby that didn't love napping and it was a crapshoot to pick the best nap to try to sleep myself.  The house was hot and I feel like everything just felt out of sync.  I didn't enjoy that time nearly like I should have.  

I was probably also completely nervous and unsure what I needed to be doing.  Learning everything from scratch with a judgy nurse a few feet away was awkward, and navigating new parenthood around wires and tubes while constantly worried about my baby with a bruised scalp from the vacuum that pulled him out and low oxygen episodes due to the fluid in his lungs, was not the easiest.  But it was still miraculous.  I'll never forget sitting in that nursery behind the curtain in the middle of the night, nursing my tiny baby and studying every detail.  I was still probably in shock, but I was obsessed.  And I just wanted him home healthy...only to still be nervous and tired and unsure what to do with him when we got there.  Craig was working a lot and I was lonely at times, but I didn't want to overstimulate Jacob by playing with him constantly...not that I probably had enough energy anyway.  In contrast, when I was home alone with Carter I savored the peace and quiet and the baby who didn't talk back.  Even with the complexities of figuring out a newborn, it felt simple compared to figuring out how to wrangle my challenging big kid.  I was used to sleep deprivation (mostly) and didn't care as much if I was spoiling the baby by holding him all the time.  I just wanted to rest myself and keep him content.  Little else mattered, and that was okay.  He slept through the TV noise, he chilled out on my lap or the boppy pillow, he nursed a bunch, and somehow that was enough to fill the time until Jacob and Craig came back home, without one hint of loneliness on my part.  Admittedly, having a cell phone by that point probably made a difference because I had constant access to social media and games if the quiet started to get to me, not to mention a camera to take a few pictures whenever the mood struck.  

It was a tale of two maternity leaves, for sure.  And now I think of my two colleagues figuring it out themselves in similarly different scenarios--one with a NICU stay, and the other who headed home within a day or so.  One was over a month early, the other just a couple weeks.  My heart went out to the one who was extra early, not just because she was facing that NICU stint, but also because she left a month of work undone and I know it had been her goal to not do that.  Speaking as someone who stopped into the office on the way to the hospital the first time and had my water break in the office the second time, I can relate.  Nothing really matters once your baby is your priority, but it's still not the way you want to go out--especially when these colleagues have the ability to take an extended maternity leave compared to my paltry seven weeks.  That's a whole other issue--they'll have fully functional infants on the verge of solid foods before they make it back to the office and I was leaving behind my still-wrinkly, sleepy infant with people I didn't even know.  Most of my loose ends could be easily handled or wait a month and a half, but they're gone so long they'll really be relying on others to figure things out.  That extra month early had to be a bummer, one that was no doubt quickly overshadowed by extra early labor and a tiny (but generally healthy) baby.

In many ways I'm a little envious and wish I could jump back in time to get a couple days with my own newborns again to appreciate where we started and how far we've come.  On the other hand, I am so grateful to be past that stage and on to others, even if they feel infinitely more confusing.  But at least I'm a bit more well-rested to figure them out.  The newborn stage is amazing and precious.  But two times was probably just enough for me, and my anxiety these days probably wouldn't let me go through it peacefully again, and my body would be protesting plenty as well.  But I'm grateful for my experiences, both the bad and the good, because they gave me a lot of understanding for what others go through and a lot of perspective on my own diverging experiences.  It's been a hard-fought battle to get to this point, earning my experience points along the way and having the joy now to look back and marvel at how far we've come.  Parenthood can be a little thankless at times, but when you have a moment to realize just how much you've accomplished, it's pretty amazing.