6 months

Wow. Buddy is 6 months old today, I can hardly believe it. I can also hardly believe that it’s been so damn long since posting here. I’ve been reading along every day, friends, since so easy to do on my phone (translation, so easy to do one handed while holding baby). But otherwise struggling to get much done, balancing life, work, and giving dear little boy as much attention as possible. The longer I’m away and the more posts that accumulate in my head, the harder it is to start. So I’m copping out with some bullets to get at least some things down that I’ve been wanting to share. Please forgive my ramblings (if anyone is even still reading!).
 

• Buddy. Monkey. Little man. Senor Poopy-pants. I have tears in my eyes trying to express how much this little person means to me and how he’s changed my life. This does not seem like the appropriate space to gush on and on, but I will share this. His preciousness, the amount of love and pride and gratitude I feel for him, is almost too overwhelming. I say that not to complain, but to add to my story honestly, this experience of finally having a child after so much loss. The fear and anxiety of the past few years, that feeling that something is always about to go wrong, has not magically disappeared. Instead I now fear for him - his safety, his happiness, his wellbeing. I have flashes where I imagine a horrible call from the nanny that’s something’s gone wrong. Or that I fall while holding him going down the stairs. Or that something happens to me or my husband leaving him alone. So morbid, I know, but I can’t help it. It comes over me and brings tears to my eyes and a punch to the gut. You hear a lot about post-partum depression, but I only recently heard the term “post-partum anxiety.” I don’t want to feel this way, and do a pretty good job of catching myself and talking myself down, “appreciate today, don’t borrow worry from tomorrow, you can’t control or prevent bad things from happening and that’s a risk you take living in this world,” and so on. But it’s there, and it’s hard. I will work harder to manage this though, because buddy deserves a mom that is happy and relaxed, and I don’t want to pass this anxiety onto him. But just keep buddy safe, okay, universe?

• So there’s a lot to know about raising children. Who knew? Oh, everybody else but me? Apparently living with my head in the sand the past few years, turning my attention away from anything related to babies, has done little to prepare myself for the challenges of motherhood. Whoops! I started to talk about this in a comment to Mo (who is gloriously on her way to meeting baby girl B5). I had a huge mental block while pregnant about being able to plan for and imagine life with an actual baby, so playing catch-up on getting my act together and educated has caused some anxiety. Because you know, there’s that whole completely responsible for the care of a mysterious, helpless little being that changes as soon as you get the slightest clue. There are countless books, blogs, and websites about how to *properly* raise your child, a counter-theory to just about every piece of advice out there, and EVERYONE has a frickin’ opinion about it to boot. It’s this weird thing where you have this very visible, public representation of your mothering abilities -- your child. So if your child is anything less than *perfect* - the perfect height/weight/length, the perfect temperament, sleeping perfectly, eating perfectly - then YOU are doing something wrong, and people have absolutely no qualms about telling you about it. I’d like to think myself somewhat resistant to peer-pressure or caring so much about what others think, but my lack of self-education before buddy arrived has left me a bit insecure and it creeps in. And that whole wanting the absolute best for him (see bullet #1 above) only adds to the pressure.

• One saving grace for both of the above has been a sort of moms’ group. I signed up for a “new motherhood” class at the women’s hospital where I delivered buddy on the recommendation from a friend. Over the course of 6 weeks the actual class content became secondary to the bonds formed with the other 8 women in the class - all new moms with babies within a few weeks in age of my little guy. One girl had the smarts to create a private Facebook group for us, and months later we all actively stay in touch through it. We post questions, advice, stories, triumphs and failures, all in a really honest, vulnerable, kind and supportive way. It really is my new equivalent to what I found here in blog-land and in my real-life IF/RPL support group. I was so worried that my past would isolate me from the experiences of other new moms, but surprisingly and thankfully our motley group works -- everyone is dealing with SOMETHING difficult, even if totally different, that makes the tone pretty sympathetic. Being a new mom is hard, as much as I hate to admit it, and as much as I hated to hear it from others when struggling to get here. But it is, and I really encourage anyone lucky enough to make it to the other side to actively seek similar support.

• I went back to work when buddy was 3 months old. It was so hard to leave him and the process of finding a nanny to entrust him to was agonizing -- literally kept me up at night for weeks (as exhausted as I was) stressing about whether I was doing the right thing. Considering I had barely been apart from him save an hour or two here or there, heading out the door for 10 hours straight was downright traumatizing. I had no idea just how attached I would become to him. But it definitely has gotten easier and I even have learned to appreciate the time away. Building trust with the nanny has definitely been the key -- seeing how happy he is with her, the little things she does and the stories she tells about the day -- I do think he benefits from experiencing another caregiver, and hell, I benefit from learning from her expertise for sure. I’m VERY lucky in that I was able to negotiate my schedule down to 30 hours per week - 3 days in the office, rest from home. Which means that my “days off” are spent juggling caring for buddy, taking care of life in general (grocery, laundry, uh, bathing), AND squeezing in work, which is tough and leaves so much undone, but is still better than any alternative, I think. My heart still breaks a little each time I leave him, but for now it seems to be working.

 
Okay, I better wrap it up there before another four months slip by. Goodnight, dear bloggies.