What Now

New Mom

In the hours and days that followed I was in awe of this small human I had created. I was also in shock of all that isn't discussed with expecting moms. I'm going to TMI here but no one tells you just how inflamed you get, down there. I imagined I looking like a caricature all ballooned out, my sister in law who was due a couple weeks after me best explained it to feeling like what baboons ass looks like.

I remember those sexy mesh hospital undies, oh boy, and pads as big as an dictionary. The best feeling was when they brought a diaper that acted like a soft ice pack on my bits.

We had to share a hospital room so that meant that the fathers weren't permitted to spent the night. Along with my birth plan, I also had this fear that the nurses were going to give my baby a bottle and that it would cripple my ability to breast feed him. That first night I tried and tried to calm him with my breast, and a pacifier  but no sooner would him or I settle then to wake up to a nurse checking my stats, or his, and they had to prick his tiny heel to get blood to test it for who knows what. Then we'd start the cycle all over again.

I jumped at the chance to go home as soon as possible. I knew the only person who could care for this small human as much as I would was Mike. So after his circumcision, we nervously hit the road home.

The next three days we had family in and out asking what we'd like for dinner, there to see and snuggle baby Billy. The first grand child for my mom and sixth on Mike's side of the family. Day three I hit a wall. We had his first checkup and they had to draw blood again, and let me tell you I swear I could feel his cry in my bones. They announced that he was jaundice and they would send a UV "blanket" home with us. It looked more like a old time water bottle used for cramps with fiber optic lights in it. This was enough for me to tell my family I had enough, I needed everyone out of my house. I needed it to just be us. Even though they didn't need me to play hostess, I didn't know how to shit it off with people in my house, and I sure as shit couldn't "sleep when the baby was sleeping" with them all in my house. Remember I went from a small family to a large one.

Another thing not talked about, I cried the first couple weeks anytime I needed to go number two, or the fact that you don't get to go home till you drop a duce. Quickly learning to take a bath right after to ease the pain.

At the two week mark Billy had lost too much weight just breastfeeding. We went to a lactation consultant and learned with his high pallet I needed to nurse with him in a football hold and also had to supplement with formula. Let's just say motherhood was showing me I was not in charge. I felt like a failure. I was tired, sore and he wasn't even getting what he needed. Learning the baby holds were a game changer, and he started to gain weight like a champ and we didn't have to supplement for long. 

On the way back from that appointment we were in a car accident rear ending another car after another car cut us off. He was fine, but I think I was going to have a heart attack worried if I needed to go back to the hospital to have him checked out. What if the car seat wasn't secure enough and he had shaken baby or whiplash.

That first month was spent second guessing everything I was doing and in sheer exhaustion. Confession I remember once my sister coming over and looking at me and said "looks like you were peed on, wanna go change" offering to take the sleeping baby from me. I just shrugged and said "Why? He is just going to pee on the next outfit too." I think we were on outfit two or three that day, and if I recall newborn diapers weren't fitting well just then.

I only had a handful of cozy clothes that fit my deflated balloon body. I was so excited to find these tank tops with a shelf bra that fit my ever changing breasts and were easy for breast feeding. That is excited till my niece looked at me and asked how long till I'd lose the baby weigh. She was only ten but I swear that stung. I never did lose that baby weight.