Saturday, March 5, 2016

It is hard

Lets be real here, being a new mom is hard. People can tell you over and over how hard its going to be, but the truth is once you've reached motherhood you've reached a whole new level of hard that no one else can relate to but other people with children. Especially if you're the lucky winner of a colicky baby.

I am one of those winners, yes, the recipient of a beautiful, soft, warm, screaming bloody murder baby boy. The thing about being a new mom is that you have no clue what the heck you are doing. Throw a screaming angry kid on top of that and you get a giant stress storm. This was my personal experience anyways, the first four weeks were the hardest weeks of my entire life! I have been through a lot, I have been through some very hard times and come out on top a better and smarter woman. But this. A baby. I was floored.

 My body was oozing from every place that it could, my bottom was still healing (it was so swollen I could barely sit down, and it burned every time I peed), my hormones were a disaster and I was experiencing hot flashes and sweating constantly. These are just some of the things that were going on. Breastfeeding was difficult, I had "inverted nipples" and my son was tongue tied as well so we had to use a nipple shield. This is a pretty comical device shaped like an extremely long nipple on steroids and would capture excess milk in it, pouring it down my shirt or up onto my face when my baby flung his arms up on me. It hurts when your milk comes in, and breastfeeding is hard, so cheers to you mommy's out there who breastfed your babies for the longest amount of time that you could, and I sympathize with those of you who couldn't bear the pain and had to stop sooner than you wanted. I feel ya.

There is no real way to express the pain your body goes through when recovering from giving birth, I once heard it put "You are like a rotten piece of fruit, wrinkly and squishy and fluids coming out of every part of your body..." This is a pretty accurate description. It's been 4 months since I had my little one and I remember labor pain like it was yesterday, there is no way to explain that fully either. When my childless friends ask me what it was like I have no words, I tell them its like my insides were sand paper and then the sandpaper was rubbing together in my abdomen and back and down my legs and you can't make it stop no matter what. . . well, the fentanyl helped!
I'm a huge advocate of the drugs, but still got a lot of respect for you all natural mommies!

The point is, whether you are a first time mom who planned for your baby, or didn't plan, or its your 4th kid and they are totally different from your first, don't be too hard on yourself. I struggled from post partum depression and I still suffer from anxiety attacks that I never had before my baby. Just do the best you can, be the best you can be, and screw everyone else's standards of what a good mother is. love your baby with all your heart and take care them, that's a good mom, that is the best mom.

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