|
When I thought about "losing my freedom" after having a baby, I guess I thought of it like a teenager losing his
freedom when he decides to get a summer job. I.e., I'll temporarily give up some of the things I enjoy, as I save up for
a big payoff later on. When you're pregnant, people love to remind you that you'll never go out to a movie or travel once
the baby comes, and I thought, big deal! That's a small price to pay in exchange for familial love. The reality, though,
is that you "lose your freedom" the way a slave loses freedom: it's not simply that you miss going to hear your
friend's band play one night; it's that you know deep down in your soul that you can't eat, can't sleep, can't shit without
permission from an irrational despot. It's like having a job with no coffee breaks and no clocking out, and an alarm clock
with no "off" setting. You are no longer free. Meanwhile, the baby is so primitive it can't even focus its eyes
on you, much less acknowledge your hard work. When people would say "Parenting is the hardest job in the world,"
I thought, "Yeah, but I'm smart. I'll figure it out." But caring for a newborn is not a matter of smarts. It
is not "hard" like a physics exam, it is "hard" like getting through basic military training. Don't be
fooled by those parents you see at restaurants, toting their little baby along in a carrier and making it look like they're
enjoying a normal adult schedule. Those people haven't been out of the house for a month, and they have tight knots in their
chest worrying about when the kid is going to start screaming. SO, don't kid yourself! And slowly it will get better and
better until you finally feel like a competent, loved mom with a reasonable amount of freedom.
There are, of course, many significant positive changes as well. For example, you become less selfish and superficial,
able to prioritize important things and let small obstacles roll off your back. You grow closer to your family, and to other
people in general; it's like you've just become a member of the club of humanity. It's not that you are forced to make friends
with people you never would have liked before; it's that you now have something in common with a bunch of interesting people
you never would have known before. You will meet a lot of kind, generous people and feel better about your species. And
lastly, you will begin to experience time passing in a truly tangible way. The baby goes through an endless series of brief
phases, and you know that he will not be this same person again next month. You learn to enjoy change, and appreciate individual
moments, and see your place in the "big picture" of history. It's heady stuff!
Here are some analogies I used during early motherhood to explain to people what my life was like. I was having a hard time.
Hopefully you won't, but I think it's good to know that this is within the range of normal, and that it does pass.
*Breastfeeding schedule.
For the first few months, breastfeeding was like having a new friend who really likes to play checkers. Imagine that
every hour or two, your little friend pops in his head and says, "Hey, wanna play checkers?" You like the friend
okay, and you don't mind checkers. But it can get boring, and it takes about 15-45 minutes per game. When the game is over,
you might try to get some lunch or do a load of laundry and then . . . "Hey! Wanna play checkers?"
*Night wakings.
Since most people survive the night wakings of early parenthood, and it's portrayed as adorably amusing on sitcoms, I
imagined that, about 3 times a night, I'd hear my beloved baby call to me, and I'd dutifully roll over, half-awake, and put
my boob in his mouth, and we'd drift back to sleep together. But this was not how it was. Each waking was an unpleasant
jolt into full wakefulness, thanks to the hormones that make a mother respond to a baby's cry. It happened frequently -- say,
every 30 minutes to 2 hours. And the clock starts ticking as soon as you start feeding, until the next time the baby will
want to eat. So after the feeding, the baby cries and needs help getting back to sleep, you walk around with him like a zombie,
knowing that each passing minute you do this is one less minute of sleep you will get before the next feeding, and you start
to feel desperate and hopeless. I began to feel like the baby was a drill sargeant, forcing me to march around and do push-ups,
etc. when I was too tired to move. Then, just when I closed my eyes and slept for an hour (which felt like 5 minutes), his
cry was like the clanging of pots and pans as the DI shoutes, "WAKE UP YOU SCUMBAG!! GET UP AND DO A LAP AROUND THE
YARD!!" Infuriatingly, the husband, who does not have the hormone problem, can sleep right through many of these episodes.
*Post-partum depression.
I was never sure how to classify my postpartum state, because I felt that sleep deprivation and chronic pain were enough
to make me feel bad, regardless of hormone fluctuations. I had had depression before, and this was not the same. I was not
really sad, not listless, not unable to eat. Instead, I felt like I had just died. I felt like I had made the biggest mistake
of my life, and now I didn't exist anymore, because even my basic human right to eat or go to the bathroom when I needed to
had been taken away. I felt like I was in a Pac-Man game, and had been going along eating dots and doing fine, when I decided
to make a right turn and go for the extra-credit cherries. But as soon as I turned, the ghosts were there unexpectedly, and
they got me and suddenly -- wokka wokka wokka weeoweeowoop -- GAME OVER! I had that desperate feeling of wanting to take
it back and keep playing, and knowing that it was totally over.
*The new you. Obviously, your body goes through a lot during pregnancy and birth, and this coupled with milk production and
sleep deprivation and the total shock of your new life makes you feel pretty exhausted for a month or two. But what I didn't
really anticipate was losing the use of my arms so completely! The baby wants to be carried around all the time, which means
that you will start doing everything one-handed. You will hold the baby with one hand while you write e-mails, while you
make a sandwich, while you load the washing machine, while you pee. In a way, you should prepare for the birth the way you'd
prepare for having an arm amputated. You'll probably encounter some other unwelcome changes in yourself, too: you might develop
a short fuse with your spouse, or get really competitive and judgmental with other moms, or get paranoid about relatives juding
your parenting. You might get really boring, telling people over and over about how many hours of labor you had and how your
baby doesn't like to have a bath. This is why you need a group of other new moms, who are sympathetic to the whole thing.
Don't worry; you won't be like this forever!
--"Does your baby flap his arm up and down a lot?" This is the kind of thing new moms ask each other when they
meet on the street, because they have no idea whether or not they should worry about the various weird behaviors exhibited
by the baby. Here are some normal things:
*Spitting up huge quantities of milk very frequently. (One mom I know had to change her baby's outfits 12 times a day).
*Having a stuffy nose with big boogers every day (use saline drops to soften them and an aspirator to suck them out).
*Making a lot of noise during sleep, including crying
*Having 8 bowel movements a day, or no bowel movements for 8 days, or green bowel movements: all normal for breastfed
babies. Also beware of projectile BM's: Charlie could hit the wall from 2.5 feet away.
*Skin problems, including: red, bumpy acne and rashes on the face (try Aquaphor ointment) and flaky scalp (a.k.a "cradle
cap"; try combing through with oil, or dandruff shampoo).
*Waking up at 5am every morning because of farts.
*Flapping one arm up and down, sucking on your face, kicking the floor really hard, making raspberries, hating "tummy
time."
--Getting work done after the baby is born.
Before Charlie was born, I always wondered why people say you can't take a shower or get any work done with the baby around.
I figured they must be exaggerating. Just have your husband hold the baby for a while, or let the baby play in his crib,
or do it during his nap time! I also thought we'd be going out to an occasional dinner and on evening walks like before,
with our little baby bundled up in his carrier. I thought we'd put him to bed later so that we could get up later. The problem
with all this is that it assumes that you are still the master of your own life, when in fact the baby is the new master.
He wants to do a different thing every 10 minutes or he will start shrieking. He will wake up at 6:30am no matter when he
went to bed. When he is taking a nap, you just barely have enough time to eat some lunch or answer an e-mail . . . you have
a huge backlog of basic things to do. You realize that, not only do you not have a solid hour to get a little work done,
you can't even go to the bathroom when you need to! It is strange to experience such a profound loss of freedom. Don't worry,
in a few years he'll be going to school. In the meantime, you will probbaly need to schedule a sitter in order to preserve
some work time.
|
