It wasn't until I was sitting down with
my sister-in-law over Christmas and she started to ask me questions no one had
asked me yet. She didn't ask me the typical "how is she sleeping?" or
"is she eating ok?" questions like everyone else. She asked me the blunt,
real and raw questions. The questions that everyone else is too scared to ask.
Those questions opened me up and I just let it all come out. It felt so good to
tell someone how I really felt during the first few weeks after Eloise was born
without being judged but instead being completely understood and told that it
was all normal.
My intent for this blog post isn't to scare you or make you feel awful but
instead to hopefully help you know it's all ok and totally normal when you have
those days that you feel utterly crazy and lost. After all, I wish that someone
would have told me about the normal struggles almost every new Mom experiences.
1. It's not always love at first sight. All those women who say,
"I was in love with her the second I saw her" isn't telling the whole truth. Or
maybe they are? Either way, it's totally normal to love your baby but not be
completely in love with them yet.
When I first saw Eloise, of course I loved her but I wasn't in love with
her. I didn't fall in love with her until a few days after she was
born. It's not that I didn't care about her or anything but it was more of a,
"I don't know this person yet" kind of feeling. Don't worry, you will love your baby when she arrives but you won't believe just how hard you fall in love with them over time. Just know you're not alone and I promise that true Mother's love feeling
will come! Give it some time.
2. There will be times that you feel lost and alone. There is
a lot of change happening. Your life literally just changed in the blink of an
eye. It's normal to look at that tiny monster and think, "what now?"
I'll never forget the night that I was holding Eloise, sitting on the couch and
I looked down at her and just felt so lost. I felt empty and alone. I kept
asking myself, what's supposed to happen now?
Again
- this is normal! Between the drastic amount of change happening around you and the
crazy rushing hormones, you're going to get a bit of the "Baby
Blues." Just like I said before, give this some time as well. I promise it
goes away.
3. Don’t think you need
to do all the work. Let your husband share the load. This was one that
took me a few weeks to understand. I kept thinking, since I’m Mom, I need to be
getting up with her, feeding her, bathing her, rocking her. No! Let Dad in on
some of it too. After all, it’s very important for Dad to bond with baby
as well.
I literally made myself sick trying to be Super Mom/Super Wife/Super Housewife. It was too much and thankfully my husband saw me struggling and came in to save me. He's a true Super Dad!
4. A new baby will test your marriage. For the first month after
Eloise was born, Jordan and I didn't see eye to eye. We were so happy to
finally have our baby girl here but at the same time we just didn't understand
each other and honestly, it was all my fault!
Let me explain: Normally, if you ask me to share my feelings, I’m very open and
will share away. But, Jordan will also tell you, I can also hide my feelings
really well if I want to. If I'm sad and don't want you to know about it, I
will hide it like I was hired to keep the president alive. This is a flaw. Why?
Because if I would have just opened up to Jordan during that first month of
what was actually going on in my head (the sadness, loneliness,
feeling of being lost) we could have avoided the chaos.
If there is any advice I want you to take from this, it's to open up and share
how you are feeling! Not only will it help your partner understand what you are
going through and have him help out more but he may be feeling the same way and
you both can then work through it together.
After all, a child wants nothing more than for their parents to love each
other.
5. You're going to feel uncomfortable for weeks. When I was about
to pop, I couldn't get Eloise out fast enough. All I thought was, I'll
finally be comfortable again! Yeah - that was cute. You will be
swollen for a few days and uncomfortable for weeks, unless you get a c-section
then I can imagine you are a little more uncomfortable than the rest of
us.
6. You're going to be soooo tired. You're body isn't used to being woken up every two hours to feed a hungry little monster and no matter how hard you try, you won't always be able to sleep when baby is sleeping. Can we all agree that advice gets annoying after hearing it 100 times? I tried, I really did, to sleep when Eloise was sleeping throughout the day but I couldn't.
7. This is the beginning of a new and amazing chapter in your life. Even
through all the chaos, and ups and downs, you will never feel as much joy as
you do with your new baby. Every new change brings highs and lows, just know
that the highs will greatly outweigh the lows.
Eloise is two months old now and I can honestly say I've never been more happy than I am right now (as I sit with a fussy baby in my arms trying to type this up!). I better go...baby runs the show around here! Enjoy every second of motherhood you beautiful soon-to-be Momma's!
