Emerging from the postpartum shadows

I'm starting to see the light and feel the warmth of the sun. I'm starting to enjoy the cool breeze, and smile easy and laugh easier.

I'm starting to breathe again.

Because for awhile there, I wasn't. It was all choked up in my throat and my heart kept pounding but....as Jordan Sparks would say, no air. 

Rhenner is a few days shy of being 4 months old. And now I can look at him and say I'm so glad you're here. I'm so happy you're in our family and that you have cute, fluffy hair that sticks straight up and a big nose and an even bigger smile. 

I'm going to be honest. Rhenner? Well, he broke me. He shattered every ounce of confidence I had as a mother and he threw the broken pieces in the air for the wind to catch and carry away. And just like that, I was a mess. I thought I knew what I was doing. And therein lied the problem: When it comes to kids, I should remember that I never know what I'm doing.

I thought he would be just. like. his. brother. And funny thing! He wasn't. He was hard. He was really hard and I dreaded every day. I would lie down at night and think, I have to do that all over again tomorrow. How am I going to survive this?

A friend of mine told me that it really looked like I had my shit together (her words, not mine, but I'm keeping them nonetheless). The fact was, only my instagram feed and facebook status updates had their shit together. But not me. Definitely not real-life-Meghan.

Rhenner didn't take a pacifier like his brother did. And it wasn't just that he didn't take a pacifier - he didn't take comfort. Like, at all. People suggested putting him in a carrier. He screamed louder when he was facing in towards me. People suggested I swaddle him. He fought harder against the fabric, against himself. People suggested putting him in the carseat and taking him for a ride - Bad. Bad, bad, bad idea. Rhenner detests the carseat and screamed everytime I would put him in it. It didn't matter how long the drive was, he would scream the whole time. I hated driving him anywhere, because it just made me feel awful listening to him. I tried nursing him to sleep - he would nurse, and then just as he was getting tired, he would get mad again and attempt to rip my nipple off my breast. When he was tired, he didn't want to be held. He didn't want to nurse. He didn't want to rock. He just wanted to sleep, and he didn't know how. It tortured me. I would shut myself in his room for 45 minutes at a time, all the while he is screaming and clawing at my shirt and just begging for sleep. I would get him -finally!- asleep, only to have him wake up within minutes, starting the entire process all over again. Even Grandma, when she came to visit, knew he was a mystery. "Hmph." She said. "He is one tough customer, isn't he? You really got your hands full."

I took him and Axton to a park play group one day. Just to try it. Just to prove all those depressing thought in my head wrong - thoughts that told me I would never again get to go out or take Axton places or have other people watch my kids. Well, while we were there, Rhenner got tired as one-month-olds tend to do, and he was crying and I was nursing on a park bench and Axton is pouting next to me, saying Mommy please come play with me? And nursing isn't helping and walking or swaying isn't helping. So, a friend offers to try....She asks, "Does he take a pacifier?" Good grief, if he did, don't you think I would have tried that by now? I watched him pound his fists against her chest, clawing at her shirt, his face getting redder and his screams getting louder. I watched her face as she handed him back to me. It was a look of relief.  A look that said to me Boy I'm glad he's not my kid. And again, I was defeated.

We had friends over for dinner another night, and I couldn't enjoy a single minute with them because Rhenner wouldn't go to sleep. I walked up and down our driveway, up and down, up and down. I walked slow, I did lunges, I bounced and jiggled and really the only way he would ever fall asleep was after just giving up. But I couldn't put him down in his bassinet because then he would wake up, and I couldn't go back and enjoy my friends because our talking would wake him up. So, once again, I had to seclude myself in his room and just wait. It was such a lonely time.

On top of his crankiness, he was also extremely congested. There were countless nights I had to sleep sitting up, holding him at an incline, so he could breathe while he slept at night. Below is a video I took of him around 4 weeks old. I took the video because everytime I tried talking to someone about it, it was like they didn't believe me or thought I was making a bigger deal out of it than I needed to. So I wanted to prove to them that this is what he sounded like all the time, and that this wasn't normal.

 I talked to several different people - is it a cold turned something serious? Is it allergies? Milk sensitivity? His primary care physician thought it could be reflux, but didn't think it was serious enough for a prescription. Another doctor I took him to thought it was just a lingering cold and he would get over it. Another one didn't know what was causing it, and could only suggest taking him to an ENT. When I went in for my 6 week check up with my midwife she asked, "Does he always sound like this?" and I said, "Yes. Always. Thank you for noticing." She suggested some natural remedies for the congestion and for reflux. I didn't know what was causing it, but it was incredibly frustrating to not have answers. It was also guilt-inducing to think that if it was milk allergies, I was the one causing it. So I cut out all dairy products, feeling a little bit better that at least I was trying to find a solution.

I welcomed the night. Night time was the only time I could catch a break. Rhenner would, after several, clustered feedings, sleep in bed next to me. He would generally go right back to sleep after nursing. So, we co-slept. Because, like I said, it was the only break I got. I woke up in the morning only to look forward to going back to bed at night. That, my friends, does nothing for a person's happiness.

I felt guilty about Axton, too. Rhenner sucked so much energy out of me and Axton was dealing with so many changes at once - I was not patient. I didn't have enough time in the day to be the kind of mother I wanted - and used to be! - to him. I constantly thought, "What was I thinking? I was a great mother to just one boy, and now I am simply a mediocre mom to two boys! Was it worth that? I will never have another kid, because then I will just be a sucky mom to three kids and that's not fair to anyone involved." I felt guilty that I wasn't enjoying Rhenner the way I had hoped to. That I was telling myself this was just something I had to get through, rather than moments to embrace. I was simply just....living. Just going through the motions. I felt guilty that I was constantly comparing Rhenner to Axton, thinking how easy Axton was! When really, I probably just forgot the hard stuff with him.

So, as I'm sure you can tell now, when it came time to fly to Idaho with both boys by myself, I had extreme anxiety. I got so worked up and so nervous, I made myself sick the morning before the flight. I spent most of that morning in the bathroom. Going through security, Rhenner was in the carrier - which, of course, he hates but I don't have enough hands for anything else. Axton was screaming for Daddy when he saw him not go through the security with us, and I am - what else? - crying. Finally, Rhenner is exhausted and he allows me to put the pacifier in his mouth - he doesn't even suck before he is asleep. The plane ride itself isn't bad; Axton watches Curious George and the humming of the plane helps Rhenner sleep. But getting off the plane? Everything is chaos! More crying and screaming and everyone is staring and I make eye contact with no one. Just keep looking forward. Just keep moving. Axton is running away from me and I choose to save him over my camera equipment and when I get back to my stuff, someone had been waiting by my bags to make sure no one stole anything. Thank you. 

And then we have the most hellish drive of my life - 4 hours from Salt Lake City up to Idaho with the child that can't stand to be in his carseat. I literally had to turn myself off. I had to block it all out. I had to be emotionless. I will say it again: I was broken. 

Being with my mom was good for me, but it also made me rely on her. She didn't leave me alone too often while we were there, but the few times she did have to work, I would get panic attacks when I would find out I would have to be alone with the boys. I dreaded being alone with them. Do you know how that feels? How awful it is to know that you dread being alone with your own children? My mom kept encouraging the pacifier and I just...everything felt wrong and out of place and again, I felt guilty that I was forcing something on him that he clearly didn't like.

We visited my sister in law, whose baby was only 5 weeks younger than Rhenner. We were there for 3 hours and I had to feed Rhenner twice while Landon slept the entire time. I looked enviously at him, swaddled and sleeping through the noise and movement and thought, "Rhenner never did that."

Going to church was embarrassing and felt completely like a waste of time. There were two other moms who had babies within 5 days of Rhenner, so we all returned to church around the same time. My first week back to church with Rhenner was miserable. Rhenner, as per usual, was not going to sleep. I walked into Relief Society, sat down, and he immediately started crying. So I carried everything back out with me, mumbling to someone, "Nope, that's not happening." There was way too much going on for him. It was too hot outside for me to take him out, someone had locked the Mother's nursing lounge (say what? That is NOT okay. It's not even about nursing in front of other people, I just needed a quiet room that loud kids wouldn't come barging into so he could fall asleep). So the only room I could find was the one right next to the Relief Society room. I knew every woman in there could hear his every wailing, his constant screaming. I knew what they all were thinking - about me, about Rhenner, about my mothering abilities - or at least, I thought I did. And I hated it, so much. The two other moms with babies the same age would look at me with their pity-eyes, and ask, "How is he doing?" I know now it was out of love, but in the moment it felt like they were rubbing it in. Rubbing in their perfect easy babies ("Oh man, this baby is SO much easier than my first. How about for you?!?") that magically fell asleep during the Sunday school lesson as they gently swayed them back and forth.

In the midst of all this, Axton stopped napping. And my already train-wreck of a life dissolved into nothing but tears and sadness. Once I realized he was done with his nap, I had a week where I just moped around the house, calling it a "quarter-life crisis." I told Adam I no longer knew what I was supposed to do with my life - especially when it came to the one thing I spent time on outside of the home: photography. "What am I even doing? I have to quit photography. I will never again have time for it. Besides, who am I to capture someone's wedding day? I am not that good. Nobody should ever trust me with capturing the most important day of their life. I am going to ruin someone's wedding. I've got to quit this. Axton is obviously having behavioral issues. It must be my fault. I need to focus more time on him. I should be doing more with him..." And I haven't even mentioned anything about dealing with a postpartum body, trying to get back in shape, my body not being my own, things hurting and aching still.  It went on and on and Adam didn't know what to do with me and I didn't know what to do with myself.


.........

I reread this post and I think that it does not do justice to what I was going through. It just makes me sound like a whiney person, with a slightly-above-average cranky baby, when really, I was depressed and it was really, really hard.
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But then, slowly, things started getting a little easier. Rhenner started taking a pacifier occasionally, and then more and more often. Which meant he started to fall asleep peacefully. It was no longer a violent fight to get him to relax, he could peacefully sleep in my arms. I cried the first time it happend because I didn't realize how beautiful of a blessing it was, and what a difference it made, to not have him fight me so hard. His happy, awake moments started lasting longer, too. He would give me a smirk and my heart would leap for joy - a small reward for all my hard work that day. I am starting to read him easier, know his needs quicker, spread out his feedings longer. Axton is getting used to having him here, realizing he isn't a temporary inconvenience, but a permanent addition to our family. Of course it's still hard - but it's an I-can-handle-this hard. It's not a break-me-in-half hard.

I forgot how much I hated it when people asked if I had a "good baby." Somebody asked me that recently, "Has he been a good baby?" I honestly didn't know how to answer that. As hard as he was, he is still such an innocent little soul. He is still perfect and he is still mine and he is who he is for a reason, so how could I ever call him "bad"?

\Now that I am starting to be able to enjoy this stage with Rhenner, I've been reminded just how fast they really do grow. With Axton, I was so eager for him to reach the next milestone - eating solids, sleeping through the night, napping on a regular schedule, walking. Now, with Rhenner, I'm stretching everything out as long as I can. He is still sleeping with me most of the time, and I haven't even thought about introducing him to solids (even though, technically, he could start now).

I wanted to write about this as it was happening, I wanted to say, "Hey, I'm having a hard time," instead of writing about it after the fact. But really, I couldn't even wrap my head around it. I couldn't even see through the fog and the pain. It's been quite a journey, getting to this point. Motherhood is always a journey. It's true that every child really is his own person, and I will be fully prepared for the next one by....not being prepared at all. By being willing to take whoever comes to us and being patient. Until then, I'm learning who Rhenner is and how he fits into our family. Taking it one day at a time and finding joy in the journey.

Second Time Around

Things I forgot about: 

Showers are a joke. I would like to think I'm actually getting clean, but really I'm just fooling myself. For one thing, I'm still bleeding out the wazoo so, as gravity always does its job, blood is now dripping down my legs. Hot water on my breasts only makes them explode, so now sticky milk is dripping all over my belly. And since showers are the only chance I have to be alone, it's where I do my crying. So now I have snot and tears clogging everything on my face. But let's say that I somehow manage to clean off the blood, milk, tears, and snot while standing in the hot water, before it all starts up again. Even if that were the case (and it's not always), the second I shut off the water, I'm back to square one. The bathroom is all steamed up and I'm already sweating.

Wearing a pad for weeks on end = cruelest form of torture ever. Most of us are used to wearing pads for a short period of time. But when you're having a period that makes up for going 9 months without one, and you aren't allowed to shove a tampon up there, pads become your best friend and your worst enemy. They rub you in all the wrong places, causing sores and itches and burns. Sometimes I wear my stupid huge adult diapers instead of a pad just because they are a different shape and size and therefore will rub my raw behind in different places. Poor Rhenner is getting fed up with me stealing all of his diaper rash cream (not really - he doesn't even need it.)

The stinkiest phase of my existence. I have never sweat so much and smelled so bad as I do when I am breastfeeding every two hours in the dead heat of a Maryland summer. Sticky for days, I tell you. And it is immediate. Like I said above, the second I step out of the shower, it begins. If I don't put deodorant on my pits while I'm turning the hot water knob off, then it's too late. I might as well stay in the shower forever.

The two week turn around point. Everything is shimmery and glorious and doe-eyed for the first two weeks. I'm all snuggles and sleepy and precious with Rhenner, and I can easily lay him down in bed if ever I need a break. Or I can hold onto him and fall asleep at awkward and uncomfortable angles and waking up with his cute little cheeks in my arms makes up for the creaks in my body. But then something happens at two weeks - and I knew it was coming because Axton did it to me, too. "It" being turning into a zombie baby - a zombie baby who never sleeps and only cries and wants to be nursed constantly and jolts awake the second I try to put him down (which I try to do often because sleeping with him in my arms is starting to lose its preciousness, and the creakiness in my bones is starting to wear on me). To top it all off, Rhenner is not taking a pacifier like Axton did. It is really hard for me to watch him have such a difficult time falling asleep - sometimes even when I am nursing him - because there really is nothing I can do. I just have to let him get frustrated and overtired and work himself into a tizzy.

The Guilty Whispers and Wise. I told myself I wasn't going to read any "baby books" this time around. Well, I kind of listened. My mom bought me the Baby Whisperer DVD and I thought it wouldn't hurt to just get a review. Well instead of learning great tips and tricks on how to get my baby to sleep, it only made me feel guilty for already doing it all wrong. She told me (to my face!) that a baby is fully equipped to fall asleep on its own, but we as parents ruin those skills by rocking and holding them to sleep. I think that is the biggest load of bull I have ever heard. Saying that to new parents is in no way encouraging or helpful, and only guilts them into doing exactly as Tracy says. Well, I'm not falling for it this time, Miss Hogg. I don't believe that you know the only way for babies to fall asleep. I think you have some good ideas but I'm not going to beat myself up this time for not following your advice step by step. Same goes to you, Mr. Wise.

Being name shy. I remember I was the same way with Axton for the first little bit (a couple weeks? A couple months? I can't remember for how long). It was weird for me to call him by his name. Instead of saying, "I need to feed Axton." I would say, "I need to feed baby." I don't know if it's because he was in me for so long without a name or what, but it took me a long time to get used to Baby's name being Axton. It also took me awhile to not be shy or embarrassed to tell people his name. I knew Axton was a pretty different name, and a lot of times whenever people would ask, I would have to repeat it for them or spell it for them. This made me shy about his name for a little bit. I am noticing I am doing the same thing with Rhenner, and I am trying to get over it quicker - especially when I talk to Axton. I want him to know that baby's name is Rhenner and not 'Baby.'

Random bursts of milk. All I have to do is think about Rhenner and the all-too-familiar tingling (tingling? Who am I kidding? This isn't a mere tingle, this is the weight of Niagra Falls pushing to spill out of my poor, mangled nipples) hits me. I have caught myself walking around the store or at a restaurant with one hand pressed against each of my breasts, trying to keep myself from leaking all down my front. I'm not sure which looks worse: two wet circles around each breast, or a hand pressed against each breast.

Things that are new:

The obvious. Now I don't just have a baby to take care of. Now I have a baby and a two-year-old. A two-year-old who is currently testing my every last strand of patience. Whenever I ask him not to do something, he grins his devil grin and does it again. Or if I tell him not to go into the road, he runs off in exactly that direction, turning his head around to laugh at me while I try to chase him down with poor Rhenner bobbing off my boob. I have only had two days on my own, without help from either my mom or Adam's mom, but I already know this is going to be hard. H.A.R.D. H to the ard. Difficult. Trying. Challenging. Tough. A slap in the face. I have asked myself, on more than one occasion, "You were barely handling Axton on his own. What in the world made you believe you could add a NEWBORN to the mix?"

Our house. As much as I love our little home and our big yard....it has added so much stress to our lives. Before baby came, we were stressed about getting the house "done enough" for us to move in. Now it's stressful trying to find time to continue to work on the house, and, in the meantime, live in the house in its current conditions. As of right now, we have no finished closets. There is no where to hang up anything. This means all of our clothes are shoved in awkward nooks and crannies, or else they are still in boxes, hiding in laundry baskets, wrinkling in the dryer, or strewn across some random piece of furniture like our bed or the couch. Clothes are my worst enemy right now as it is, what with me being several sizes larger than I normally am - it is so hard to piece together a decent-looking and decent-fitting outfit, and I tend to wear the same couple of shirts over and over again. I can't find the boxes that contain my post-pregnancy clothes so I am trying to make something work with what I have. And not having closets is just making it trickier. With everything else going on, can't I just have one thing that is simple? Like, what I wear for the day?

Quicker recovery. What a difference it makes to not have stitches! What an absolute difference it makes to not have pushed for two hours!! No broken blood vessels in my eyes, no puffy cheeks, no extremely sore lower half (only minorly sore). I am definitely feeling so much more able and agile than I was with Axton. I am so grateful for this, it makes me feel like I will return to "normal" a little bit quicker this time around.

More help. Last time, my mom's return flight left two days after Axton was born. This time, she didn't buy a return ticket until Rhenner was born and she was able to stay for 10 days after he arrived. It was such a blessing to have her help while I tried to get settled into a new routine. Then shortly after she left, Adam's mom came. I have been thinking that the older Rhenner gets, the easier it will be to take care of him and Axton (that's probably not true, but I like to tell myself it is) so the longer I have people around to help me, the better off I will be when they leave.

Coherent thoughts. I had terrible writer's block when I first had Axton. I had so, so many thoughts swirling around in my brain and I just could not formulate the words to make them into sentences that made sense (My thoughts are stars I can't fathom into constellations). I didn't even know if my thoughts were thoughts, that's how lost I was. It was just bits and pieces of a random puzzle, or several different puzzles. It was all so confusing. I have had so many people try to tell me that going from one kid to two kids is the "hardest" and just as many other people tell me, "No way, going from two kids to three kids is definitely the hardest." But to be honest, I think going from no kids to being a mother is really the hardest, and everything after that is just equal hard but never as hard as that transition from Not-Mother to Mother. So anyway, that was a a bit of a tangent. I'm just saying I'm glad I am not as completely lost as I was when I had my first baby. I at least know that my child will sleep eventually, he really doesn't stay this small forever, and I really should just listen to my gut and everything will turn out alright in the end.