4 Weeks

It was four weeks ago that I cried at my midwife appointment after learning my body had made absolutely zero progress in the quest to give birth.  At the advice of my midwife, I went straight to Sprouts and bought raspberry leaf tea and evening primrose oil, with the intention of just "seeing" if they would actually get my body moving in the right direction.  We came back home and I was feeling defeated.  I was feeling anxious, big, annoyed, annoyed at myself for being annoyed, etc.

And then, it HAPPENED.  I remember getting ready for bed that night thinking, "you know, inevitably, one of these nights I could wake up in labor".  I had no idea that TONIGHT was THAT night.

All of a sudden, we're in the car heading to the hospital.  Then, I'm getting admitted.  Then, I'm getting an IV, an epidural, taking weird naps, starting to push, and then, all of a sudden, I'm a mom.  I am holding a baby that I created with the man I love and we are suddenly a family of 3!

The past 4 weeks have been a mash-up of every emotion.  Panic.  I panic that he is so tiny and innocent and what the HECK are we doing???  Worry.  I worry that a secret germ will float into our house and into his nose and make him sick.  I worry that he will experience sadness in his life and I won't be able to fix it.  Love - incredible, heart-wrenching love.  When he is wide awake at 4am and then poops for the 90th time, I just look at him and think - my goodness, I love you so so much.

We are learning new lullabyes to sing to him.  We are perfecting techniques to soothe him with.  We are learning to survive on less sleep than ever imagined.  And when I start to question myself or freak out about going back to work or worry that I'm not doing enough and I'm being too lazy, I just remind myself - just take one day at a time.  I remind myself, you are doing it - you are parenting this little baby and you are following your instincts and if all you do today is snuggle him and feed him and keep his diaper dry, then you have succeeded.  

I love his facial expressions...sometimes he looks so annoyed and like a grumpy old man, and it just cracks me up.  I love his little dracula cry.  I love that his needs are so simple at this point. I love the funny little pictures that Mike has been capturing. Keep it up, Mike!!

So tomorrow, at 1:24pm, he will be one month old.  We probably won't do much other than what we've been doing...snuggle, sleep, eat, poop.  And that's all I want, because if the one thing I hear over and over again from friends/family/strangers, is that it goes SO FAST.  So I'm going to soak him in. And ignore the insurance paperwork that I keep putting off =)