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A Week In…

Wednesday, August 6th, 2008 | Uncategorized

Well, Jonathan is a week old today and he is still alive!!  Whoo hoo!!  Is that even a parent milestone? Making it through the first week?  It’s been a pretty rough week for me, but luckily I’ve had my mom and husband rising to every occasion to take care of me.  They have been totally awesome and I can’t imagine having to do this on my own.  My days consist of crying, napping, changing diapers, and feeding.  And the same goes for the baby’s day.  We’re a lot alike right now.

I heard that the recovery from bursting forth with child could be rough, but that a c-section was much harder.  (All males who are queasy and females who are, too, stop reading here)  I totally underestimated the recovery process.  People told me that I wouldn’t want visitors, and might just want to be left alone in the very beginning, but they didn’t really tell me why.  I needed specifics, something more than:  “you’ll be tired,” or “you won’t want to see anyone,” or “just wait” (I hate that one).  And after struggling through my first week as a new mommy, I have all the specifics that I need.  The reasons a recovering woman who just had a baby avoids phone calls, visitors, and cries at the drop of a hat are the following: 

1)  The “exit ramp” for the baby is swollen, stitched up, burning, bleeding and sore. 

2)  I have feelings of nothing being like what I thought it would be, things being a lot harder than I thought they would be, and needing to be there 24/7 with the kid.  It doesn’t really occur to me to take pain medicine or get a nap unless someone tells me to.  And for someone like me who planned the hell out of this pregnancy and prepared like an eagle scout, things not going the way I thought they would is a real bummer.

3) I would cry at the drop of the wine glass.  I was so excited to have my first glass of red wine after the baby was born.  A few nights ago, I had a glass and was trying to do maybe 7 things at once so I wouldn’t forget them later and I spilled my glass of red wine on the white carpet in our living room.  Those of you who know me, will remember that part of the military-style preparation I did was to have our carpets cleaned.  So, to see red wine all over them sent me right over the mommy edge.  I didn’t even have the baby, my mom did, and I used my tears to wet the dishtowels that cleaned up the wine.

4)  Sleep deprivation will only add to the random crying.  No one told me this.  I am a “if this, then that” person.  So, if I know that when I feel like I’m about to cry, I need a nap, I’ll be prepared for that pesky problem with a solution.  Now I know.  After sleeping for just an hour, I wake up a new person. 

5)  All the preparations have served me well, and I am undyingly happy that I did it all because it truly has made this week better than it could have been.  However, you cannot plan for the unexpected.  Like, say when you bring your newborn home from the hospital and wonder, why is it so hot in this house?  Then you look at the thermostat and see that it is completely off and not coming back on.  Then you notice that the entire back side of your house is without power.  So, the husband is off and on the hunt for what could possibly be wrong (for about 3 days).  Meanwhile, that night, we are noticing lights and airconditioning flickering as if the power is surging.  All night long.  So we call the power company, and they can’t find anything. The next day, we call Mr. Sparky, who sends Hector over to evaluate our electrical system.  He can’t find anything, either, and all of our circuits and such seem to be in working order.  Hector assures us that we don’t have to worry about the house burning down in the night and killing our baby (because that is my number one worry…will the baby die!!)  We are still seeing the surges after Mr. Sparky leaves, and Chris determines it must be the aircondition unit because the sparking noises are getting louder.  So we call the airconditioning people and they finally come to fix it.  To sum up, we gave Mr. Sparky $150 to tell us nothing is wrong and then $230 to the airconditioning people to actually fix it.  Then I get our power bill and because its been hotter than hell recently, and the units weren’t even working correctly, that was $345.  So I have this new baby, every time I turn my bedroom light on, I can hear sparking power surges, and I’m trying to figure out if I should plug in my breast pump or not!!  I switched to batteries.

Every mom I speak to says that you forget all the pain of labor, delivery and recovery because you have this sweet baby that is totally worth it.  I think that is only partly true.  I do have a sweet baby that is the cutest and I can’t stop looking at him, cuddling him and giving him mommy kisses all over his little face.  The pain is totally worth it, that’s the true part.  But part of the reason for this blog is so that I can write about the actual truth about labor, delivery, and recovery before the baby puts any more of a cuteness spell on me and I actually do forget.  I feel like when you are a pregnant lady and you hear, “Yeah, it hurts, but it’s worth it,” that you’re not really getting the accurate information.  I was not prepared for the pain of delivery, and I certainly wasn’t prepared for the current recovery issues I’m having.  Hopefully those will be gone soon, because I really am enjoying my new role as Jonathan’s mommy and I want to do it a little faster and better once I’m able.

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