I’ve been meaning to do a “since Carson was born” post for a long time…but I just haven’t had much time to do things I want to do. This is going to be long and maybe a little disjointed, but I’m just throwing it all out there.
About a year and two days ago, I went home from work with one of the worst colds I had ever had. What was worse was that I knew for a fact that I couldn’t take anything for my cold, because I had just confirmed that morning that I was indeed pregnant. I had had my suspicions for a few days…I was in a training class the week before and would frequently get hot flashes and nauseated. I took a test (or three) that Monday morning to find out for certain. I didn’t tell Kyle right away…I wanted to figure out a cool way to tell him. Those of you that know Kyle know that he is a numbers/finance guy, and he is constantly tweaking our budget and working on our retirement plans. So, when he got home from work he was on the phone, and then he wanted to take care of some other things…finally I insisted that he look over our budgeting spreadsheet because I had been thinking about some things and thought it needed some adjusting. As he scrolled down, he saw all of our normal expenses and seemed confused…until he got to the bottom where I had inserted line items for diapers, daycare, baby clothes, nursery décor, etc… His mouth fell open and he looked at me a third shocked, a third scared, and a third thrilled! He excitedly said, “are you serious?!” I said, “Yep!” He looked back at the spreadsheet….”Do diapers really cost $4500 per year?” “I have no idea, but I guess we’re about to find out”, I said.
I will say that those first few weeks were really rough. Actually, I take that back, the first week wasn’t that bad. I remember thinking, “I’ve totally got this!”. I was just kind of on autopilot. Kyle even did the good, responsible spouse thing and would pull me aside from time to time to check and see how I was doing mentally…just like all of our books and classes told him to do. As we learned, Post-Partum Depression is A LOT more common than anyone would realize or like to admit. The thing was, I never got depressed or even the “baby blues”. I just got anxious. Really anxious. My Mom came to stay with me that first week, which turned out to be an even bigger help than I had imagined since I ended up having an unplanned c-section, and Kyle had to go back to work and was even more busy than normal as he was helping open four new restaurants. It was after everyone left and I was home alone for 10-12 hours a day, that I started to go a little crazy. It would start around 4 in the afternoon, and last all night. I was just super anxious and on edge. I could never relax. I was always anticipating when Carson would want to eat next. Would it be 45 minutes? Or 10? I didn’t dare go to sleep in fear that it would only be 10 minutes. After talking to a few other women, this is apparently very normal. I am thinking that this happens because in non-baby land, we get off of work around 5, unwind at home or doing whatever we like to do, and then we go to bed whenever we wish. Well, with a newborn, there is no wind down from the day, and you never really go to bed. And this messes with your head. But, it does pass. I just had to keep telling myself...it will get better, and eventually, it did! Also, the books and classes/lactation consultant stress the importance of learning your baby’s feeding cues and feeding them before they get too upset. In hindsight, it wouldn’t have killed either of us if I had waited to feed him until he got a little upset. He still would have eaten just fine, and I wouldn’t have been shooting up out of bed with every little peep he made.
I think a lot of this was prompted by the fact that I never really slept after the night before my induction. Carson was born at 11:28 p.m., so I didn’t sleep that night, and from then on he ate. And ate, and ate, and ate. Even though he would get full and fall asleep, he would pop his eyes open the second we laid him in the bassinet (our hospital frowned upon letting the baby sleep on you if you were going to fall asleep…as a safety risk) On night three, I figured we had this whole breastfeeding thing down, so I asked the nurse to take him to the nursery and to use a pacifier if need be. He took the pacifier, and we both slept for about 2 ½ hours.
One thing I was curious about prior to birth was how I would feel about this baby. I heard a lot of people talk about how they were just suddenly overwhelmed with a love that they’d never felt before, however, I know myself and how elusive my emotions tend to be, so I didn’t know if I’d be one of those people or not. Well, it was as I expected, I of course loved Carson from the second I saw his scrunched up face, but I wasn’t overcome with emotion. I think part of that stems from the fact that he was born via c-section, and I couldn’t [physically] feel anything, and then all of a sudden my doctor was holding a crying baby up over the drape. It took a bit for it to sink in that the crying I heard across the room was coming from MY baby. But every hour, every time I looked at him, every whimper from that moment on, my love for and awe of him grew exponentially. Kyle and I talked about that on our way home from the hospital, and he admitted that he felt the same…it wasn’t a sudden collision with love for him either, but a slow-steady love that had us both completely enamored.
Sure, we have rough moments from time to time, but for the most part, Carson is an extremely easy, textbook baby. I like to think that I did something that made him that way, and perhaps I may have helped, but he’s only had a few colicky days, and otherwise doesn’t really cry much unless there’s a real reason…needs a diaper change, food, is sleepy, or just overstimulated. I never “put him on a schedule”, but as he started to sort his own patterns out, I might encourage him to go 15 more minutes before he ate, and that sort of thing. We also started doing a bedtime routine early on, even though neither one of us “went to bed” for a good while. So now he knows what to expect and when…and believe me, if we wait too long after his last bottle in the evening before starting his bath, he lets us know about it! He started sleeping through the night (with the occasional need to be re-swaddled or for paci re-insertion) around 10 weeks, which is right before I came back to work…so that was a beautiful thing! We feed him around 7:30-8, bath, massage, story, and then swaddled and rocked to sleep. We do a “dream feed” around 10:00, and then he’s good for the night food-wise!
Going back to work was really hard in that I just missed being with Carson. I actually enjoy getting dressed and putting make-up on in the morning, and conversing with adults about real-world things, but I just miss my kid! I’m very happy with the school that he is at, though. They do all kinds of activities, and I know that Carson just eats it up. I mean, I don’t have puppets at home! Kyle and I are going to have to learn Spanish, however. A few of his teachers are bilingual, and when they read books or show them pictures of objects, they say it in both English and Spanish.
The hardest transition coming back to work has simply been adjusting my mindset. I think that I assumed that when I went back to work, I was doing just that, going back to my full-time, adult job, and would be a mom when I got home. What I have discovered, however, is that being a mother is now my full-time, 24 hours/day job, and my career is my part-time job that I just do on top of everything else. Work has been difficult in several aspects. I get to work early so that I can leave early, and I have to leave at a certain time. No more staying late to finish up a project. Also, I’m still breastfeeding Carson, so I have to shut my door a few times a day to pump. Normally this isn’t a big deal, but there have been times where I’ve been passed over for projects or to gather information because I wasn’t readily available. These things make me feel like I’m not able to pull my weight in some ways, but I’m honestly doing all that I can within the parameters that I’m working in.
Speaking of breastfeeding…I have a love/hate relationship with it. I discovered that I have an extremely slow let-down reflex, so when nursing, it takes Carson FOREVER to eat. I hear these women who talk about their babies eating for 8 minutes per side, and I want to slap them with jealousy. It takes Carson a minimum of 20 minutes per side. So these people who say that nursing is great because you take food with you wherever you go and you can just go feed them on a mall bench or in the car…doesn’t really apply to us. Pumping is a great option for us in the sense that I’m able to provide Carson with all the breast milk he needs, but let’s be honest…you already feel like a cow after having a baby with this big ‘ol loose belly anyway, stick some plastic flanges on your boobs and you might as well chew some grass too. Oh and then there are the blocked ducts…that’s fun to deal with at work. I also would like to wear clothes that don’t require nursing or pump accessibility, or drink copious amounts coffee without affecting Carson’s ability to sleep, or eat a big bowl of beans (or some other gaseous food).
The love part comes on weekends or evenings when we have no agenda, and I can sit there on the couch and nurse as long as Carson needs. It really is a neat bonding experience. I get to snuggle him close to me, and he is completely content eating. I think Kyle enjoys it because it’s one of the few times when I’m not in a tizzy because “someone needs to be doing something because there’s always something that needs to be done!”
Carson is the absolute joy of my life, and the best part of my day is picking him up at daycare. He’s smiling, laughing, cooing, trying his hardest to roll back to front, grabbing things and immediately putting them in his mouth, and growing like a weed. Seriously, I just bought him 9-month footless pajamas because he outgrew his 6-month footed ones when he was about 12 weeks old. I know, I know…I should have completely anticipated a long, skinny baby.
Stats:
Birth: 8 lbs. 3.5 oz. 22 inches
1-month: 9 lbs. 15 oz. 22.5 inches
2-month: 11 lbs. 9 oz. 24.5 inches
Firsts:
Holding head and shoulders off the ground during tummy time: 17 days
Intentional smiles: 6 weeks
Roll front to back: 8 weeks
Photo Dump!
Newborn Picture Gallery:
http://chubbycheekphotography.com/slideshow/?/set/896b/carson
Photo Dump!
Newborn Picture Gallery:
http://chubbycheekphotography.com/slideshow/?/set/896b/carson
