On The First Month of Parenting

I'm all salty and old at being a mom now that the babe is a whole month old, so I think I know everything. Just like since I've been through 9 months-give or take-of pregnancy, I also think I am the authority on all things pre and post natal.

Or not...

There are a lot of things that I was not expecting to happen that did. I'm not sure if I wish I had known either, because planning ahead either way probably would not have worked for me. Like, the pain I was having in my groin during pregnancy. Seriously, is it necessary to feel like I just fell onto the center bar of a man's bike for 24 hours a day? Maybe not so much. How could I have planned for that? Nothing you do makes it any better. Maybe an ice pack at night would have helped-that would have been super sexy, on top of the sexy waddle I developed in the last month. Yep, I had strangers asking for my number I was so hot. What I was expecting was insane cravings. That did not happen. Sure, I wanted comfort food but was I craving it so bad that I sent my husband out at 2am? Nope, and even if I had planned on cravings-how do you prepare ahead of time for that?

Hmmm, what else could have prepared me for: Being induced two weeks early; having my new son scare the hell out of my family and I when he didn't cry after he arrived; watching my child in the nursery the first night, monitored and on oxygen; an impossibly long, sleepless 2nd night in the hospital trying unsuccessfully to get my son to latch on; postpartum setting on a week after he was born and feeling so impossibly anxious and hopeless that I couldn't sleep; missing work and all the people around me as I'm stuck inside with this new little being I'm not sure I can take care of but so needs me to take care of him. I'm secretly wishing I could go back to work-where I'm sure of myself and good at what I do. Life around me was moving along as normal as I have to learn how to do something that can't be taught. I don't care how many books you've read-nothing can prepare you for it. Books, in my opinion are a generalization that can be helpful at times but do not focus on the needs of individual children. How can they? We are each completely different. Yes, all babies have similar, basic needs but just like each of us, they have teeny tiny personalities and need to be cared for accordingly.

It's work, and it's a learning curve, but it's worth it. As I type and pause to hold an itty bitty hand or rub a belly and listen to a little voice hum to himself or to me, this new little voice that has only been heard for a month in this great big world...oh boy is it worth it!