Dear moms who are in those first few months of sleepless nights of newborndom, I love you. Little babies are so sweet and soft and precious. But they dont really respond do you. And just when you lay your head down . . right back up. Its hard a time. You need encouragement and chocolate. You will get out of the house again one day. You might even get dressed and wear make-up. And until then, I hope you find encouragement from this excerpt from my book Totally Desperate Mom: Keepin it Real in the Motherhood. Its your chapter. The Black Hole. You can even read it while you are half asleep because I dont write very fancy and my chapters are short. Feel free to share and pass along to your Totally Desperate Mom friends. And if anyone is in the first two weeks of your first child, please leave a comment and let me know and I will send you a free copy of my book! And if you want to order a copy ($10) my email is wendy at wendyhagen dot net. Love, Love, Love you moms! Wendy CHAPTER 5 NEWBORNS: THE BLACK HOLE According to an article I read on the Internet, “A black hole is a place where the force of gravity is so powerful that you would need to be traveling at a speed faster than the speed of light to escape its pull. Since nothing in the universe is faster than the speed of light, nothing that falls into a black hole can ever escape. What would happen if you fell into a black hole? Your body would be shredded apart into the smallest possible pieces.” Upon reading this, I really thought someone was describing what it was like to have a newborn. An inescapable force of gravity where your body is shredded? Look no further than my postpartum bod for proof of that action. Nothing that falls into the black hole can ever escape? How many times did I think about my (nonexistent) escape route from the mommy’s black hole of sleep deprivation as I was trying to figure out how to take care of my screaming little bundle of joy? Having a newborn (especially your first and sixteenth) is hard on so many levels. After returning home, you realize the hospital wasn’t such a bad place after all. You have round-the-clock care, emergency cords, and remote-control beds. People visit you and bring you stuff. Your adrenaline is happy to flow there and painkillers are plentiful. But after a few days, the nurses get sick of you and kick you out of the hospital in a (mandatory) wheelchair. You are forced to strap that tiny, helpless thing into a forty-pound car seat and go coop yourself up in prison, I mean, your home, for the next several months. Most of us read several books on parenting, breastfeeding, taking care of a newborn, getting your baby to sleep, and all those things we are so sure every good mommy needs to know. We talk to friends. We watch weird TV shows. We search the Internet. We think we know what to expect when we are expecting. Until the package arrives and we realize that the package has not read any of those books and does not have Internet access. Even though my Elijah was a pretty easy baby (he didn’t talk back, disobey, or complain about how I prepared his food) I found myself pretty stressed, confused, overwhelmed, and desperately exhausted for the first few months of Elijah’s life. Can we just pause here and have a moment of silence for the sleep deprivation? I mean seriously, can anything really prepare you for that? I don’t care that you had to pee in the middle of the night eight times when you were pregnant. Don’t let anyone ever tell you that that is God’s way of preparing you for a newborn. That is a lame comparison. Taking care of a newborn in the middle of the night is not like waking up to pee—unless you tend to pee for a really long time. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine this whole “wake up to feed the baby” deal could take so long or involve so many curveballs. I thought it was supposed to be a brief incident. A minor interruption in my sleep cycles. Twenty minutes—tops. I did not read any books that said, “Sometimes all these ‘tricks’ and ‘methods’ should be chucked out the window because from time to time (usually in the middle of the night) they just don’t work. Thus, you will be up for most of the night. When this happens, abandon the operations manual and do whatever you can (within reason, of course) to get your baby back to sleep.” Instead, these books read a little more like this, “We know everything about parenting and taking care of your baby. Our methods are foolproof. If your baby does not respond exactly as we predict, then you are doing it wrong. Or perhaps there is just something wrong with your baby.” Thank you, parenting experts and authors, for laying the foundation for a Totally Desperate Mom. Sure, those experts and those books can be helpful. But always remember that you are the mom. Mother’s intuition (even if it goes against the books) is not a joke. Do not disregard or abandon it. A BLACK-HOLE SAMPLER If you are preparing to embark on this journey, what you are about to read might scare you a bit, so feel free to grab your little blankie and suck your thumb. If you have already survived “The Black Hole,” you just might want to reminisce and then give yourself a smiley-face sticker for surviving the mayhem. If you are in the middle of The Black Hole, wondering, “Is this normal? Am I going to be okay? What’s happening to me? Will this ever end?” The answer is yes. And hopefully, my experiences will encourage you—you are not alone and you are not going crazy. You’re just exhausted. Allow me to introduce you to how it really goes down during those first few months of out-of-womb motherhood. You’ve just fallen asleep. It’s midnight. Forty-five minutes later you hear your husband’s baby screaming as if someone has burned her with a cigarette. But you know there aren’t any smokers in the house. That can’t be it. She’s not hungry because you just fed her an hour ago. That can’t be it. Did you eat too much chocolate? Who cares! You will never give up chocolate. That is definitely not it. Maybe she’s dying. Better get in there right way. She doesn’t appear to be dying, but when you pick her up she doesn’t stop screaming. Why is her tummy all bloated? You burped her for a solid thirty-eight minutes after the last feeding, so how could she be gassy? But she’s pulling her legs up to her chest in discomfort as if she is withholding some serious tootage. So you try all the methods the books offer up for a gassy baby (including having her ride a pretend bicycle), further ticking off the little insomniac. You try rocking her, singing to her, swaddling her, and shushing her. You hold her sideways, over your shoulder, facing outward, and upside down. It’s a no-go. When all those techniques don’t work you bust out the dance moves. (You think I’m making this stuff up? No joke—I used to choreograph and practice my step aerobic routines in the middle of the night in an attempt to soothe my babies. Don’t worry, I didn’t actually use a step or go full out, but I did get a little groove on.) You’re a rookie; you can’t really tell if the diaper’s wet or not. So you change it. Six times. You try giving her seven different pacifiers (again), but she spits them out in total disgust. Then Mt. Saint Helens erupts out the back door. And up the back. Time for another diaper change, 180 wipes, and a new sleeper. She is still crying. Perhaps she’s teething, because that’s what perfect moms with perfect babies say every time their angels cry. Time to pull out the hard liquor and wipe it on her gums. Your inconsolable baby is now drunk and screaming even louder. (A shout out to great-aunt Lucy who told you about that no-longer-acceptable treatment for a teething baby.) In your sleep-deprived state you forgot about page 182 of the last book you read: teething doesn’t begin for months. Oops. Exhausted and desperate, you decide to whip out the abused udders again because every day is a possible “growth spurt,” right? She is drinking as if she is famished . . . for about fifteen seconds. Then she falls asleep . . . until you put her back in her crib. Back to hysteria. So you do this shenanigan five times until you finally figure out something that works. Then two hours later you hear that crying once again. And it’s not your husband. He is fast asleep. You hit him over the head with a box of wipes and dump cold water on him. It’s no use. He is unwakeable. You can feel the tension in your neck, and your anxiety level is off the charts. You just need a little more sleep. You finally get to the drool stage of your sleep cycle and now this again! The desperate thoughts begin to leak out of your subconscious. What have I gotten myself into? I thought I wanted to be a mom, but what is this? Can I just drop her off at the fire station for a few nights? Did my mom really go through this with me? If so, I love her and she is awesome and I wonder if she wants to come over and help me right now. Why does Cindy look so happy and alert when she comes to MOPS with her two-week-old? And how did she get that makeup on her face? Why am I not enjoying this? Those books are dumb. I will never have another child. My husband has it so easy. He is a total jerk for not helping me right now (even though he thinks he is doing sooooo much). At some point the desperate prayers come into play. Lord, please help me. Lord, please just give me a few more hours of sleep. Jesus, can you babysit? BREASTBLEEDING Many women enjoy breastbleeding or whatever it’s called. I am not one of them. Many women say that it is a bonding experience with their babies. I totally relate to the word bond when it comes to breastfeeding. I just add an -age to the word, and then it accurately conveys my feelings about breastfeeding. I feel kind of like a jerk mom for even saying that,. But just kind of, because I know I am not the only mama who struggles with those sentiments. I know I will never be allowed into any “Breast Is Best” clubs (darn it), but breastfeeding has been difficult for me on many levels. Before you go calling La Leche League on me, let me state that I do think breastfeeding is very important. There is no nutritional substitute. It is amazing that God has created us to be all our baby needs for the first six months of their lives. But that doesn’t mean I have to like it, right? Nursing has been a serious challenge for me with every child. Especially with Elijah. He seemed to latch on okay at the hospital, but it still hurt. The lactation consultant at the hospital came by and observed me and tried to show me a thing or two. Mainly, she just showed me how to violently shove the udder into Elijah’s mouth. Then she high-fived me and left. I went home with cracked and bleeding nipples. That dynamic duo eventually introduced me to mastitis. Thrush/yeast was also a part of my breastfeeding regimen. Twice. I am still scarred by the yeast-free diet I ate for two whole weeks trying to get rid of that junk. Eating dirt and trees gets old after five minutes. I ended up calling in a private lactation consultant to help with all the breastfeeding drama. She came to the house and gave me some pointers. I was hoping her pointers would point me to the can of formula in my cupboard. However, the La Leche League must have made up the treatment plan for all breastfeeding infections and problems: “Don’t stop nursing. And nurse more often.” And remember, “It’s not supposed to hurt.” Puh-lease. I am sure this consultant regretted having the “pay for one visit, but you can call me anytime” plan. After my eighteen phone calls, even she started feeling sorry for me and seemed to run out of suggestions. I eventually chose the formula over the nervous breakdown. I was totally done breastfeeding when he was four months old. There was a little bit of guilt and a lot of relief. Then came Lydia. “This one will be different,” they said. Lydia did not get the memo from “them,” and I ended up with the same problems and infections. However, somehow I pushed through it (probably because I knew it wouldn’t last forever) and nursed her exclusively until she vehemently rejected me at ten-and-a-half months old. Even though it was pretty easy and it didn’t hurt anymore, I welcomed the rejection. I am currently still nursing my younger daughter, Jordis. As I write this chapter she is eight months old. We got off to a rough start, but I had a good lactation consultant at the hospital who scolded Jordis for clinching down on me and showed me how to correct the clinch factor. We recovered from that rough start within a about a month. I never had any of the problems or infections I had with the other kids. Hooray! Unless she denies me sooner, I am planning on nursing her until she turns one. And let me tell you, I am planning a big “I will never breastfeed again!” celebration when “Milk Mama” gets shut down once and for all. You’re invited. WHO’S ON NIGHT DUTY? Some people actually have “night nannies” to take care of their babies in the middle of the night. I would like to dedicate . . . nothing to them. They can skip this section of the chapter and go take a nap, since they are probably sooooo exhausted. While those chicks get their beauty sleep, the rest of us are desperate for just one measly night of uninterrupted sleep. I remember the first night my husband was going to be on “night duty.” The plan was for me to barely wake up and use the most ridiculous, humiliating contraption in the world that someone named a “breast pump,” and he would get up and feed Elijah a bottle and get him back to sleep. I had looked forward to this day since I was a little girl. I was so excited about the prospect of a decent night’s sleep I could hardly contain myself. I skipped to my bed while bluebirds sang on my shoulder. I shoved earplugs into my nose (I was tired) and laid my head down on my pillow. I tried desperately to fall asleep, but I couldn’t because of the moaning sounds that came from down the hall, from behind the bathroom door. The moans easily penetrated my bedroom door and ignored the earplugs that were supposed to be protecting me from noises such as these. I got out of bed to survey the scene. There was my husband lying on the floor in front of the bathroom trying to get the door open. The cat, whom we’ll call Phayce because that’s the ridiculous name we gave him, was trapped in the bathroom and was crying like a newborn in distress. Apparently, the little troublemaker had gone into the bathroom, shut the door, gotten up on his hind legs and pulled out the bathroom drawer. The drawer that is right in front of the door. The door could no longer be opened, and he was trapped in the bathroom. “Just go back to sleep. I’ll take care of it,” Shiloh said as he maneuvered a wire hanger underneath the door. First of all, I am the lightest sleeper this side of the Mississippi. Even if I wanted to ignore the fact that my cat was stuck in the bathroom without food or water and would soon be defecating all over the place, I could not sleep through all the MacGyver-style commotion. The bluebirds on my shoulder stopped singing and began to poop on me. There went my much anticipated “night off.” I won’t get into the details of all of the devices that were employed to try to rescue my bathroom from the cat, but there were many. Suffice it to say after two hours, a broken door, and a broken drawer, we finally got the cat out and went to bed. That scenario? I never read that one in a book. Don’t say I never warned you—Black Hole’s Law says, that “Whatever can happen to keep Mom from sleeping will happen.” RAINBOWS IN THE BLACK HOLE Please don’t panic. The Black Hole is not all bags under the eyes and unpredictable tears, unless you are truly experiencing postpartum depression, in which case, please call your doctor. The scenarios I just described do not happen every night during the first few months. There are even a few jerks . . . um, I mean blessed mamas who don’t have any nights like that. How nice for them. The rest of us can especially enjoy when those little love bugs finally fall back asleep in the middle of the night. Sleeping newborns are absolutely precious. Is there anything better than staring down at your sleeping newborn baby? Okay, maybe an ice blended mocha from The Coffee Bean, but other than that, nothing compares to those sleeping sweeties. And how about in the daytime when they are awake and moving their limbs around like E.T.? Adorable. Then they start smiling (when they pass gas) and you officially decide not to drop them off at the fire station. There is nothing that can describe or illustrate just how much and how quickly you can fall in love with your baby. Even in The Black Hole. That love is only to be rivaled by the newfound love you have for your friends . . . who bring you meals and run errands for you. But you can’t watch them sleep, so the love’s not as deep. The same women who say you forget difficult pregnancies and don’t recall painful labors will also tell you that you will forget the bad parts of The Black Hole. I think these are the same women who call those mama night terrors “bonding time” and liken them to the nocturnal trips to the bathroom. Those women should all be locked up on an island with 100 bajillion newborns. Don’t get me wrong; I am memory challenged. But I have not forgotten just how hard those first few months of newborndom were. I still shudder at the thought of the sleep deprivation and can vividly remember the episodes of Saved By the Bell I watched at 3 a.m. while nursing. What really happens is that you remember The Black Hole trauma, but you also recall the rainbows: the smiles, the cuddles, the wonder (wondering how in the world that came out of your body), the soft skin, the innocence, the unconditional love, the support of friends and family, the cooing. Once you emerge from The Black Hole you realize that it does end. It lasts for only a short season. Your body heals and goes back to its normal size. Okay, that’s a lie. Your body is never quite the same, but who cares? You sleep again (somewhat). And the milk factory gets shut down. Your brain restores its functionality. Another lie. I am still waiting for that to happen. In the meantime, it’s fun to rely on other people’s parenting wisdom, right? WISDOM FROM OTHER PEOPLE When you are a walking zombie, have postpartum funk still ebbing and flowing out from down below, have not left the house for weeks, and long to one day have time to brush your hair and throw on a touch of makeup, it’s always nice to have well-rested, showered, non-robe-wearing people tell you what’s up. The worst part is that you are desperate enough to listen to them—even if what they’re saying doesn’t quite make sense. Just ask my girlfriend Kim, who recently had her first baby. Like other neurotic moms-to-be, she likes to do her research. Her decisions regarding her little one’s care weren’t taken lightly. After reading three different versions of What to Expect, Baby 411, and every pre-motherhood Web site known to man or woman, she thought she was good to go—until the outpouring of (unsolicited) advice from her doorman, in-laws, dry cleaner, grocery store clerks, and anyone else who saw she was expecting. She became fed up and decided to let her pediatrician have the final say in all decisions. Kim had this fabulous pediatrician whom we’ll call “Dr. Loserville.” When Kim’s daughter Zoë was just eight weeks old, this doc told her that whenever Zoë was awake she should be on her tummy. All wake time equals tummy time. This was contrary to what Kim’s intuition was telling her, but what did Mommy’s intuition mean, anyway? This was a doctor telling her what to do. It had to be right. Right? If you’ve had a baby, especially a newborn, you know that they like being on their tummies . . . for about one minute, tops. Little Zoë perfected the art of fussing during her marathon tummy time. She would scream, turn bright red, and lose her sweet little voice. Her flowing tears stained the sheets while Mom watched on with a breaking heart. When Kim’s mother would call, she would hear Zoë fussing in the background and would yell, “Get the baby off her tummy!” Finally, Mom’s intuition (read: guilt) took over and Kim announced, “I don’t care if my baby never crawls! No more tummy time!” But Dad wasn’t as easily convinced. Still following the doctor’s orders (when Mom wasn’t around), it was back to abdominal boot camp for the Zoëster. Mom would come home, find her on her tummy, sprint full speed ahead (well, as fast as you can run eight weeks after pushing out a human being), and pick her up off the floor. A fight between Mom and Dad would ensue, which is always healthy and delightful for first-time parents. But wait, it gets better for poor new Mom in The Black Hole. After moving back to California when Zoë was eleven weeks, they took the Zoe to a new pediatrician, who questioned their tear-inducing tummy time, “Why would you ever let a baby under six months old cry?” Thank you, doctors, for your two conflicting, unrealistic, golden nuggets of wisdom. Thanks for giving sleep-deprived Jeff and Kim some good fighting material and the recipe for an unhappy baby (with abs of steel). Textbook Black -Hole activity. Lastly, thank you for making Kim a TDM lifetime member. She is a full-fledged Totally Desperate Mom. Welcome, Kim. PARTING WORDS OF WISDOM Lest you think this book is totally impractical and offers nothing in the way of solid parenting wisdom and direction, here you go. It’s bad enough that as a new mom you pretty much second-guess all the decisions you make. Then along come the Nervous Nellies who offer the same suggestion every time your baby so much as makes a peep. (I am not going to say for sure this is your mom or mother-in-law, but the chances are good.) “I think he’s hungry. I think he wants to eat. You should feed him. When’s the last time you fed him?” Said person was there when you fed the baby thirty minutes earlier. Here is how you might think about responding: “Oh yeah? I think you’re the one who’s hungry, Mommy Dearest!” It’s worked out well for me. Shuts her right down . . . and makes her cry. It’s okay, though. You might find it good company to have someone to cry with when you are in The Black Hole. Did I mention you might cry a lot in The Black Hole? OUT OF THE DARKNESS AND INTO THE LIGHT “Every child is different.” This is one statement “they” say that is actually true. Therefore, every child will chew you up and spit you out of The Black Hole on a different timetable. I cannot definitively say when you will emerge from the stupor, but I can say that it is greatly influenced by the amount of sleep you get. Not every baby sleeps through the night by six weeks or even a year or eight. But even if your baby is not sleeping through the night completely, she will eventually wake up less often. And she will figure out the difference between daytime and nighttime. And you will start to kind of figure things out. You will get more than one thing checked off your to-do list. I think it is safe to say that by about three months, most women will begin to emerge from the darkness and into the light of the infant stage! TDM Tip: Give yourself grace during The Black Hole. You are going through a huge life adjustment . . . on completely inadequate sleep. You may feel like you don’t know what you are doing, but God has specifically designed you to be the mom for your child and He knows what He’s doing.
Posted on: Thu, 28 Aug 2014 03:30:33 +0000
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