Sad

I thought I was becoming a mother again.

I didn't say anything to anyone. Not even to my husband. I just noted that my cycle was late. I wasn't sure how late at first: a week? Two weeks? I just knew it was off. Way off.

I retreated back into that quiet space inside of me where I used to go when William was still in the womb, where I contemplated the unfolding complexities of my life and emotions, and just waited. And listened.

I secretly purchased a pregnancy test and waited to use it until first thing the next morning. I sneaked out of the bedroom and into the spare bathroom while my husband showered for work, too anxious to wait for him to leave. My stomach knotted as I read the directions. I don't know if I'm ready.

I take the test and wait for the results. One blue line. Not pregnant. My cycle began the same day.

I expected to feel relieved, and in a way, I do. William requires so much from me right now that another pregnancy would put me in a stressful position. But I'm also sad. For a moment I expected to feel life springing up in me again, the little kicks and nudges, and the excitement and anticipation of preparing to greet a new little person--full of smiles and wonder. All those emotions rushed through me as I tore the wrapping off the pregnancy test, and then drained out of me as I read the results. Not pregnant.

When did life get so complicated? And why do I feel betrayed?

Out of My Head

Sometimes I could just hate myself. See, I heard that becoming parents can be a challenge for a married couple, but...you know...the stuff I heard was mostly generic: "Oh, you'll want to be with the baby all the time, and your husband will feel like he's getting less attention, but it's all good," etc., etc. What I didn't hear was that these postpartum hormones would drive me batsh*t insane.

Seriously, I could yank my hair out.

Now I've done some tough things in my short life: Army bootcamp, college, two out-of-state moves within two years, wrote a novel. But all that pales in comparison to what I'm currently experiencing.

Yes, my poor husband feels neglected. It's no wonder. The baby absorbs nearly all of my time and energy. During the day, he must be fed every three hours. I spend at least a half hour nursing him, then another 15 minutes giving him a bottle. Then comes a diaper change. Then comes whatever else needs to be done: laundry, dinner, a hot bath so I can have some time to myself without every living creature in the house vying for my attention. Even after a good day, I usually crawl into bed feeling raw and jittery.

But the worst of it is in my head. I don't want to get too close to my husband most of the time because I'm irrationally convinced that all he wants is sex...like he's just waiting to pounce the moment my body is completely healed. To be honest, I've never felt more sexless in my life. As much as I desire physical intimacy, the pain of childbirth is still fresh in my memory and I don't know how to shake it off. On top of that, I've become more critical--even downright suspicious--of my husband. I have thoughts like, How could he NOT notice that the absorbent pad was missing from the cloth diaper when he put it on the baby? and Why is he making a face when all I asked him to do is bring me a glass of water? At times I have felt cold and angry toward him for no clear reason at all. It's terrible and makes me feel guilty. At the same time, I also feel stingy and frustrated. Why should I give him pleasure when I cannot have any for myself? How is that fair?

And what's worse is how the baby makes me feel. He's all I can think about sometimes. I have to fight the urge to check his breathing in the middle of the night. I walk around fearing the hell that would descend upon my life if I lost him somehow. At the same time, imagining the future conjures up scenes of the constant messes that I will have to clean in the course of raising him.

But that's not all, folks. In her desperate bid for attention, my cat Ling has taken to randomly licking me and the living room walls! I can only pray the paint isn't toxic.

I may need therapy...again.

Broken Milk Dreams

"April, are you ok? April? April?"

I couldn't answer my husband because I was sobbing...for about the fourth time this week.

See, I can't get my son to breastfeed. And it's not for a lack of trying. I worked for two hours with a lactation consultant at the hospital after my son's birth to ensure he could latch on properly. I nursed him despite nipples so sore that I'd yelp and writhe at his first suck. Everyone assured me, though, that the pain would subside with consistent effort and that I'd soon be enjoying the benefits of nourishing my baby.

About a day after leaving the hospital, however, the feeding situation rapidly deteriorated. William began fussing at my breast, fighting my attempts to feed him. Getting him to latch on soon took 20 minutes, 40 minutes, an hour. His whimpers turned to blood-curdling screams. In desperation, I finally agreed to my mother-in-law's suggestion to start supplementing William's diet with formula. The next day, at William's 48-hour hospital weigh-in, I learned that William had lost 11% of his birth weight since leaving the hospital--and if he didn't gain some of it back in 24 hours, he would have to be admitted. So per the pediatrician's orders, I started giving William formula at every meal. William then refused to take my breast at all.

I haven't quite given up yet. I went to the store a couple of nights ago and purchased an electric pump. But the results have been less than encouraging. An hour of pumping so far yields about half a teaspoon of nutritious milk...milk that I know is far more gentler on my son's stomach than formula. Seeing him spit up formula tells me that I've failed at one of the most natural acts in the universe, and it's like a dagger through my heart every time.

I nearly cried at William's weigh-in watching another woman breastfeed her newborn in the hospital waiting room, knowing that such a thing was impossible for me and my baby.

My husband reassures me that it's no big deal. And in a way, he's right: as long as William is eating something and gaining weight, he'll be fine and healthy. But for me, being unable to produce for my baby enough milk--a special gift from my body--is akin to how I think a man might feel if he were told that he's impotent. It hurts in a deep way.

When I was pregnant, my daydream about nursing resembled something like a passage from one of my favorite books, The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck. In this particular passage, the protagonist's wife, Olan, sits in the doorway of her home, nursing her firstborn son. Her husband describes her milk as being so plentiful that it flows out, rich and white, onto the dark soil of the fields. The imagery of this passage has always stayed with me, even when I first read The Good Earth in the eighth grade. Right now, I can only pray that my daydream might still become a reality. Pray with me, friends.

Books I Wish Existed

When I was pregnant, I was overwhelmed by the number of parenting books on the market: What to Expect The First Year, Parenting by the Book, How to Talk so Kids Will Listen, etc., etc., etc. forever and ever, amen. Now that I'm a new parent, however, I've discovered that maybe there aren't enough books on the subject after all. So for all you publishers out there, here is a list of book titles I'd like to see on the market in each genre:

Memoir: Lost in the Fog: How Childbirth Turned Me into a Walking Vegetable

Instructional: Keeping 25 Baby Care Essentials Within Arm's Reach at all Times

Medicine: The Plastic Surgeon's Guide to Turning Two Arms into Four (or more)

Sci-Fi: The Baby that Never Slept

Horror: The Meconium of Doom

Romance: Love May Hurt for a While

Self-Help: Believing You are a Good Mother (even if you can't breastfeed)

Mystery: The Case of the Tiny Vanishing Socks

Fantasy: A Painless Birth

Cooking: Microwave Gourmet: Amazing Edibles in Under Ten Minutes

Reference: The World Encyclopedia of Non-Essential Baby Items

and finally...

Health: The Breastfeeding Father: The Art of Achieving Male Lactation

I think 7% in royalties sounds fair. You know where to find me.

Welcome Little One

Well, wouldn't you know...

At 1:30 a.m. on Thursday, just hours after blogging about my frustration over waiting for my son's birth, the contractions started. At first I thought I just had an upset stomach. But after several trips to the bathroom and ending up doubled over in my mother-in-law's arms, we drove to the hospital at 3:45 a.m.

I delivered William at 2:01 on Thursday afternoon after just 12.5 hours of labor.



William's birth brought a mixture of joy, pride, relief, and disappointment: joy at finally meeting the little man that had started life inside of me and seeing him handsome and healthy...pride at having successfully delivered without having taken childbirth classes...relief that the long pregnancy and the pain of delivery had ended...and the crushing disappointment that followed as I realized that my pain hadn't quite ended just yet.

In fact, the worst was yet to come.

After the nurses carried William away to the warmer in the corner, the attending midwife began stitching the soft tissues between my legs that William had torn on his way out. At 8 lbs., 9 oz. and 20.5 inches long, William's body left me fairly devastated. Even with an epidural, the pain caused by the stitching was incredible.

For weeks I had been subjected to the line that "once you hold your baby in your arms, you forget about the pain of childbirth." I guess that's assuming the pain ends at childbirth. As of right now, sitting down on a chair requires great effort and care and cannot be accomplished without using a pillow that keeps my nether regions floating in midair. My back throbs from the pressure caused by the epidural, and William's attempts at breastfeeding have turned my nipples into two bright red targets of suffering. Only a regular dosing of Percocet, prescription strength Motrin, Dermoplast and witch hazel pads keeps me halfway on my feet.

The intense physical pain, combined with fluctuating hormones and the exhaustion of caring for a fussy newborn, has sent me into hysterics more than once in the past two days. The apartment is currently strewn with baby clothes and blankets, half of them soiled. Dirty dishes litter the living room. A pile of tissues, damp with my tears, lies on the floor beside my bed. My husband reports back to work in a week, which will leave me to care for the baby almost entirely on my own. And I can barely move.

But then I look at this precious little face...



...and ask myself if it's worth it.

Absolutely, unequivocally, yes. I have been smitten.

And I'm pretty sure this guy has been, too.



Welcome little baby.