Insecurity

Feb15

Right now it is 7:27pm on Sunday night of the Oscars. The Oscars are my favorite award show ever. I have not missed a broadcast in the past 15 years.  Tonight I will break that streak. I am lying in bed hoping to fall asleep by 8pm. So that when my 3.5 month old daughter inevitably wakes up at 2am I will be able to get up with her to give my husband a break. She has decided that she hates sleep. They are not friends and are currently seeing other people. So when she wakes up at 2am and it takes 2.5 hours to get her back to sleep I will have gotten some rest.

There is a very large part of me that cannot believe I have a child. I cannot believe I thought this was a good idea. I can’t function properly on less than 7 hours of sleep a night, I am OCD about getting things done around the house and I have recently come to realize that I am incredibly selfish. I never thought that I was.  I always believed myself to be a giving person. Someone who would go out of their way to help their friend, neighbor or someone in need. But apparently I was mistaken. I find myself not wanting to get up in the middle of the night, not wanting to stay up to put her to bed and excited to go to work so that I have to fight with her to take a nap. I am a terrible person and I feel like a terrible mother.

I find myself second guessing myself all the time; Is this right? Is she hungry? Should I get her to nap? Is it too early to put her to bed? Why won’t she sleep? Why won’t she stop crying? How do I help her? How do I make her happy? I know that were it not for my husband I would not be able to do this. In fact, there are times when I still don’t think I can do this even with his help.

I keep telling myself that it will get better when she is 3 months, 4months, 6 months, eating solid food, walking, talking, etc. I keep praying that the next milestone will come and make it easier but then it will all be over. She will be a teenager and my little girl will be all grown up. I pray everyday for the strength and the patience to be a good mother. To raise her well but I fear that I won’t be able to. I fear that my stress and fear will consume me. I try to relax and take time for myself. I take classes at the gym and go to church and try to spend time with family and friends but being a parent is hardest thing I have ever tried to do and I fear I am failing.

I just wish that it would all be alright. Are these fears and insecurities normal? Am I losing my mind or have all new parents felt this way at one time or another?

M.O.M.

Feb8

My dear daughter has reached her 100 days milestone. This is a big deal in the Korean culture (may daughter is half Korean.) Basically, it means she has reached the point where she is considered safe and healthy.

During these 100 days I have a lot of time to think.  One conclusion that I have come with all this thinking
that I have been doing is that the word mom is not short for mother.  I have come to the realization that mom is M.O.M, an acronym for Master Of Most, and GrandM.O.M is Grand Master Of Most.  When it comes to children most things can only be fixed by  M.O.M. My husband and I were trying to get Fiona to sleep. She fights us likes crazy. He has been home with her for the past 3 weeks and has 3 more to go. This means I get to go to bed early and he gets up with her in the middle of night. Just like I did while I was on leave and he was working.  The one night I put Fiona down and she went to sleep.  An hour and a half later she woke up. Dear hubby got up with her and tried so hard to get her back to sleep. Two hours later, a still screaming Fiona had poor hubby at his wits end, hair in hands and all. I got up and let him go to bed. Within 30 minutes I had her calm and sleeping in her rock and play, although her crib would have been ideal. The next morning he came into the living room (I was sleeping on the couch with her in the rock and play) and asked if she was up all night. To which I responded, “Nope!”  He looked at me with sad eyes and said, “Oh, she hates me! I tried so hard!” That is when it hit me. M.O.M is the master of most because only M.O.M can fix most problems. Not that M.O.M is any better than dad.

There are so many times only M.O.M can kiss a boo boo. Only M.O.M can take the pain away. Only M.O.M can quiet the screams. I said to my dear hubby, “she doesn’t hate you. There are just times when only M.O.M will do!

It is not passing!!!

Feb1

So it seems that the major mantra of parents is “This too shall pass.” But what I have noticed since becoming a mom is that nothing actually passes. Every time something funky goes on with Fiona I am told “this too shall pass” but then something else happens. Again, I am told “this too shall pass.” Is this just what people say to parents so that they don’t lose their minds from sleep deprivation? It’s like when people say “every baby is different.” No shit every baby is different. Every person is different. If we were different then we would all be clones and life would be boring. I need a reason for most things. I need to know why something is happening. If my daughter starts acting different from how she normally acts I want to know why. I understand that is a lot to ask because there is not always a straight answer for what is going on but that doesn’t change my desperate need to know “why” or “is she OK” or “she is possessed and I should call a priest.”

No one really prepares your for all these crazy little changes that happen when you have a baby. They tell you it will be “hard” but they are not really telling you the truth. In fact they are down right lying. Parenting is not “hard” it is damn near impossible. The crying for reasons unknown because they can’t tell you, the lack of sleep due to the crying for reasons unknown, the inability to function properly due to the lack of the sleep due to the crying for reasons unknown. I mean it is crazy.

I am incredibly lucky to have the support system that I have. My husband is home from work for 6 weeks not that I am back to work. So he can stay up with her when she won’t sleep and get in the middle of the night when she wakes up screaming (for reasons unknown). My mother lives 2.5 minutes from my house and comes over pretty often to check in and help us out. I also have a an aunt near by that watches Fiona so that we run to the doctor, or run errands, or hell even go to the gym to have a few minutes to ourselves. I honestly can not fathom how single parents are able to do this on their own. I have a new found respect for single parents that are able to do this early part on their own. I know that without the amazing people I have supporting me I know that I would totally lose my mind and screw up my kid.

Return to Normal?

Jan25

I have now officially returned to work. My daughter is now 12 weeks old and I spent those 12 weeks out on maternity leave, some paid and some unpaid. I was able to be home with my daughter for her first Halloween (althoughwe were still in the hospital since she was born on 10/30), her first Thanksgiving, her first Christmas and her first New Year’s  Eve. I was home to cuddle with my little one, kiss her toes and snuggle her cheeks. I nursed her in the beginning and then moved her to formula (breastfeeding was not right for us), I changed all of her diapers and gave her baths. I would love to say that I loved every minute of it, but then I would lying. I love MOST of it. I was happy to have that time with her but when my 12 weeks was up I was ready to go back to work. I am a very social person and I am not the type that can be a stay at home. I give so much credit to those that can but I could never do it. I need to be out and about with other adults, dealing with things not related to my children. Don’t get me wrong, I love my daughter more than anything but I also believe that parents need to have lives that don’t revolve around their children 24/7. Yes, 90% of the time your life should be about your children but you need that 10% to keep you from going crazy.  Going back to work, joining the gym and returning to church are just that for me. They have become the 10% of my time that I get for me. Work allows me to focus on things other than my daughter, to challenge my brain and use it so I don’t become stupid. The gym allows me to decompress after work or after my daughter has been screaming for an hour and won’t nap. Church allows me to reconnect with myself, my faith, my center after the craziness of a week of work, the gym and Fiona.

At first I felt guilty for being ready to go back to work (after only 6 weeks of maternity leave.) People would ask me, “How can you want to leave your baby?” But the thing is, it was not a desire to LEAVE my child, but a desire to return to myself. A desire to return to and finish the things I began before my daughter was born. I want to be able to give my daughter the world but to do that I need to work hard to provide for her and I need to remain calm and sane. I still have my dream of going to grad school and to further my career. Having a daughter has not changed any of those dreams. She has just added to my love and desire for great things. Call me a terrible mother if you want to but I think I am doing just fine.

Honest Body

Jan17

My daughter is now 11 weeks old. She is healthy and happy (most of time lol.) I have been given the clear by my doctor that I am good to go. I can return to my normal life activities. I am healthy and can return to work, the gym and all the other things I did before baby. But what the doctor neglected to tell me was that my body would be completely different. I mean, yes I knew my body would be different but I didn’t think it would like this. I feel something akin to a young adult just after going through puberty, or a preteen going through puberty. My body is doing all different kinds of things now. My period returned and I didn’t think I had that much to lose at one time. Using pads and tampons again is a little strange. It really seems like it is the first time I am ever using them. It’s like I am 13 again. My cramps are in new and exciting places and they are uncomfortable. So so uncomfortable.  I went to gym today and used the treadmill. Didn’t do anything crazy just walking at an incline but my hips and inner thighs are killing me. Like I just learned how to walk.  My back hurts in a way I never thought possible. My memory is shot. If my morning was not set to such a routine I probably wouldn’t remember to brush my teeth. Let’s not even talk about how unrestful my sleep is at night.  My stomach is doing things that I don’t even want to mention but boy is it rough. My stomach medicine isn’t helping anymore. None of these things were on the “Yay Baby” brochure! I wish someone had warned me so I could be prepared. But then when you become a mom you don’t get warned about anything anymore!

What to do?

Jan6

What do you do when you feel that you don’t know what to do? My daughter has been so different lately. When she hit 9 weeks old she completely changed. She is normally a very happy baby. Never freaking out, likes to be in her sing, likes to sit and watch TV, gobbles down her 4oz bottle at each feeding. Then all of a sudden she did like a full on exorcist change. She was like a completely different child. I, naturally, got incredibly worried. I took her to the doctor and the she thinks it might be Acid Reflux. She prescribed Zantac and we have been giving it to her the past 24 hours. But she is still the same. I know that I have to be patient and wait for it take effect but it is so hard to see her in so much pain and so upset. She is barely taking 2 oz at a time, she freaks out/cries/arches her back at every feeding and it is murder getting her to take her medicine. I am not even sure she is getting the full dose. Every time she cries and screams I cry with her. It breaks my heart to know that I cant make her feel better. The only change is that now she is sleeping more, but since she has barely getting to 15 oz a day (should be taking 24oz) she is only sleeping in small amounts. It is a very stressful feeling to know that you can’t fix everything that hurts your child. How do you handle that feeling of failure knowing you can’t do much to make things better?

Ouch!

Dec22

Ok…so have you ever had an object that every time you look at it it reminds of something that you did, whether good or bad? Well, my daughter has this onsie, it one of my nephew’s old outfits that he outgrew that is just adorable. I was putting it on her one day and did not realize that there was a stray string inside the leg. As I was putting her foot inside the leg she started screaming. I had no clue why. That is when I realized that her scream was an “I’m in pain scream.” When I looked I saw that her there was a cut under her toe. Now, every time I look at the onsie I think about that day. Every time I put her in it am paranoid that I am going to hurt her again. I know it was an accident but it makes me wonder if this is a taste of my parenting abilities. I mean all I was doing was dressing her and I hurt her. Any other first time moms feel this way?

Double Edged

Dec17

I have been home with my beautiful daughter for just about 7 weeks now. Is it wrong that I am so unbelievably bored?? I went into my office yesterday for our team Christmas lunch and I brought her with me. Everyone was so excited to see her and it made me feel so great. Every single person asked me the exact same two questions: How are you enjoying being a mom? and Are you ready to come back to work yet?

The answer to the former is not really a simple one. I mean I love my daughter to the moon and back. She is my little girl. But that is a loaded question. There are so many aspects to being a mom that you can not just yes (because you have to say yes or people will think that you are a terrible person.) Do I enjoy all the little smiles that she gives me throughout the day? Do I enjoy it when she holds me finger as she eats? Do I enjoy it when she stares into my eyes? Do I enjoy taking 500 pictures a day? Yes to all of these questions. But that is just one part of it. Do I enjoy it when she screams for no reason? Do I enjoy getting up in the middle of night? Do I enjoy the constant worry that I am doing something wrong or that I am going to screw her up royally? No to all of these questions. But the fact that I don’t enjoy EVERY aspect of being a mom makes me feel TERRIBLE. What kind of mother does enjoy all of it? I feel like I am letting my daughter down in some way that will come back to bite me in the ass in the future.

The answer to the latter question is also not so simple. There is a part of me that is ready to go back to work, to be around adults again. To engage in adult conversation. I mean there is really only so much TV a person can watch. I feel terrible feeling that way. I don’t want to miss all the amazing things that she does as she is learning about the world around her at such a young age. I want to be there for everything little noise, every little movement she makes. But I am just so incredibly bored right now. I understand the stigma of “sitting around eating bon-bons” because all I do all day is eat. I feed my daughter, change her diaper, have a little play time, try like hell to get her to fall asleep and then, if she falls asleep for a nap, I watch some TV and eat a snack. This is not healthy. I now know that I could never be a stay at home mom. I couldn’t do it! I need to be around people all day. I need adult conversation. In addition to the boredom, there is also a lot of stress. Should I be doing this differently? Will doing this hinder her in the future? How long should she sleep? How often? How much should I play with her? How long should I let her cry? and so on and so on! The questions just never end! I look so much stuff up on the internet that Google should pay me for using it! A part of me feels that if I was back at work and she was in daycare I wouldn’t have so much stress. But then I realize that there would a whole new group of things to worry about.

Being a parent really is like a double edged sword. You love your children so so much! You want to them to be perfect and you want all the things that are best for them but then there is that tiny part of you that doesn’t know if they can do it! Does this make me a terrible person? Am I a bad parent? No, I am not! I am just new mom that is trying to figure out what the hell I am doing and hoping to not screw my family up along the way!

7th Circle of Hell

Dec6

My daughter is now 5 weeks old. She is the most beautiful and amazing thing that could have ever happened to me. I love her with all of my heart! I am prefacing my post with these statements so that you don’t think I am unhappy about becoming a mother.

When I got pregnant and shared the news with my friends and family I received all kinds of advice, some was unsolicited. People told me how wonderful becoming a mother would be, how my life would change forever, how rewarding and blissful it would be. They also told me that it would be difficult and tiring and that there would be times when I would have no idea what I was doing. So far all of those things are true.

What they didn’t tell me and what many if the books don’t tell you is that the first couple of weeks you are home with your newborn are practically akin to being in the seventh circle of Hell.  It is just a miserable time. As a new mom you get sent home from the hospital just in time for your newborn “bundle of joy” to realize that she is no longer snug and warm inside your womb. Just in time for her to start screaming every 1 or 2 to eat or to have a diaper change. In the hospital your baby sleeps almost the entire time you are there it seems. But then you get home and all hell breaks loose. It seems like no one wants to tell you this. Are they afraid that you will suddenly change your mind about having this child? Are they concerned you might freak out? Whatever the reason, no one prepares you for the sleep deprivation, the tears, the stress, the loneliness (yes, loneliness because even though you are home with your baby all day they can’t talk back to you), the weird dreams, the forgetfulness, the confusion. They tell you it will be difficult and different but some details ahead of time would be nice. A little warning so we know what to expect.

As I said, my daughter is now 5 weeks old and she sleeps well at night so I can sleep at night, she eats less frequently and her cries are now distinguishable. I am ecstatic that we decided to have a baby but those first couple of weeks I thought I had made the worst decision of my life. Turns out I did not!

Strong Bonds

Jul29

Have you ever known a person, or persons, so well that you didn’t need to use complete sentences, thoughts or even ideas to communicate with them? You can just ramble on about any abstract item and it makes complete and total sense to the person to whom you are speaking? Or been in a conversation with several people at once, each of you going on about some random topic and having it all makes sense those of you in conversation but when an “outsider” hears or reads, in the case of text, they have absolutely no idea what is going on? I witnessed this recently with my husband and his friends. It is as if they have their own language that only the few of them can understand. I do not know if it is a “guy” thing or just because they have known each other for so long and have literally been to the other side of world together but it is something that I will never understand.

 

To be honest, there is a small pang of jealousy that they have this world that belongs only to them. A world that I could never hope to inhabit, try as I might. I am amazed at their bond and love for each other and I think, “I want to be a part of that.” This tremendous world that they live in, whether they are together, talking through text, or playing a video game over the internet, they are all just THERE. They can go months without a call, text or email and when they come back together it is as if they were never apart. Is it wrong that I want to be a part of it?

 

I sit back to think on that question and the answer hits me like a ton of bricks. YES, it is. The desire to want to be a part of it is not wrong but actually trying to be, is. This is my husband’s space, his world apart from me. He needs to have that. He needs to have that group that he can go to, talk to, hang with that does not include me. After all, we have our own world as well, don’t we? We are married and starting a family. We have a bond in which no one else can take part. It would be like him trying to join in on my “girl’s nights” with my high school girlfriends. We need to have that separate time so that when we come back to each other at the end of the evening, or week if he has flown out to visit the boys, we can share our stories and experiences with each other. Doing so will strengthen our bond as a couple and as people.

 

I thank the heavens everyday that my husband has people like them in his life. People he can trust no matter what. They will always be there for him when he needs them just as he will always be there for them should they need him. I hope that everyone has a least one person in his or her life like this. And if you don’t, I pray you find one.