Working in the Coal Mine

I am absolutely, unequivocally, 100 per cent exhausted this week. I feel like I have 20kg weights strapped to each leg. My walk is slowly becoming more of a shuffle (think Brad Pitt in 12 Monkeys). I’ve decided eating muesli for dinner is a nutritional choice, and the fact it takes about 60 seconds to prepare has nothing to do with it. My hair is giant and wig-like, (I would get it cut, but apparently at 2-3 months postnatal, you can lose massive amounts of hair – some people think they have alopecia when it happens!). Sleep deprivation is my evil foe and I am too brain-addled and weakened to defend myself.

It’s true that breastfeeding is certainly one major contributor to my sleep-poor state. All it takes is a few nights of feeding every 2-3 hours as opposed to every 4 (or 5 if you’re lucky), and you start feeling like you’re brain is a bowl of mashed peas. Breastfeeding can also feel mind-bogglingly repetitive - I’ve estimated that in nine short weeks of motherhood, I have given some 450 breastfeeds. Don’t get me wrong though, I certainly value the power of the magic boob to allay a babe’s tears and I know it makes for bouncy strong babies, but it can be exhausting and feel like a big responsibility sometimes. Now just as an aside, did you know that gorillas breastfed their babies? I didn’t. Here’s a picture.

Don’t let me have you believing my introduction to motherhood has been all bad, lots of it has been amazing, and the second month of parenthood has been a million times easier than the first. You do get used to having less sleep, and even when you are tired beyond belief, this beautiful little person you’ve created does make it all worthwhile. It truly is a joy watching the daily changes Henry goes through, recently he’s started smiling and chuckling in his sleep, and his efforts at talking are a cooing, gurgling, cuteness overload. Going to my first mothers’ group today also confirmed my suspicions that he is the cutest and smartest two-month-old baby to have ever existed. I think the other mothers were secretly in awe of his near-athletic neck control, and were clearly stunned at his falcon-like alertness. Even though Henry would obviously be an inspiration to the other babies, I’m still not sold on mothers’ group so I’m not sure we’ll be going back next week. I’ll keep you posted on that one.

The week ahead in Parentland brings immunisations and visits from the in-laws – I’m hoping the grandfolks may be just the sleep mules I need to smuggle me in some extra shut eye while they’re here.

Sweet dreams.

Mel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsoa1wHJT2E&feature=related 

Love is a Battlefield

Well, motherhood has officially slapped me upside the head and left me with a big, lethargic blob for a brain (and a beautiful little boy called Henry). Despite being confident that sleep deprivation has left me incapable of stringing a decent sentence together, I have resolved to finish this first post-baby blog entry if only to prove to myself that some normality from my pre-baby life still exists.

As the gory flashbacks of Henry’s arrival begin to fade, I feel I should at least acknowledge the trauma of childbirth before baby-love hormones zap my memories into mummy goo, and I end up, like many other mothers I know, recalling the event with a deluded, fuzzy-edged fondness.

Of course, I could wow you with tales of how I spent the labour in focused silence communing with the baby and charting its journey out telepathically, or tell you that I refused all drugs offered to me with a serene inner strength rarely seen in women today, but the truth is - I wailed, I groaned, I begged for drugs with a desperation seen only in hardened drug addicts, and I absolutely would have taken the strongest epidural available if there’d been enough time for me to have one.  My only advice for any mothers-to-be is to keep an open mind, as nothing can prepare you for the event, and don’t be deceived by wet-eyed clucky mothers telling you differently - childbirth IS that bad!

Overall, the experience of giving birth in a public hospital was clinical, fast, and fairly impersonal, and a long way from the transcendent experience I’d secretly (and naively) always imagined.  Due to the shortage of beds, Al and I were shifted from room to room as my induced labour rapidly progressed, only to be allowed into the revered ‘birthing suite’ about two hours before I squeezed Henry into the world. No time then to burn the lavender oil I’d packed, put on the soothing playlists I’d prepared, or to soak away the pain of contractions in a warm bath.

With hindsight I realise that childbirth is really just a means to an end, and that the amount of time I’d spent thinking about it and imagining how it would be was nothing more than a waste of time and energy. No one can possibly know how things will play out during labour, and when it happens, the only thing you’ll be worried about is that your baby arrives safely.  There’s no choice but to put all expectations aside, and if that means saying yes to drugs, c-section, episiotomy, forceps…and the myriad of other medical interventions, then I think most people would do it all in a heartbeat. I’m sure though, that women left to labour naturally in a birth centre or at home with the support of midwives may well have an entirely different experience, and if I’m ever foolish enough to do it all again I think I’ll be exploring those options too.

I’m now, amazingly, five weeks into motherhood, and I will say that while nothing prepares you for childbirth, the first month of parenting a newborn has without a doubt been the greatest upheaval of my life. There have been countless sleepless nights, hours of inconsolable crying (mostly from the baby that is), and moments of pure love like I have never known.

So far I’ve learnt that changing nappies really isn’t that bad and  I am able to control my natural gag reflex, sleep deprivation is absolutely a form of torture, and no matter what you do, there will always be good and bad days in every week. But more on all that later…I can hear the dulcet cries of my baby calling me.

Mel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-E9P_2_Fx3Y