Trench Talk
5:30 am
With tears in my eyes, I look at my baby boy coolly lounging on the changing pad, freshly diapered and wide awake. Hand on his head, stroking his temple, I lean in to tell him that I love him, and I mean it with my entire being. I give him a kiss on one cheek, then on the other. He starts to cry. Again. We've been up every hour tonight and I've just about lost my mind, getting angry at myself for being angry at him, feeling all the mom guilt because my son isn't content, feeling all the wife guilt because my husband has woken up every time our boy cried and took him to change and soothe him just three hours ago, and he has to leave for work in approximately that same amount of time.
The highs and lows I've experienced as a new mom have been extreme. We're on a roller coaster of emotions daily, even hourly sometimes. My world completely falls away when Benjamin looks into my eyes, and nothing else holds a candle to the feeling of him smiling at me. But when he is in pain or is otherwise discontented, I am utterly miserable because, especially early in the morning, I can't or don't have the mental faculties to fix it. Cluster feeding has been a double-edged sword; I get masses of quality snuggle time with my boy, but my body aches from being in stuck in one position for so long each day, and my house quickly becomes a disaster zone as I don't have five minutes to put anything where it belongs.
6:02 am
He is fighting sleep so hard. Patrick sweetly shushes him in the living room and my guilt is so consuming that it could swallow me whole. It works after a minute, and the silence is a welcome respite. Maybe I can actually get a few minutes of sleep.
4:24 pm
I wrote the beginning of this post as tears poured down my face and onto my pillow this morning. From the start of it, today has been a rough one. At one point, Benjamin and I both were sweaty, tear-streaked messes in our 68-degree house because he kept fighting sleep and I was losing my mind. I was out of breath because I'm desperately out of shape and this tiny human demands the craziest squat exercises when he is beyond consolation. I told my husband, "I can't do this." I know it isn't true, but it feels so desperately true in those moments of chaos and isolation. My head hurts and my eyes are so very tired, but our son is sleeping away, snug as could be against my chest in the baby carrier that he tries not to love.
It scares me how much I love this little boy. I smother him with kisses with both smiles on my face and tears in my eyes. When he does give me the rarity of sleeping for a prolonged period not plastered to my body, I can't help but race back into the room to catch a glimpse of his precious little face over and over again, only sometimes to make sure that he is still breathing, because newborns are scary as hell.
It also scares me how weak I am in my own flesh, as the late night cry-fests so easily prove. My temper is so short between 2:30-4:00am if I haven't had much sleep before those witching hours arrive. My body aches as he is sustained by it, and I often feel so alone in those dark and painful moments. And then the dawn comes, typically after my husband has taken the fitful son of ours and soothed him in the living room, allowing me to sleep until he brings me oatmeal and the baby before he leaves for work. The days are long when it's just the two of us, but I can already see how quickly they are passing us by. I look at the photos of the days following Benjamin's birth and he has changed so much already. He is almost seven weeks old; this time last week, we were doing all the crying and cluster feeding and snuggling.
Benjamin really is such a sweet little baby when he isn't crying is head off. Boy, does this boy have a set of lungs. He doesn't give you much warning when he's about to lose his cool. When he is content, though, this little love of ours is sugary sweet, smiling and cooing and keenly observant of his surroundings.
I am eager to see this little boy of ours grow and learn, to see his personality develop, to experience the world through his eyes, to see what kind of person he will become, but we have to make our way through these tough newborn trenches first. Perhaps that will make those moments even sweeter to behold. For now, though, I must remember that the beauty is in the mess of the everyday. And truly, I am so extremely thankful to have these trenches to trudge through, and to have Patrick by my side every inch of the way. I couldn't have imagined how our lives would look now as we waded through our grief after each of our losses. I thank God for the blessing of this sweet boy every single day, and it doesn't do my feelings of gratitude any justice. We will make it through, day by day, one step at a time, embracing the chaos and the emotions and the hearts full of the love that we have for each other.
4:24 pm
I wrote the beginning of this post as tears poured down my face and onto my pillow this morning. From the start of it, today has been a rough one. At one point, Benjamin and I both were sweaty, tear-streaked messes in our 68-degree house because he kept fighting sleep and I was losing my mind. I was out of breath because I'm desperately out of shape and this tiny human demands the craziest squat exercises when he is beyond consolation. I told my husband, "I can't do this." I know it isn't true, but it feels so desperately true in those moments of chaos and isolation. My head hurts and my eyes are so very tired, but our son is sleeping away, snug as could be against my chest in the baby carrier that he tries not to love.
It scares me how much I love this little boy. I smother him with kisses with both smiles on my face and tears in my eyes. When he does give me the rarity of sleeping for a prolonged period not plastered to my body, I can't help but race back into the room to catch a glimpse of his precious little face over and over again, only sometimes to make sure that he is still breathing, because newborns are scary as hell.
It also scares me how weak I am in my own flesh, as the late night cry-fests so easily prove. My temper is so short between 2:30-4:00am if I haven't had much sleep before those witching hours arrive. My body aches as he is sustained by it, and I often feel so alone in those dark and painful moments. And then the dawn comes, typically after my husband has taken the fitful son of ours and soothed him in the living room, allowing me to sleep until he brings me oatmeal and the baby before he leaves for work. The days are long when it's just the two of us, but I can already see how quickly they are passing us by. I look at the photos of the days following Benjamin's birth and he has changed so much already. He is almost seven weeks old; this time last week, we were doing all the crying and cluster feeding and snuggling.
Benjamin really is such a sweet little baby when he isn't crying is head off. Boy, does this boy have a set of lungs. He doesn't give you much warning when he's about to lose his cool. When he is content, though, this little love of ours is sugary sweet, smiling and cooing and keenly observant of his surroundings.
I am eager to see this little boy of ours grow and learn, to see his personality develop, to experience the world through his eyes, to see what kind of person he will become, but we have to make our way through these tough newborn trenches first. Perhaps that will make those moments even sweeter to behold. For now, though, I must remember that the beauty is in the mess of the everyday. And truly, I am so extremely thankful to have these trenches to trudge through, and to have Patrick by my side every inch of the way. I couldn't have imagined how our lives would look now as we waded through our grief after each of our losses. I thank God for the blessing of this sweet boy every single day, and it doesn't do my feelings of gratitude any justice. We will make it through, day by day, one step at a time, embracing the chaos and the emotions and the hearts full of the love that we have for each other.
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