Dear Newbie Mom Robin,
This isn’t exactly what you thought it was going to be, huh? When you imagined, at age seven, that you would grow up and have a little boy named Ethan, you had no idea the emotional rollercoaster it would put your body and brain on. People told you that having a kid changes everything, but you really didn’t know what that meant until now that you’re in the thick of it, and now that there’s no turning back, you aren’t sure you like it so much. The same baby you shopped for, and talked to in utero, and spent hours sitting in his soon-to-be-room dreaming about, is here now, and the whole idea of him actually scares you to freaking death. All you can think about is what you’ve lost, not what you’ve gained: your freedom, your sleep, your figure, your hair, the list goes on. Instead of gushing over this beautiful new little being with ten perfect fingers and toes, all you want to do is curl in a ball at the sound of his cry because you can’t imagine how either of you are ever going to survive this.
Guess what?
All this is normal. And believe it or not, it will pass.
It’s called post-partum depression, and you have it in spades. It doesn’t make you a horrible person. The fact that you can want this little person so badly, only to feel like the most selfish person in the world for wanting some semblance of your old life back once he arrives is actually incredibly common. It doesn’t mean you don’t actually love him, or want him, or that you’ll be the poster child for the Joan Crawford School of Parenting. It means you’re being forced to grow up, to acknowledge how selfish you are, and to learn that sometimes you really do need to put other people first.
Don’t be too proud to admit there’s something going on you don’t quite understand, and accept help. Everyone around you is more than willing to lend a hand, and seize every opportunity you can to do things outside the house with friends or family, including the baby, to prove to yourself that you CAN have your life back, just in a 2.0 version.
Though it’s impossible to believe, the day will come where it will just suddenly click. It will come at the most bizarre time of all – when someone else is holding him, and he cries, and something inside you churns and reacts and knows that he needs you, and you need him. Suddenly, you realize that this helpless little being looks to you to nurture and love, to soothe and comfort in a way no one else can. You will be transformed, as if by magic, to a tigress, willing to protect him from anything and anyone.
There will come a moment where you look back on the first three weeks of his life and are mystified how this incredible little man who fills your heart with so much love and joy it physically hurts could ever make you go fetal, and you will, more than once, replete with fingers in ears and tears streaming down face (yours, not his) and you will feel guilty for all that you denied him, and yourself, in the newness of the experience. But forgive yourself, and accept that that too is part of the experience. It’s just not the one you had planned.
Perhaps it’s because you planned to have a regular delivery, and ended up with an emergency C-section after 11 hours of labor. As a result, they never laid him in your arms after he was taken from you because you were orbiting the planets on painkillers, and never got to hold him until nearly two full hours later. All those books stressed the importance of that immediate bonding in the moments after birth, and you were denied it. You might feel like you failed somehow. You didn’t. These things happen. And just like we can prepare for the death of a loved one, and when it happens we learn that you truly can’t prepare for such things because there are so many other layers to it, so it is with birth. There are so many super-charged emotions that no one else can tell you about, that are all your own. It’s an awesome responsibility to bring a life into this world and help mold and shape him/her into a great human being. How can you really do this when you’re still trying to figure all that stuff out for yourself?
You can.
I know you’re not real big on change, and this is a pretty big one. I know it seems like the end of the world, your world, and in some ways it is, but it’s also the beginning of something new – the best chapter of your life so far. This little being will grow up into a phenomenal young man, and much of that will be owed to the love and devotion and support you show him in these early years. Just as you’ll help him grow, he’ll help you grow too. So, try not to be so scared of him. You’re not going to break him.
And FYI? He really doesn’t need so many clothes, no matter how cute they are. He jumps a size every month. Just sayin’….
Hang in there. It’s totally worth it. Besides, you need to save your strength (and your sanity) for when he’s a teenager!
XO
The Seasoned Future You Mom
Robin Reul is a contemporary young adult author who lives in Southern California with her husband and two incredibly amazing kids. Though being a Mom scared her to death the first go-around, she quickly learned it may have been one of the best things she’s ever done in her life, and liked it so much she had another one. You can follow her writing blog at http://robinreul.blogspot.com or on Twitter @Robinreul.
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