When I first started blogging, I vowed that I always keep it real. I am going to write genuinely on the topic of newborns. Someday if Mabel or Dottie sees this, it's okay, because this is what I am feeling in this moment in time. And they should know I love them more than I ever thought possible.
But here's what I came to terms with this time around regarding newborns: they are frightening. And while they are lovable, they are not likeable. In fact, I think it's okay not to feel an amazing connection with your brand new baby straight off.
I remember a couple years ago at work one of my colleagues advised a pregnant teacher, "Newborn days are hard. It's okay not to be totally in love with the baby at first." A Baby- Boomer generation coworker balked, horrified. "That's awful to say!" she remarked. "How can you not love your new child?" My colleague answered, "I didn't say that. I didn't say it was okay not to love them. I said it was okay not to BE IN LOVE with them. There is a difference."
And I concur. In those early weeks, you have on your hands a teeny, needy being, whose only emotional expression is crying. She does not read your eyes or engage with you, let alone smile. She eats, sleeps, and makes you change her diaper (what feels like) every four seconds. Hell, she doesn't even know her own hands are attached. She can't express what is wrong when something is, and she is so, so, so delicate. Every bath is an anxiety- provoking affair in which you aim simply not to drop her. She can't do much, yet demands boat- loads. Having a newborn is, I will go ahead and say it, not that fun.
Let's also not forget that in these "precious" first weeks you are also jazzed up with some pretty intense hormones. You get these crazy- happy adrenaline rushes that quickly morph into periods of depression and fear. You're likely alone in the house, but can't get out to do much because the little one needs to eat so often. You don't want to resort to TV, but every time you open a book, your eyes get heavy due to the incredible fatigue that only a new mother knows. When your partner or spouse gets home, you want to just run out of the house and escape for a while, yet you are too anxious (due to said hormones) to leave the baby for a flipping second. And the next day it all just repeats.
If you're like me, you also are doing your damnedest to give this kid breast milk, though the odds are somewhat stacked against this pursuit. But more on that in a separate entry...
The first few weeks require a number of doctor appointments for baby weight checks. You show up with a pad of paper listing the many questions you came up with after reading too many dire stories online. Is the diaper rash a sign of an awful bacterial infection or virus? What's up with the red marks on her eyes? Or in my case, why is she still jaundiced? It is fading? We can't get a lot of natural sunlight in the house during this gloomy winter.
After some weeks pass, a few of the worries do too. But of course new ones develop. I remember when Mabel was a newborn worrying about "social smiling." All the online "experts" claimed 6 to 8 weeks was the range to see a social (in response to a face) smile. She had been smiling a lot, but we couldn't tell if they were reflexive, gas- induced, or social. Soon it was obvious that Mabel was social- smiling it up-- and had been for a while. "I won't be such a psycho about it next time," I vowed. Man, I suck at keeping those vows I make to myself. Because there I was with Dottie, sick with fear about the same issue. What if she doesn't smile soon? Resume addiction: going online to find out every possible outcome. Then begin worrying that she has a tumor on her optic nerve, which means she can't see me and hence won't smile. But all the while, it was the SAME pattern as with Mabel. Dottie WAS smiling-- I was just too doubtful to believe they were social smiles. And within two days time, she was smiling like mad. And on the earlier side of the range those experts give. Put me in a lonely house in a dark, dismal winter and I will worry about anything I can conjure. Anything at all.
Through all this, J and I had (and still have) a routine going where he would take Dottie til midnight then pass her over to me. Ostensibly, I was supposed to be upstairs sleeping during his shift. But most nights in the early days-- and even some nights now-- I would just lie there frozen in fear. It's a visceral, inexplicable fear you have when it comes to your offspring and something happening to them. The love you feel is so intense that you don't think you can handle it. When you hold them, you are relieved to be able to protect them. But when you are separated from them, you are stifled.
Still, though I was (and of course always will be) loving Dottie more than my body or mind could handle, I wasn't "in love" with the alien creature that demanded so much--- until she started to smile and express herself a bit. Until she could really look into my eyes and I into hers. Until she could sit contentedly for a while and just BE. Until I could start to predict her movements and reactions and needs. Until she really seemed like a baby and not this little frazzled and frenetic and fickle animal. I loved Dottie (and Mabel) from the second she came out into the world and I bawled my eyes out when I saw each of my kids for the first time. But it takes time to be buddies with a newborn. And I think that's ok.
I'm sure some moms handle the early newborn days better than I did. I felt like some days I was flying down the dip of the roller- coaster, waving my hands up in joy and elation. And other days, I was trudging at a snail's pace up the coaster's hill. I made myself shower and get up and do SOMETHING each and every day. But on some days, the littlest obligations were taxing.
I've gone through spurts of feeling bad about my adverse reaction to a child's newborn days. But I know that any discomfort, fear, or itching I felt was due only to the intense love and care I was feeling simultaneously. It's kind of like Spiderman. With power, comes responsibility. Sometimes I feel like, "How did I end up taking on this mothering thing? Holy shiz, is it scary." But the power of the connection I feel with both my girls is worth those lousy, trembling, nearly paralyzing days in the beginning.
Next up in my series will be along the lines of: I suck at breastfeeding. Stay tuned!
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