First Two Weeks of Motherhood

My baby boy is finally here. It’s been a surreal last couple of weeks that is for sure! It’s like you know there is a baby in your belly. You feel all the little kicks, jabs, and other such Taekwondo maneuvers. You hear the heartbeat at each OB visit. And of course your bladder is constantly reminding you that something (or someone) is leaning against it like a pillow!

But then he comes out and you see him for the first time and you sort of freak out a little in your head. “Woa, that’s a human! You mean to tell me that a little person just came out of me?!”

Yes he did and he’s here to stay. His name is Miles Garrison and he weighed 7lbs 7oz and measured 19 ¼ in long. He came right on time – April 4th at 1:10am, Easter Sunday 2010. Needless to say we didn’t make the Sunrise Service!

Miles is the only name hubby and I could agree on. We both had a couple names on our separate lists - they just weren't the same names! And truth be told, I was still looking at name websites while in labor! But I was pretty certain that unless another name jumped out at us that Miles it was going to be!

Boy names are hard! Either all the good ones are taken (Noah, Cohen, Jacob, etc.) or mothers of girls everywhere have stolen them and made them sound pansy. (Taylor, Avery, Addison, etc.) There really wasn't much to choose from. Girl names I would have had no problem with. Oh well.

I had a few stipulations. First, I didn't want an ultra popular name like Aiden or Brayden (any of the "den" names I guess!). I would have felt bad if he had to endure five kids in his kindergarten class with his same name. I also didn't want too cutsy of a name. I wanted something that would carry into adulthood. Speaking of Brayden, can you imagine a 45-year-old with that name? I can't really. And third, I didn't want my son to hate me for giving him a totally obscure or weird name, nor something difficult to spell or pronounce. I wanted a classic, yet cool name. And I think we found one!

Garrison is after my dad, Gary. I wish he could still be here to meet his little grandson. The surprising thing is, Miles has a lot of my dad's features. Others have made similar comments about this and that makes his middle name even more of a perfect fit. And what's special is that Miles was born in April, the month my dad passed away two years ago.

We have fallen in love hard and fast with our little guy. He was perfectly healthy at birth and we are so grateful to the Lord for this heavenly treasure He has chosen to loan to us! We look forward to watching Miles grow and learn and become part of our family.

His little face is more adorable than I could have imagined. It is quite tempting to just hold him in my arms and just stare at him all day. Although that would not be good for either of us in the long run, as Jeromy needs clean underwear, Mama needs to shower!, and Miles needs to get comfortable sleeping in the nursery. But sometimes I just can’t help it. He’s so soft and cuddly I hate to relinquish him to his crib.

Of course, Jeromy and I are the classic novice parents. Wow, these first few weeks are really hard! The first two or three nights, however, were the worst. I don’t think I had gotten more than 6 hours of sleep total in the five days since the day before he was born. You get to the point of delirium where you start asking crazy questions like, “What were we thinking?!”, “Are you sure we can’t send him back?” and, “Can we switch to formula – please???”

We quickly set up camp on the floor of the nursery and that helped a lot. I tried sleeping in our bedroom but my ears were always perked up and that made falling asleep difficult. Every time I heard Jeromy breathe or move I thought it was the baby. But I could sleep better knowing Miles was just a few feet away and that I could tend to him at a moment’s notice. We also have a pack-n-play set up in our own bedroom but have never put Miles down to sleep in it. Mostly because I just want to make sure Jeromy, who is a light sleeper, gets plenty of rest for work the next day. And it doesn’t hurt for Miles to get used to sleeping in one place so he begins to associate his crib with sleep. So, it’s worked out well.

Miles is 12 days old now and I no longer sleep in his room. It is amazing the difference a week makes! He seems to wake up pretty consistently every three hours during the night, which is definitely doable for me. As long as I can get 1.5 to 2-hour stretches of sleep at a time, I’m feeling pretty good by morning. In fact, I’m starting to wake up just before he does, as if I’m on his feeding schedule now!

I’m normally a morning person, but I think it’s going to be a long time before you will once again see me bright-eyed and bushy-tailed before 8 or even 9am – ha! And that is ok. Life has become so very basic these days, just as, I’m sure, it’s supposed to be. The first week home I let everything go but this week I’ve cleaned a little here and there to keep myself sane. And I’ve tried to keep up with laundry since, as I told someone recently, there’s either yellow poop or milk stains on every article of clothing and I am just not that crunchy! But other than that, we’re not doing much else except feeding and changing diapers around here.

And oh my goodness, newborns go through a lot of diapers! I mean, I knew this going in but we have gone through more packs (which were labeled “jumbo” even) in the last two weeks than I counted going through in the first month or more! The frugal in me is truly struggling, especially when having to toss three diapers in five minutes because he just wasn’t “done”. Or the diapers with contents Jeromy refers to as “wet fart”. Oh, and I can’t forget the diapers he pees on before you flip the front and find the tabs. It’s hard not to think of each diaper in the trash as “another 16 cents”. But you love your baby and the money you have to spend on him suddenly doesn’t matter anymore. (Especially when he has diaper rash, poor kid!)

I’m not for sure, but I think I may have endured a bout with the Baby Blues. After the first couple nights, extreme fatigue threw me into an emotional mess. It’s not that I didn’t expect to be sore, tired, hormonal, and stir-crazy with a newborn at home. I knew life would turn upside down after having a baby. But when you’re in the middle of it, it feels like this is the way it’s always going to be. You think you’ll never get to sleep again, you’ll never get out of the house again, you’ll never get to give your spouse the time you know he needs, even you’ll never get to take a long shower or step on a clean floor again, etc., etc.

I would feel fine in the morning. I think once the sun came out I would feel like I’d been victorious over the hard night. Though foggy, I had conquered something difficult and was rewarded with another day where things might get better. Well by evening, just before supper, I started to feel down. Just glum. Lonely. Irritable. Weepy. Needy. Anxious. Stretched thin. I would hurry up and eat and clean up after the meal, then quick change into my pj’s and wash my face. I don’t know if what I felt was simply dread of what the night would bring or what but I hated the evenings. And I felt a sudden desire to be close to Jeromy, I guess for emotional support and mental reassurance. To obtain some sort of regaining of my sanity before I lost it again! And I didn’t want to feel lost to Baby World, unable to give to other aspects of my life, my husband especially. Whatever it was, I resented the sun for leaving me at the end of the day.

They say the Baby Blues lasts up until about Day 10 post-partum. I am encouraged to say that I think I have made it beyond that phase. I still welcome morning more than evening (though I have always been a morning person so that could be part of it) but I think we are going to make it – ha! Jeromy and I have gotten to know Miles and his ways a little bit more, and I think Miles has started to get the idea of how things in his world function. Diaper and clothing changes, bedtime and feeding sessions, a sense of daytime vs. night, etc. It’s amazing what a newborn can pick up in just a couple of weeks! You can really tell, as he becomes more alert, how his brain is starting to register things that are becoming routine. He knows that once he wakes up he’s going to get fed. He is fussing less and less at each diaper change. And he knows when he gets swaddled that it’s time to sleep. It’s really amazing to see him adapt before our eyes like that! And I know it will only get more fun (and easier all around) as he becomes more aware of his surroundings and interactive with us.

For the most part Miles just eats and sleeps. We can hardly keep him awake between feedings (and often during!).

When he chooses to keep his eyes open for more than a few seconds we stop and take advantage of the moment. I don’t know if he is an unusually sleepy baby or just not quite yet ready for all the sights and sounds around him, but he’d just rather not stay awake longer than it takes to eat. He also tends to get over stimulated quickly, and we are learning to stay within the limits of what he can handle right now. (Unless we want an inconsolable screaming banshee on our hands for the next hour!) Thank goodness for the swaddle blanket!! That and the MAM pacifier are the only things (well, and the breast, always the breast) that seem to bring him down from an out-of-control fit. When his arms start flailing with jerky motions you know he has become over stimulated and needs some help.

He doesn’t like new things (bouncer, swing, Boppy tummy time, wrap/sling, bath) so we are trying to reintroduce these things for just a couple minutes each day so he can hopefully get used to them. Yesterday I decided to experiment with the vacuum. Mainly because the bedroom floors need it, but also to see how Miles would respond to the noise. I had just changed him and, lying on the changing table, he appeared to be contentedly looking around. Yet I still didn’t know what to expect. I cringed as I touched the foot pedal to start the vacuum and of course he jumped as it revved up. But surprisingly he didn’t mind the loud noise at all! I don’t know if it’s due to the white noise or if he remembers from en utero the sound of me vacuuming once a week, but he was just as calm as ever. Which is a good thing because I had been wondering when in the world I would be able to vacuum with him either sleeping or eating. No worries!

I am so all-over-the-board with this! How do you sum up 2 weeks as a new mom in a single blog post?? The best part? I'm lying on my BELLY typing this! Never felt so good - ha!