The After Party

Continued from here.

For my whole life, whenever I thought about giving birth, I only imagined it up to the part where I get the baby. All the labor stuff made me a little nervous, but then once they hand you the baby it's happily ever after. Wrong. I was so wrong. One too many romantic comedies or episodes of "A Baby Story" I guess.

Much to my surprise, birthing baby was the easy part. Then there was shaking uncontrollably, a fever and chills, wearing a diaper (which goes along with a whole world of unpleasant stuff that I won't get into), painful failed attempts to breastfeed, and passing out when the nurses tried to take me to the bathroom--I guess I had lost a bit too much blood right at first. Most of all I was more exhausted than I'd ever been in my life. All I wanted to do was sleep, but nurses kept coming in to check my whatever and push really hard on my stomach. Hi, I just had a baby.. that hurts! And then it took me about a week before I could walk without hunching over and feeling like I was going to pass out.

But the really worst part was probably the emotional roller coaster they call "baby blues". It's such a happy, exciting time but also really scary and overwhelming. Add crazy hormonal imbalance, and it's a mess. I would burst into tears over the tiniest things and sometimes for absolutely no reason at all. I wasn't at all interested in anything that I usually love (food, reality TV, Pinterest). And the very worst of all was every evening when the anxiety would hit. Even though I was dead tired those first few nights, I couldn't sleep because of the awful, unshakable anxiety. If you've ever had a moment where you're scared for your life, and your heart's beating out of your chest, that's how I felt ALL. NIGHT. LONG. But each day it got a little better, and I cried a little less. I'm incredibly grateful that it was temporary and didn't develop into full-blown PPD. I  have a lot more empathy now for anyone who deals with that or any kind of anxiety/depression.

So now it sounds like it was all just the worst experience ever. Parts of it were. But there were moments in that first really, really hard week that were the best ever. Like falling asleep to general conference with my baby boy curled up on my chest. Or seeing Jacob instantly become the best dad ever. Or when he would sit right by my hospital bed during those long anxiety-filled nights, hold my hand, and tell me we could take turns staying awake if it would help me feel better. And all of this making me realize that God knows me so well that he gave me a husband who is more perfect for me than I ever could have known. Seriously, if I wasn't married to someone so helpful and involved, I would have lost it! I also would have lost it without my mom there the first week to be my slave, answer my worried-new-mom questions, and get me out of the house, even though I had to use one of the motorized shopping carts for old folks.

At first I felt a little guilty for not being euphoric every moment of every day. It felt like every new mom in the world felt that way while I kept thinking "Is this really the rest of my life?"  "Will I ever get dressed again?" "Will I ever sleep again?" And while I'm beyond grateful, I think it's OK to feel overwhelmed and even sad sometimes. This is a huge change and so physically and emotionally draining.

Luckily, things are already so much better. We are starting to get into a groove that works for us, and I'm becoming a tiny bit more confident every day. The crazy postpartum hormones are waning, we're all getting more sleep, and I've even showered and gotten dressed a few times. The good moments are definitely outweighing the bad, and we love our little guy more than anything.