It's funny how your expectations of life events and the reality of those life events can be completely different.
This is the case with me and motherhood, for some reason I think i'm still in shock that there is another person in our family, and that this is my life now.
It's been six weeks on Tuesday and I still wonder who people are talking about when they mention Toby and then realise I have a baby and they are referring to him.
Nobody can really prepare you for how hard it is. Maybe it's a product of my 30 years of independence, maybe it's different for 'young' or 'younger' mothers, but it really bothers me that I just can't pop out to the supermarket, I have to plan it around feeding and changing, and gamble as to whether Toby will be fussy or happy. We went to Jacob and Elle's for tea and Toby cried the whole time, we had to take turns in walking him around the room while he screamed, needless to say we only stayed an hour and rushed back to the car where I burst into tears with "no one will want to be our friends anymore!"
One thing i've realised about myself in the last few weeks is that I really take on board what people say, perhaps a little too much, given that people (and books)...(and the internet) all have different opinions about what is right and what is wrong, especially when it comes to looking after a newborn.
Here are a few moral dilemmas that i've faced:
Dummy or no dummy,
Let him cry or pick him up
Protest cry or emotional cry?
am I psychologically damaging my child or not?
Schedule or no schedule?
Demand feed or routine feed?
Express milk or no express...
100% breast milk only till six months, or it's ok to give him a bottle of formula every now and again.
Over tired vs Wake time Vs is he getting enough sleep?
Under stimulation/over stimulation
Blah blah blah
Seriously i've ended up with no confidence in my own ability to raise my child. Hence the post birth crying sessions I guess.
When you love someone SO much, and they are so little and helpless, it breaks my heart to think I could be doing the wrong thing, and I feel so sorry for our Son, the eldest, the one we are pretty much using as a guinea pig, daily. Try this, try that.
Friday night we watched our stake youth production of Alice the musical. There was a scene where Alice is so disheartened from being big then small, then big again, and not knowing who she is that she sits down and cries, then she becomes small again and ends up swimming around in her pool of tears with a bunch of strange characters. ANYHO, the song she sings as she's swimming around is "I wish I hadn't cried so much." ... Hayden has allocated this as my theme tune and delights in singing and dancing around the house to it. I guess this is a true reflection of the last 6 weeks.
Don't get me wrong, my Toby is an Angel, I only have to feed him once in the night, and we've had plenty of good days. I am truly blessed to have such a happy and contented baby and I'm certainly feeling a lot better since getting over the forceps birth, which led to a Uterus infection which because of the strong antibiotics led to Oral Thrush, and possible Anaemia, which led to sore nipples and Mastitis. They say the first 6 weeks is the hardest right? (who are 'they' anyway? 'They' probably say the first three months is the hardest and then argue and debate about it on the net or in some 'how to raise your newborn' book).
Everyday Hayden and I tell Toby something along these lines:
"We love you very much, we are trying our best, but we are still learning".
I hope he understands.
