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This is my story of becoming a mother, told in a series of short posts. Warning: It ain’t all sunshine and rainbows.
The First Month of Motherhood
June 2014
It was a sunny, warm early summer day. My newborn screamed in his crib, face bright red and twisted in pain. I grabbed my cell phone with a shaky hand and searched through my contacts, scrolling down to “Mom”. The phone rang and before she could finish saying “Hello?”, I burst into tears.
“Mom, I made a mistake,” I sobbed. “I wasn’t meant to be a mom. I knew I wasn’t. I can’t do this.” My breathing became quick and shallow. The tears fell more rapidly. My heart pounded. Thoughts raced through my mind. I shouldn’t have had this baby. I am not strong enough to be a mother. And this baby – my son. He’s AWFUL. He is not a good baby. Is he going to be a bad kid, a worse adult? What do I do now? What am I supposed to do??
My mom responded with love and care, as she always does. She tried to reassure me that I didn’t make a mistake, that I was a new mom and a good mom.
It didn’t work. God himself could have come down from the heavens above, into my living room and told me I didn’t make a mistake, and I wouldn’t have believed him.
I was in pain from my emergency c-section. I had failed at breastfeeding. I was still lactating and my breasts were tender and swollen. I was bleeding. I was so constipated that I was close to asking my husband (my then-boyfriend) to take me to the hospital because this wasn’t gonna happen on it’s own (TMI?). I cried constantly.
This was not at all how I imagined motherhood to be. We were both supposed to be happy. He was supposed to sleep in my arms while I lovingly looked down at him, smiling.
There were no cuddles with my baby. If he was awake, he was crying. When he finally did fall asleep after an hour of shhhhing and vigorously rocking, I was too scared to move.
I was barely getting any sleep. He was up every three hours. I would feed him a bottle and before he got to the end of it, he would be crying out in what seemed to be intense pain. It would then take an hour to get him back to sleep.
I hated my new life. I wanted the old one back.
Read on here.
My experience as a new mother was rough. How was yours? Comment below!
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