Time is such an odd concept. When I was younger I wanted to grow up as soon as possible so I could do the cool things adults got to do. Get to go out and drive when ever they want, spend money on what you want, when you want to. There can be some days I feel like I did when I was a teenager, lost and wondering how I would handle it all. Other days I wake up remembering I am a 33-year-old woman with bills, a 4-month-old daughter, and bad knees. Life is funny like that, though I had to at least do something right to make it this far.
Not that it has been easy, looking back it hasn’t been easy in the least. Memories of great times alongside the lowest of lows all colliding together to stitch the story that is my life up to this point. There were things I wish that I had the chance to say, ones that I wish I hadn’t said at all, and actions that may have turned out better if I had at least tried. Do I regret it? Some of the times yes, but I wouldn’t change a single one if it meant that it would lead to what I have in my life right now. It may not be much but my daughters bright smile is worth every low point I ever had. I wouldn’t trade that for the world.
Watching her grow is a blessing, but in and of itself is odd. She is growing so quickly it feels like if I blink I might miss something. I look at her and see my little baby girl, and I know I will always see her that way, but in the same token it’s funny how growth changes. As I said, I look at her, and she seems so small, but when family and friends visit they always say “Look how big she is getting”, and I have to do a double take. She is growing, but to me, she is still tiny. Then I go out shopping for clothes or formula and see other mamas and their babies that are 10+ months and realize my daughter is the size of them if not bigger. Not to mention she is in 3-6 month size clothing even some solely 6 month size, and 6-9 month size shoes. At 4 months old. She really is a big baby, not in a bad way, she is healthy and growing. To be fair she was a little over 8lbs when she was born. Also helps that I am a little above average height for a woman, and her dad is 6ft tall. All in all it’s not surprising that she would be on the bigger side.
But it still is so odd of a concept to me. In most cases she seems small, and then I see other babies her age and I realize, nope, my daughter dwarfs them. She is already trying to push herself up on to her knees while she is on tummy time (her least favorite parts of the day) and is trying to figure out rolling. It’s so exciting to experience, and it makes me so happy at the amount of effort that she puts in. I can’t wait for her to start moving, I know once she starts she will be a roaming menace that I will have to keep chasing after, but I feel like most parents deal with that back and forth. We want what is best for our kids and to watch them hit milestones, but once they hit that marker we get sad because that milestone is done, and we can’t get that time back.
As a kid I wanted time to speed up to do all these events and tasks, and now that I’m older I want time to slow. I wish I could press a pause button and keep my daughter at 4 months for as long as possible and savor every second while she is small. She is growing at such a rapid rate that I blink, and a week has flashed by like nothing. We spend most of our lives trying to rush through life, and now I just want it to stop. I want to enjoy everything I can, but there doesn’t seem to be enough time in a day to enjoy as much as I would like to, to have my daughter experience as much as possible before she outgrows it. The real tight rope of time and how we want to spend it.
There are many things in life that seem to want to drag me down and keep me there. Tossing my mind and body back and forth, so I don’t know what is up or down at times. But a constant in my life right now, is my daughters smiling face. Every day I wake up to her little coos, look down and see her smile staring back at me. This is usually followed by a little giggle when she realizes I am awake, and what I call her “scheming hands”. She holds and rubs her hands back and forth while hiding her face behind them. It’s mischievous and oh so adorable. Watching and hearing this little routine every morning, gives me the motivation I need to get up and put my feet on the ground. Even on the gray days that make me want to curl up in a ball and go back to sleep.
Whenever life gets low my friend tells me that all I need to do is be 1% better than I was yesterday, to take a step at a time and keep pushing forward. She tends to be right, but when it feels like your world is falling apart and the walls are closing in, you don’t always want to listen. When the world seems bleak and the sun doesn’t even want to shine, advice can seem like everything else. Heavy. Hanging over your head as if trying to mock you. But my constant? The natural sunshine that seems to flow from my daughter. No matter how sad I feel, or how lost, seeing her face is enough to brighten my day. Even when she is yelling at me in her own way during tummy time, or when she is wailing because I took one minute to long to make her bottle, she still makes me smile. Talking with her and holding her is like an instant boost of serotonin.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to make it seem like she is my only source of happiness, because she isn’t. I have my friends and family, pets and rekindled hobbies that spark joy. But my daughter brings a happiness that isn’t forced or worked at, it comes naturally without any effort. A sense of comfort and pride that comes with being a mother and knowing that I brought her into this world, but she is the thing that makes life worth living. I love watching her learn and discover. The faces she makes when she realizes that her hands are attached to her and that she can control them. Grabbing onto her blankets, toys and my hair, tending to give a good tug and laugh to the latter. The coos and chortles that she makes to her toys as if talking to them. The oohs and ahhs that she gives as she looks at the plants and trees outside. The strength she shows off as she learns to hold the weight of her own head. Moving it all around as she tries to look at the people around her. It all enthralls me and makes life feel a little bit lighter.
Spending time with her makes the weight of reality melt away, and the heaviness of the world a distant memory. She makes me want to be 1% better each day, because that 1% is enough to make her happy, and to get me through to tomorrow. Taking a step at a time can seem slow and monotonous when all you want to do is sprint, but slow and steady can help you really understand what is happening around you. To soak in the effort that you put out, not rush through it. Some days may seem heavier than others, and some days I may not want to move from the bed. But hearing her wake up in the morning brings a smile to my face. Because seeing those scheming hands, and her face light up when she realizes I am awake, makes everything worth it. If you try to sprint you may miss what goes on around you, and I don’t want to miss a single moment of watching my daughter grow. I will keep taking my small steps one at a time, and keep pushing for that 1%. Because my friend is right, 1% is better than nothing. And one step forward is better than not moving at all.
When I got pregnant with my daughter I was warned that I should get what sleep I can, while I can. Other moms and my doctors kept repeating the same thing. That once the baby came, 8 hours a night would be a fond memory. I knew they were right, but I didn’t realize how right they were. As the months of pregnancy went on, I began to feel really run down. Napped as often as I could, got what sleep I could at night but still felt like it wasn’t enough. I felt sluggish and run down. I thought that would be the worst of it. Once the baby came those naps and full nights of sleep were a distant memory.
Between feedings, diaper changes, tummy time, more feedings, stretches, and doctor’s appointments, sleep came in scraps. The first few weeks, I was lucky if I got three hours of sleep a night. The baby was cluster feeding and I could only manage to get sleep in 15-20 minute intervals. During the day I felt like I was walking around in a constant haze, my mind constantly working on over drive while my body wanted to crumple into a ball and hibernate for a month straight. My partner helped me where he could, tidying the house, nighttime bottle feedings, watching the baby as I grabbed a shower or tried to catch a nap. But even with that, it didn’t feel like enough. My body was healing, it still is, but without the proper rest, it felt like I just couldn’t keep up with anything.
Here I am three months later and there are times it still feels that way. She is a full formula baby since I couldn’t produce enough to keep up with her appetite at all. This helps quite a bit because I can make bottles up a head of time and heat them as needed, this is also a setback at times because I can’t pick her up and feed her instantly like she wants. Thankfully the baby’s sleep schedule has increased, so she manages to get 4-5 hour intervals, which should mean that I could do the same right? I wish. Despite having more time that she is sleeping, I find my mind doesn’t like turning off. It constantly runs with the amount of events that happened during the day, what has to happen tomorrow, her appointments and milestones, it all floods at once as soon as my head hits the pillow. If it isn’t those thoughts, it’s if the baby is okay. When she is out cold, she is almost completely silent, her body barely shifting as she snoozes. She gets so quiet that I find myself reaching out to feel if her chest is rising and falling. Once I feel that she is moving, I am able to relax and nod off myself, only to wake up two hours later to repeat the process.
I know some of this is happening do to the anxiety of her being my first full term, some of it comes from not wanting to be a bad mom, and the last of it comes from fear of the unknown. Life is crazy and constantly shifting, pulling the rug out from under your feet when you already have uneven footing. I cherish my daughter and every amount of time that I share with her. I wouldn’t give it up for the world. But outside pressures also overlay with that time. Finding a new job that can help me balance home life and work life, trying to get set routines for myself and for my daughter, trying to take care of my body and give it time to heal while also being active with the baby to help her grow. A lot of times it seems tasks are constantly trying to combat each other. All this seems to chip away at you, mind, body, and soul. It pops up the most at bedtime.
This is one of the many things that I have to learn to balance, to adapt and move forward. To grow as my daughter grows, and try to do so in as healthy of a manner as I can. For now, I will do what I can, get what sleep I can and try my best to push the anxiety thoughts to the side. To allow myself to rest, to sleep as my daughter sleeps. I’ll use what tips and tricks I have learned along the way and use my time to the best of my ability, both during the day and night. It may be goodbye to sleep for now, but it won’t always be that way. As she grows I will be able to sleep again. It may not be anytime soon, but that’s okay. I will take the sleep I get and save my energy for what is needed that day, and save the rest for the next. It may be small shifts, but something is better than nothing. And some sleep is better than not at all.
The thing about motherhood is growth. Learning every day about what is new and how it can benefit your child as well as yourself. But there are aspects that I was not prepared for, let alone felt like I could talk about. There tend to be stigmas and what seems like information gate keeping at times. Internal thoughts that can plague you as well as a lack of general information. You can study all you want to try and get yourself ready, but you won’t know what actually works for you until you are at that moment and have to try.
When I got pregnant with my daughter, my partner and I did what research we could, tried to get a list together of what we would need, and in general do what we could to prepare ourselves. We went to every doctor’s appointment, followed every doctor’s instructions, and did whatever we could do. But then the tides started to take a turn. Tests and ultrasounds started showing that something was off and if I wanted to be able to hold full term, I would need some extra help. I didn’t like the fact that I needed to get it and a stitch to ensure I could hold my daughter the full 9 months. I felt like my body was failing me and that there was something wrong with me. The doctors told me that this happens and that there are plenty of women that needed the help, but I still didn’t like it. But one hospital trip and a Cerclage later, we were back on the road to our first child.
Enter the next issues that I was not expecting nor ready for. Because of the Cerclage stitch, the doctor recommended that I would have an epidural during childbirth to ensure the best conditions for delivery, and I agreed. There were already complications before, so why would I want there to be anymore? I was going to take the medical advice given to me. That is until I talked to other moms. Whether it would be coworkers, family or friends, I would get questioned about the pregnancy and what I was going to do as time went on. Which in itself is common and understandable. All would be well with the conversations, until I talked about the Cerclage, or the fact that I would want the epidural. People tried explaining that I was denying myself real childbirth by doing the epidural. Or that it wasn’t “proper”. That once again, I was denying myself being a real mother. Even had someone tell me that by getting the Cerclage I was intervening with the powers that be and I shouldn’t have gotten it. That if I was supposed to lose my daughter then that is what was supposed to happen. It hurt, it all hurt so deeply to do what ever I could to keep my daughter and be able to go full term, to be able to hold her in my arms, and not just in my belly, and still have it explained that what I was doing was wrong. Every pregnancy is different, and every mother has to make the decisions that would be best for her, but it hurt immensely to be told that my decisions were mocked or discredited.
I stopped talking about the pregnancy much because I didn’t want to be hit with the stigmas anymore, I didn’t want to be told that I was wrong for this or wrong for that. My partner and I continued to do as the doctors instructed, and I kept my head down. It seemed to be better that way, easier. But the thoughts of what those women had told me still haunted me as time went on. Months slipped by, and I got rounder and the baby got bigger. She was healthy, and that’s all I let matter to me. We continued to prepare and build what we needed in our home so we were ready to bring our little girl into the world and bring her home. A week before she was due, I started getting dizzy, and short of breath, something seemed off, and I had no idea what to do. Off to the doctor we went, to find out that my blood pressure and heart rate were through the roof and I would have to have be induced before she was due. I was scared, scared that I had done something that could hurt the baby, scared that my body was failing me once again. But once at the hospital doctors explained that I was being induced because I was already starting to go into labor, but my body wasn’t fully keeping up, hence the rising blood pressure.
Once again I was faced with decisions to make, go with pain management while I waited or not. Should I get the epidural or not? My partner was fully understanding and helped in any way he could. He listened and let me know his opinions but said that it would ultimately be my decision, that he wanted what was necessary to ensure a smooth delivery for both myself and our daughter. I agreed, though I still had the hurtful words in my head from the women I had talked to, I pressed forward and went with our original decisions, pain management until necessary and then move to the epidural as time and contractions went on. 24 hours of labor and 20 mins of delivery later, my daughter was laying on my chest, and she was the most precious thing in the world. I was happy that I didn’t listen to the naysayers, because my daughter was healthy and in my arms, and that’s all that mattered.
I thought that would be the end of the stigmas and the whispers, the lows that I had been facing, boy was I wrong. They say that the first three months of life with a baby are always the hardest, and that is indeed true. But what no one tells you is how it truly affects the mind. Every new mother has the risk of going through postpartum depression. Nothing wrong with that because your emotions and hormones are all over the place. You are sleep-deprived and still trying to figure out what is going on while your body is trying to heal. According to my charts and tests I was also at risk for PPD, but felt like I couldn’t discuss that or what was going through my head with anyone but my partner and my doctors. I was told “it’s not proper to talk about that” acting like 1 in 10 women don’t get it after having a child. Most do recover and as weeks went on my scores went down, and I was out of the woods, but it already left an impression that if I was going through something, it wasn’t right to talk about it.
Then the next trial got thrown my way. At first, I was able to keep up with breastfeeding my daughter, and all was well. But by the end of the first month, I was having trouble keeping up and once again I didn’t know what to do. The pediatrician recommended feeding her when I could while I could and supplementing with formula. And if needed, switching to formula all together. My OBGYN agreed, that I needed to do what was best for my family and for myself. And at first I was fine with that. But once again I had the voices of others around me telling me that I was wrong, that I needed to try harder to breastfeed. That breastfeeding was the better way to go and that I was once again denying myself the ways of being a “real” mother. I was starting to question what that statement actually meant. In my eyes, every mother that does what ever they can for their child is a real mother. Why is that when I was doing whatever I could and following doctors advice, I still wasn’t enough?
Don’t get me wrong, my partner did everything he could to help combat what others said, telling me that we would stick to listening to the doctors and do what we needed for ourselves. That what mattered was the health of our daughter. And he was right, still is. But that doesn’t stop the hurtful words from hurting, from spinning around your head at 3 in morning while staring at the ceiling between feedings. It seemed whatever decision I made in the pregnancy, to my daughters first few months, outsiders told me I was wrong. And sooner or later you start thinking that you can’t do anything right. Then I started realizing that I actually didn’t need the naysayers in my life. If they weren’t going to be supportive then why were they there? Why did I let their words hurt me or affect me when I was doing everything I could? I didn’t know.
Then one day while out running errands, I met a mother with a shirt that changed my perspective. “Mind Your Own Motherhood” it said, and I loved it. Told her so and this stranger looked at me with a smile that said “I see you, I understand you” and told me that as much as we want to have the advice of others to help guide us, that we shouldn’t let other peoples words dictate us. Each mothers journey is unique and shouldn’t be discredited for what they have to do for themselves and their children. And that was the best advice I had received by any outside party. Its one thing when you hear it from your partner or those that are in your corner, because though they matter, you start to feel like they are telling you what you want to hear. But here was this complete stranger that reiterated all those gentle voices with a few words of wisdom and a simple homemade t-shirt.
Despite what everyone tries to tell us, or dictate us to do, the journey is our own. And I am here to say that I understand the struggle. The lows that are reached, the ones you feel like you can only whisper, or not say at all in fear of being deterred, or told you aren’t enough. To any mother that is struggling. I see you, I understand the struggle, and I want you to know you are not alone in the pain that can come along with learning. But I also want it to be expressed, that this is your journey to take, to learn from and follow. Listen to your doctors, listen to the gentle voices in your corner encouraging you. Block out the naysayers and do what you need to do for your family. Mind your own Motherhood. That should be what matters.
A Day in the Life 