Calming My Uterus

It seems everytime I read about a new mom blogger and how fucking tired she is, how utterly exhausted she is, my uterus magically releases me from my desire to pretend I actually deal well with sleep deprivation and post partum hormones and I really could have just one more!

That is probably the worst idea I've allowed myself to entertain this year. Even worse than when I considered selling my son for a pair of pants.

It's amazing what watching a baby honeymoon will do to a person.

But the sleep....I think I love sleep more than I could ever love a third child. I'm sure this makes me an evil person who will get all classes of hate mail because, 'How could you love sleep more than your own child, you reatarded [sic] bitch?'

I love my children, probably more than sleep, but I've never been forced to choose between the two. I'm pretty sure I'd choose the kids, but the sleep would be pretty painful to say goodbye to. An unborn and unconceived child though, I'm positive at this point, that I love sleep more than the idea of another child.

I mean, it helps that the unconceived child will never be. But if I had it to do over, I'd still make the same choices, not just because I love sleep.

But because I really suck at mothering a newborn.

I think new moms are really surprised at how tiring it is. I think they are taken totally off guard by the conflicting feelings of being the happiest they've ever been in their entire life, madly and insanely in love with this new little person, but still totally exhausted, anxious, emotionally drained, sad, scared and insecure about just about every aspect of their new life.

It's hard to explain how it's possible to have such conflicting feelings about motherhood, especially first time motherhood. It's hard to convey how you truly are happy, how you truly are madly in love but how you still feel there is a very real risk of throwing yourself or the baby out the window in the middle of the night.

It's even harder for new moms because there's really no way to tell a pregnant mother what it will be like. There's no way to warn them. You can try telling them, but the words are hard to come up with. Like explaining the pain of childbirth. You can say, 'It hurt like a bitch.' but it really has no meaning to someone who hasn't experienced it themselves.

Telling a mother-to-be: 'Those first 6 weeks were really hard.'

Really Hard has no real meaning. They hear that and think, 'I survived adolescence, and that was really hard too.'

You can try going into detail: "There was one morning when I put the baby in her crib, went into the shower and held onto the wall because I thought I might fall right down the drain in a defeated puddle of hormones and tears."

And then, you may prepare for the horrified stare of a woman who doesn't know if you are actually insane and have just been doing a great job of hiding it all this time or you can face the look of horror on the face of a woman who is already facing huge fears of things like episiotomies.

I'm not sure what the solution is. It seems unfair not to give a warning, but it seems the warnings would not be heard. People told me it was hard, people told me to get lots of sleep, people told me it would hurt, people told me it would change my life. But they couldn't really tell me, because it's far too complex to explain in a meaningful way that does anything to prepare you for your own experience.

Someone once said, 'The thing about parenting is, you don't know you can't do it until you already are.'

So I guess you just do the best you can all things considered and wait until the day you can sleep again.

From week four, after many nights of no sleep, I wasn't really sure it was worth it. I loved her, but I was not yet convinced it was worth what I was giving up. From here, after a night with 10 hours of uninterrupted sleep, it was worth it.

I think there is one thing we may conclude from this entry:

Babies should come out sleeping all night, every night. This is a basic flaw in human development and should be resolved immediately.

Also, it might be nice if they came out smiling because that upped my belief it was all worth it almost as quickly as regular and uninterrupted sleep did.

Comments

[Lisa]

My dear your uterus should be sooo calm from listening to ME the last month.

And here I sit at 40 weeks...still waiting. I'm really ready to cry tonight I'm so uncomfortable.

Come on, frickin' UTERUS......CONTRACT.

Lisa

[Amber]

Thank you, thank you, thank you for this post! You are so right, there is no way to prepare yourself, or anyone else, for motherhood, it is too complex, too emotional, and you are far too sleepy to explain. I love my children, truly, madly, deeply. I don't love the interrupted nights, the inability to to go to the store without an hour of preparations, the poop, the constant state of vigilance, the guessing game of "what do they want/need now?", the guilt.

[ERIKA]

Thank you for reading my mind and actually putting these feelings on the net. I have 2 year old boy/girl twins (my LAST and only) and I ADORE them but I finally don't feel so alone. Thank you ~ I truly admire you.

[Louise]

Your incredibly brave and insightful comments (which equal my usually private thoughts) are the reason why I have only my daughter. She is four and mostly an absolute delight. I am only now just starting to think of a possible second child, but now I know the reality, it's even harder to decide.
The horrid anxiety-provoking early times (even though I would have easily given my life for her, I loved her so much) in my mind, still overwhelm my decision-making. I love my daughter desperately and I want to be sane and kind and loving to her - I don't know if I'd be that if I had a second.