Tales From the Abyss-Part 1

We all have a dark side. The fact of the matter is though that many people keep it bottled up. It's messy, it's not pretty, and it might make you look like you aren't perfect. Guess what? You aren't. I was one of those people a few years back, always concerned with what others thought. I was so concerned in fact that I often was kinder to the strangers or acquaintances than I was to my family. They got to see the messy me. What a privilege. The thing is that we are not doing anyone any favors by hiding the fact that we have hard days too. We all do.

After I had Matthew I had a very rough time. I was a new mom. I was scared. I was not good at having this helpless thing need me all the time. My husband worked nights, and it felt so lonely. I was used to working and interacting with adults all day long. The first few months were exhausting. No one ever tells you the honest to God truth about having a baby. They lie. They tell you all the good things. Okay, so maybe that's not truly lying, but they lie by omission. People don't warn you that you will be so sleep deprived that you feel like a prisoner of war. You won't be able to do everyday things, like even taking a shower or brushing your teeth, without interruption and sometimes without being really creative (what new mom hasn't put her baby in a bouncy seat, swing or car seat in the bathroom while trying to grab a shower?). I remember my mom calling one morning, "How are you sleeping?" she asked. "I got four hours..", "That's not too bad," she interrupted. "In the last two nights," I finished. "Oh," she replied. Baby Matthew was not a good sleeper. The doctors told me that him being premature could have been part of his rhythm being off. The fact that the first few months I was told to wake my sleeping baby to feed him (so he would gain weight quickly, and because preemies don't always wake to eat when they should) every three hours definitely didn't do anything to perpetuate good sleep habits. Let me tell you that waking your baby every three hours often accounts for only about an hour, maybe 1 1/2 hours of sleep in between for mom. First, you have to get up and make the formula, breast milk combination that I gave him at first. He couldn't just be nursed, because he needed to put on weight quickly. So you mix the refrigerated milk with the formula, making sure everything is clean and then warming it up. Then (and this is the awful part!), as a sleep-deprived, heck- sleep-starved mother, you wake the peacefully sleeping baby. Baby Matthew doesn't want to wake to eat, so often you have to undress him from his jammies to change his body temperature slightly, which helps wake a sleeping baby. Sometimes a wet, cool washcloth on the face would do the trick. Then you try to nurse baby who just wanted to sleep. It works well- not at all. The emergency Cesarean section possibly effected my milk supply (the fact that I couldn't even try to nurse for 3 days and the fact that Matthew was on a high-calorie supplement), but the doctors swear that even if the baby just gets a tiny bit, it's better than none.  You may as well change the diaper at this point. Then it was time to give Matthew the formula. This he drank easily, as it came easily out of a bottle. After feeding, I wanted so bad to just put my new baby back to sleep. But did I mention that as a baby, Matthew had GERD (Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease)? This translated to the fact that after every feeding, Matthew would spit-up at least once, often up to three times, necessitating a complete clothing change on a getting sleepy baby. Then I'd have to rock him back to sleep. Once Baby Matthew was asleep, I couldn't just crash. I had to clean up stuff so that I was prepared for the next feeding, and pump milk to encourage my very low supply. At one point, I was so tired that I put the dirty clothes in the refrigerator. Another time, I clearly remember looking at my can of coffee on the counter, and the can of formula next to it, and thinking "Yep, the two go hand-in-hand.Welcome to my new life."

Sleep deprivation does awful things to a person. It can result in irritability, headaches, tremors, inability to focus, decreased short term memory, and high blood pressure, among a whole list of other things ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_deprivation). Combine that with post-pregnancy hormone fluctuation, and it was a recipe for disaster. I got mad at my new baby. I was very depressed, and I fought it very hard, because I also knew that I shouldn't be feeling this way, and that it wasn't healthy. Looking back, I am sure that I had postpartum depression. It is a perfect description of how I felt then. If it weren't for my Aunt Susie, and her entire family, who would help with my new baby often (she would even take him one night a week, so that I got an entire night's sleep! I loved that night. I looked forward to it all week), I am not sure how I would've gotten through those times.

We all have dark times. We'd like to say that they don't happen to us. We are strong. Bologna. Sometimes others are strong for us when we can't be. Sometimes we need the help of someone else. I am here to say that it's not only normal and okay, but that after our dark times, we indeed are stronger than before.

PS. Matthew is an awesome kid. He is smart, athletic and just amazing. I joke with him and tell him that he was an awful baby, and that if he'd had his way, there never would have been an Isaiah, :)! Don't worry, he gets my sense of humor.