It doesn’t last long: A recounting of the newborn days

August 18, 2015

So I wrote this blog nearly a week ago, just after my brother and sister-in-law welcomed their new baby. At the time, I was wondering when I was going to get to meet this little nephew nugget. As luck would have it, husband ate some bad Chinese food and ended up sick as a dog! He was in no shape to enjoy my charming company and since Ev isn’t exactly the quietest little person these days, I figured it was my wifely duty to totally abandon him and take the baby north to meet her new cousin! (In sickness and in health, unless you ate bad Chinese food…)

So after sitting up at the crack of dawn writing this, I loaded my nugget up and we road tripped to meet brother’s nugget! Which means I ended up getting to tell them most of the stuff I wrote here in person. It also means I got to snap newborn hospital photos to illustrate this extremely long blog. Check out this little love bug, Mr Braydin Robert:

I love these shots of Evie checking out baby Braydin and then apparently telling my brother she’s happy for him. Ha!

So flashback to a week ago with me…

It’s 5:45 am and I’ve been awake for a while watching my chubby little baby sleep between husband and I. She isn’t interested in sleeping in her crib any more this morning, so we’ll let her sleep in our bed. Which means I’m done sleeping for the day because I’ll need to watch her constantly. To make sure she doesn’t pull a blanket over her head, that I don’t knock a pillow over her face, that husband doesn’t sling a big sleeping arm over her. None of which is likely to happen, but I suspect I will still nervously watch her sleep when she’s 12.

But while I watch her, I’m thinking of my little brother and my sister-in-law who are miles away in a hospital room with my tiny new nephew, spending their first nights together as a family. And I am overwhelmed with things I want to tell them. Things people told me, things I wish people had told me, things I wish I had listened to… Things I hope I remember the next time around.

And I think of all the awesome people we know who are about to welcome their own little babies (and holy bajesus there are a lot of them! Basically everyone we know is having a baby in the next 8 weeks!)

I’ve thought about writing a blog like this – maybe about what to expect or our tips for the first weeks or our favorite baby products – but I’ve stopped every time. Because who the hell am I to be dispensing advice? I mean, we got this baby, we fumbled through the early days and now we’re fumbling through different days. I sure as shit have no idea what I’m doing. But I suppose that I did learn a few things and like I said, there are just so many things I wish people had said to me.

If I called up my brother and sister-in-law and said all of these things they would think I was nuts so I figure I’ll just put it all here so everyone can see it…

Here we go. An open letter to all the newbies:

Are you terrified right now? I was.

They are so impossibly tiny. Tinier than you even think they are going to be. And they breath funny. Rapidly and then slower and then noisy breathing and then they sneeze a lot. I have no idea why. I remember being really concerned about how often Evie was sneezing. You birth a baby, which is hella scary, and you’re like, “Yes. I did it. I am a warrior.” And then you’re scared of sneezes.

But that’s a pretty good example of the entire parenting gig – overwhelmingly awesome and not awesome at the same time.

Here’s what I want you to know about these first few weeks. They’re going to be rough. Great, amazing, memorable. But rough.

I felt like I had no idea what I was doing. I was sure I was fucking up the whole thing. I was exhausted. I was hurting. I was emotional. I was a 10th of myself. And this is one of those times when you want to be 110 percent. But really, you’re lucky to be 10 percent at this point. Don’t worry about it. When you look back, you’ll realize you were 110 percent. Between the two of you. You will be 110 percent.

People kept saying sweet things like, “It goes so fast! Enjoy it!” or they would reminisce about when their own babies were so tiny and they seemed like they had such fond memories. I couldn’t remember what day of the week it was, which boob I’d used to feed the baby last, or what my name was. I was damn sure I wasn’t going to have any fond memories.

So here’s what I’ll tell you: Don’t worry about if you’re enjoying it. You are. Or in hindsight, 6 months from now, you’ll think you did. That’s good enough.

And yes, it does go by so quickly. But I don’t say that to you in a bittersweet, I wish it lasted longer way. I’ll rephrase it…

Don’t worry. It doesn’t last long.

This feeling of being clueless, of not knowing what to do or how to do it. The tiredness that weighs a thousand pounds. The physical aches and pains. The hormones and emotional upheaval of bringing a new person into the world. The crying. Oh, the crying. (Yours, not the baby’s.) It doesn’t last long. Weeks at most. It will pass. One day soon you’re going to stop and realize you suddenly have a grip on things. You’ll know which cry signals a diaper change and which signals a hungry baby and which just needs a snuggle. You’ll feel comfortable picking him up and moving him around and passing him back and forth and you’ll stop thinking you’re going to break him.

You’ll stop sobbing because the sun shone too brightly.

You’ll stop yelling, “If I could just get some sleep!!”

You’ll stop feeling like everyone else in the world knows what you should be doing, except you.

You’ll stop watching the clock waiting for the next dose of pain meds.

You’ll stop taking 15 minutes to change a diaper.

You’ll stop feeling like you’re climbing Everest every time you re-dress him after that 15 minute diaper change.

You’ll stop wondering when you’re going to go back to “normal.”

And then you will.

It’s only a matter of weeks now. It won’t take long. You are getting there.

Soon, very soon, you’ll look around and everything will be normal.

And then you’ll want another baby.

I’m only half kidding about that.

But really. Give it a month. Give the baby a month, give yourself a month, give each other a month. And Lord wait until you see how fast a month can go! It won’t be perfectly easy after that. You’re parents now; easy is over. But you’ll know what you’re doing. You’ll know your baby. You’ll be telling some poor, about-to-pop pregnant girl how wonderful having a baby is.

Until then… hunker down.

That’s my best advice.

Hunker down.

Create a sanctuary for yourselves. A messy, dimly light sanctuary. Move everything you need for yourselves and your baby into that one space. Close the door. Don’t plan to leave much. Just go to that space and wait it out. Steal as much sleep, as many baby snuggles, as many laughs and “I love you”s as you can manage. It’s okay if you can’t steal many of any of those. Just get what you can. When you’re ready, emerge from your cocoon. But only for short periods of time. Then go racing back to your safe place.

I’m serious about this.

A handful of days into having Evie home with us, we decided to just isolate ourselves in our bedroom. Our bedroom is very close to our kitchen, so that helped. Ha! We brought boxes of snacks and bottles of water and every supply we needed for Evie and ourselves into the room. Netflix, an Ipod, books and magazines, fully-charged cell phones, coffee and more coffee… all the things you need for keep yourself awake. We agreed we were not leaving the room any more than necessary. It made all the difference. Once we gave ourselves permission to do nothing but care for the baby and sleep, we started making progress.

And as we made progress, we all started coming back to life.

We got the itch to go somewhere, to do something.

So we’d venture out. And we’d have a good few hours out and about.

And then the overwhelmed and over-tired feelings would come creeping back. So we’d hustle back home, back to our room, our safe place.

Eventually we didn’t have to do that very often.

But sometimes we still do.

…

About breastfeeding…

I realize that I’m now one of those women I wanted to strangle in the first weeks I had Evie. You know the type. They’re all, “Breastfeeding is a dream come true.” And they’re effortlessly whipping their boob out in public and popping their baby on and off like it’s no big thing. Like it’s just so easy. Ya. I’m that chick.

Now.

But I wasn’t at first.

Let me tell you about me and breastfeeding at first…

You know that feeling of walking into a place with too many bags? Too many heavy bags. And some are sliding off your arm and you’re trying to catch them but there’s stuff falling out of one of the other bags. And you’re just like, “Fuck. These bags. Why didn’t I pack lighter!” and you feel like a total mess?

That’s what breastfeeding felt like to me.

I wouldn’t call myself graceful on a good day, but I’ve never really been awkward either. I have never felt more awkward in my life than when I started breastfeeding.

Boobs twice the size I was used too. A baby that was smaller than I was used to handling. I mean, it’s an odd combination of unfamiliar experiences.

Every feeding felt like a marathon. Position the baby. Position the boob. Try 12 times to get the baby onto the boob correctly.

Then once I would conquer the physical stuff, the emotional and mental marathon began.

Is she sucking?

Is she swallowing anything?

Is she getting enough?

Can she breathe?

Am I still awake?

How long should I let her go?

Should I try the other side too?

Am I still awake?

Wait, is this the same side I used at the last feeding?

Did I just completely fuck this up by using the wrong side?

Can she breathe?

Am I still awake?

The best I can tell you is that this doesn’t last long either. This takes a bit longer. But not that long. Before you know it, the baby will position herself, latch like it’s no big deal, and you’ll quit worrying that you’re going to screw it all up.

The only advice I have is to find help. Find all the help and information you can. Find someone who can affirm that you are, in fact, doing it right.

In the first days of bringing Evie home, I was an emotional disaster over breastfeeding. I just so badly wanted someone to tell me I was doing it right. The lactation consultant at the hospital had placed herself firmly on my bad side so that wasn’t much help. I emailed people I barely knew with questions and their encouragement made a huge difference. I kept fumbling through. And then the engorgement got crazy and painful and I was convinced I had done something wrong, that I had broken my boobs, and that I was going to die of some sort of breast ailment.

Husband said it was probably time that we contact a different consultant to give us some guidance. Maybe she would be able to save me from my boob disease, if I did indeed have one, or at least maybe should could reassure me. So we got the name for a local lactation specialist and I tried to call her. But I was so emotional and so overwhelmed that I literally could not speak to her. I just cried. So my husband sat on the phone talking to a stranger about my boobs. Then we paid a lot of money to go see the specialist on a Sunday. It helped. Mostly.

If you need to do what I did, do it. If there is someone you can call or email and ask questions of, do that. Chances are, if you know a woman who successfully breastfed, she is going to jump at the chance to tell you a hundred things about it and encourage you to make it work. Because everyone starts out the same way – feeling like too-many-bags lady.

If you’re reading this and your boobs hurt and you are crying – feel free to email me. I don’t care who you are, go for it, at the very least I will give you a virtual high five and that single ounce of female solidarity will help. I promise.

If you make it through these first few weeks, and then through that first month, you will be well on your way to being an annoying, feeding-in-public chic like myself. This is just one of those times where you have to put all the work in up front and wait a bit for the reward. The reward is worth the wait. But if you don’t make it that far – just know that you are already a rockstar of a mom for even trying.

…

And now, because this is my blog, I offer you some comic relief.

Behold the story of Thanksgiving 2014

Nine days after the birth of my little nugget came Thanksgiving Day. A day I had long wondered about. Would I be pregnant and miserable? Feasting on turkey in the maternity ward? Nursing a newborn at the Thanksgiving dinner table?

It proved to be the latter, of course.

There were – obviously – plans in place for this scenario. With our new baby at home, we were celebrating with just immediate family as “guests”. I’d already ordered our Thanksgiving feast catered because I knew there was no scenario in which I wanted to cook it – or have it cooked for me – in my house.

Should have been easy.

Really shoulda been easy.

Instead, it was a comedy of errors. Except that it wasn’t funny at all. At. All.

Let’s rewind to the night before Thanksgiving. I suddenly decided that we were destined for financial ruin because of my self-paid maternity leave and that there was no way I’d be able to pay my sure-to-be huge tax bill come January. (By all means, quit your day job a week before finding out your pregnant and then figure out how to fund your own maternity leave, hospital bill and new “family plan” health insurance. It’s super fucking fun.)

So instead of you know, having a little faith, perhaps in my own business or God or the financial industry’s preference for providing lines of credit, I had a complete and total meltdown and stayed up until 2 am figuring out 10 different ways to “make it work.”

My newborn was sleeping. I could have been sleeping.

But reason and rationale have no place in the life of new parents.

So I got little to no sleep leading up to the arrival of my “guests” the next morning. My only guests were my parents. You know, those people who are required to show up to your house and love you even if it is a complete mess. The same people who gave literally no shits what my floors – or even me for that matter – looked like because they just wanted to see their new grandbaby.

When it was time to wake up that morning, I was in no better shape than I had been in the middle of the night. I was now sure we could weather whatever financial storm Uncle Sam sent our way come April, but I was still a total disaster.

“I can’t. I can’t. They can’t. I can’t.”

“What?” asked my bewildered husband.

“Ican’thavemyparentshere. Ican’thaveThanksgiving. Ican’tgetshoweredbeforetheygethere. They’regoingtothinkI’mhorrible. Myhouseisamess. Ican’t. Ican’t. Makethemgohome.”

“I’m sorry. You want me to make them go home?? I’m absolutely not making them go home.”

They weren’t even here yet, ya’ll. They were like, an hour away.

“I’M NOT DOING THIS. I’M NOT HAVING THANKSGIVING I’M NOT HAVING GUESTS.”

“Stop calling them guests! They’re your parents. You were just crying yesterday because they weren’t here yet!”

“ICAN’T”

“Okay. I will figure out how to tell them to go back home.”

“Ok.”

Three minutes later…

“Did you make them go home?? You didn’t really make them go home did you? I need them here. I NEED MY MOM!! Are they still coming? Make them come back.”

“They’re still coming. I was still trying to figure out how to tell them to go home.”

“Okay good. I just need to shower. If I shower I’ll be fine and everything will be fine. But light candles. Make sure there’s a candle lit in every room.”

“In every room?”

“YES!”

“Why?”

“Because that’s what my mom would do if she were hosting a holiday!! Her house would smell amazing and every room would feel welcoming because it would have a candle!!”

“Okay. Get in the shower. I’m going to light candles.”

Three minutes later, from the shower…

“ICAN’T!!!!”

“Oh my God.”

“I’m not going to be ready. I’m not ready. I want to be ready when they get here. I want to look nice. I want them to think I look nice. I look like a mess. I look like a person who was up all night. They’ll think I was up all night because the baby doesn’t sleep. And she is such a good sleeper. I’m making the baby look bad. ICAN’T!!”

“Ok. I’m calling your mom. I’m going to just delay them a bit so you have time to get ready the way you want to. It will be fine. Just enjoy your shower. Shower as long as you want!”

Two minuets later…

“Is my mom upset??”

“Nope! Said no problem, they’re going to stop for a coffee and donut!”

“Ohmygod. I made them go out for coffee and donuts at some interstate donut shop. That’s a horrible thing to do to your parents!! I’m a horrible daughter.”

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph.”

Three minutes later, dressed, make up on, hair still wet but hey, good enough…

“I wonder where they are? I can’t wait to see them!!!”

So they came. And we gave thanks and all was well.

Then came Black Friday, my absolute favorite day of the year. I was sad to think this Black Friday would be lackluster and find me homebound. But, we managed to get everyone dressed and out of the house for a bit! 

We took the baby to Target and did some light shopping in the late morning, after the crowds had cleared. Then we took her out for lunch for the first time.

It was a little tricky. We had to figure out when to feed her and how to handle that in public. How and when and where to change diapers. I had to get used to everyone staring at us and come to terms with it being because I had a very sweet infant – not because they could sense I was an unfit mother.

Evie was a rock star. She did awesome.

We managed a little shopping after lunch and then the soreness and tiredness set it and I was ready to be back home. But I was very thankful for some time out of the house and in the sunshine.

As we strolled back into the house, husband got the mail.

And then it all went straight back to hell.

“There’s a letter from my lawyer.” He said.

We’ll back up a bit here. My husband, in the Spring of 2014, got himself not one but two speeding tickets. With only a day in between. Two different counties, two different tickets, one bad enough that – effective TWO DAYS before he was pulled over – it qualified as a misdemeanor instead of a moving violation. Let’s keep this part brief. Suffice to say we’d thrown a lot of money at the problem and were assured it had gone away. Some court supervision time and that was that.

He opened the letter.

The People of the State of Illinois VS Zachary Medema.

Notice to Appear…

Trial by Jury…

“TRIAL BY JURY???”

“TRIAL BY JURY?!?!”

“I thought that was taken care of?!”

“It was! I got the letter. I mailed the check! That was supposed to be the end of it.”

What followed was two hours of digging through old mail and bank statements and googling to determine the following:

-The check we had mailed was never cashed.

-We were to receive a receipt in the mail after our fines were settled and we had not.

-The sentencing for Zac’s crime was “fines of up to $2,000 and or up to 6 months in jail.”

We concluded, then, that our check had been lost in the mail. The court and apparently our lawyer had taken our lack of a check to mean that we did not accept the agreed upon terms and were entering a Not Guilty plea which was leading to a jury trial. We also concluded that there was no defense for Zac’s crimes and he would be found guilt and punished to the full extent of the law.

Translation: Daddy’s going to jail.

There was no one short of Jesus Christ himself who was going to convince me otherwise.

My husband was going to jail.

I started saying things like, “Well. Military wives do this sort of thing all the time. They have babies and then their husbands get deployed and they learn how to handle it all on their own. I can do this.”

And then five minutes later reality would set in and I would remember precisely why I am not a military wife. Because I cannot do things on my own. I mean, even little things. Like I need encouragement to make toast. I’ve never mowed a lawn in my life. I don’t know where our water heater is.

This would lead to a round of crying and clutching my husband and swearing I couldn’t live a day without him rightnexttome.

And he would tell me he wasn’t going to jail. And my parents would tell me he wasn’t going to jail. And google and assorted online law forums would tell me he wasn’t going to jail.

And I would believe no one.

Daddy’s going to jail.

We would have to wait until Monday for word on what exactly had gone wrong because the lawyer was out of the office for the holiday. I had to live through two more days of not knowing. But really, I knew. I knew he was going to jail. Zac gave up on trying to convince me he wasn’t heading to the slammer and started trying to make plans for his imprisonment.

“It will likely be just weekends. We’ll just have to be very productive during the week so it’s as easy on you as possible.”

We tried to enjoy the day.

The baby would do something cute, make some sweet noise and we’d all coo at her.

And then I would sob, “You’re going to miss everything because you’ll be in JAIL!!”

This is the mind of a woman 12 days postpartum.

In the midst of this, we sat down to eat some Thanksgiving leftovers. After we finished, we sat around the table talking and my husband got up and went to the kitchen. From the kitchen, we could hear husband wrapping the remaining food (there was a lot!) in foil and cleaning up.

“Zac, you don’t have to do that by yourself, I’ll help you,” my mom called out to the kitchen.

There was no response.

“Zac?”

Nothing.

“Zac?”

“Yeah… Whoa. What the fuck?! Why is the dog eating our meal?!”

Turned out it wasn’t husband in the kitchen, it was Josie. And she’d eaten half a freaking turkey, a pan of mashed potatoes and some green bean casserole. Aside from comedic value, this will be relevant later.

Late Friday evening, my brother and sister-in-law arrived for a brief visit with the baby.

We went for a drive and looked at Christmas lights.

We had a few laughs and though I was getting physically and mentally tired I was feeling a bit better about the day. Eventually, it was time for bed.

Our newest “guests” were set up for the night on the sofa and we retired to our room. I settled into the bed and began feeding the baby. Zac went to the let the dog out and returned with her a few minutes later.

The dog jumped up on the bed like she always does, walked around it a bit, then went to get a drink out of the toilet.

“What’s that smell?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Oh no, did the dog…”

There was a knock on the door. It was my mom.

“Zac… I think the dog stepped in her own shit.”

Yup. Yup. She surely had.

There were paw prints and smears of shit all over our bed.

And she’d managed to smear it on both sheets and two different quilts, plus the carpet.

I could hear the commotion from the living room…

“Oh ya, there’s some there. Here’s some over here. Oh ya, that’s a lot of shit.”

I started to cry.

I could take no more things.

My mom ushered me out of bed and into a rocking chair where I continued to feed the baby. She and Zac stripped the bed, scrubbed the carpet, got new shit-free blankets for the sofa.

All the while I cried. And cried. Until eventually, I was sobbing.

“I’m such a mess. You think we’re such a mess!!” I cried at my mom.

“I don’t, I really don’t think that at all! I think you are doing such a wonderful job!” My mom tried to comfort me.

“I know. I know I’m doing a wonderful job. I’m actually crying because IDONTWANTZACTOGOTOJAIL!!!”

“Honey. He’s a nice guy. He’s an upstanding citizen. He works with special needs children. For the love of all that is holy, no one is sending him to jail for speeding.”

“YOU DON’T KNOW!!!”

“Yes, I do. I do know. No one is going to jail. This is just a mix up of some sort, you’ll see on Monday.”

“There is shit everywhere. THERE IS SHIT EVERYWHERE. And PEOPLE ARE LAUGHING ABOUT IT.”

Can you believe my “guests” had the nerve to think it was funny that there was dog shit everywhere?

“That’s because this is funny, honey. It really is. Give it some time, you’ll look back laughing at this.”

“No I won’t. I will not ever think this was funny. Ever.”

I think it’s a little funny now.

The next day was Saturday and everyone headed home. We hung Christmas lights outside and enjoyed the day with only a few bouts of crying over jail time.

That afternoon, husband mentioned to me that all that Thanksgiving food had really done a number of on the dog’s tummy and her bathroom business was more than a little funky.

“Seriously. It looks like sliced turkey. Like it came out the same way it went it.”

“Oh that’s concerning. We’ll keep an eye on her.”

So we did.

The day after that was Sunday and we had our family photo shoot. It went swimmingly except for the part where Josie threw up. But ya know, dogs do that. It wasn’t unusual. Especially considering the food she’d eaten.

Sunday afternoon Josie got up from the couch and walked to the middle of the living room and looked like she might be going to throw up again. I was alone on the couch with the baby in my arms. She continued to try to throw up but wasn’t having any luck. She was obviously in distress. I hollered for husband. The distress continued until my poor sweet puppy was collapsing on the floor.

I was panicked. What ever was coming up was stuck.

A few scary moments passed and she threw up what appeared to be a softball.

Seriously, without exaggeration. A softball.

Husband hurried into the room.

“What the fuck. Where did she get a softball?! How did she swallow that?!”

We stared in disbelief.

Zac grabbed a towel and picked up the ball.

“What is this!? It’s soft.” He poked at it.

“Oh. My. God.” He began to pull it apart. And like scarves from a magicians hat, or you know… diaper wipes, it just kept going.

Josephine had eaten an entire package of baby wipes. And she hadn’t bothered to separate them. Turns out it wasn’t sliced turkey Zac had seen in the yard…

We called animal poison control.

“Hi, My dog ate an entire package of baby wipes and my husband is going to jail and my sheets have dog shit on them.”

Thankfully, because we were buying overpriced, brand name, ultra-sensitive wipes – they were of no harm to our dog. She just had to eat extra fiber for a week to help move them along.

She shat wipes for a month.

Monday morning rolled around and Zac got on the horn with his lawyer.

“Oh. Ya. That’s normal.” The lawyer said.

“What is normal?!”

“In that county, that’s how they do it. I just hold onto the check until that court date, then I go and give them the check.”

“You hold onto a check for 6 MONTHS and I get a summons for TRIAL BY JURY. That’s the normal procedure?”

“Ya.”

“And the BILLION FUCKING DOLLARS I paid you didn’t cover a fee for TELLING ME THAT?”

“Oh. I guess I thought you knew.”

“You need to pray that you never, ever meet my wife.”

Call ended.

“DADDY’S NOT GOING TO JAIL!!!”

We celebrated with champagne.

A few weeks later, not long before Christmas, we drove over to Belleville on a sunny afternoon to visit their German Christmas market. As we drove past the St. Clair County Jail, Zac quipped that he sure was glad he wasn’t moving in and we had a good laugh about it.

So the moral of that story is to have champagne on hand.