::the TRUTH about motherhood – part 1::

So since my blog is a mixture of both personal and professional (those two are hopelessly intertwined people), I’m starting a new blog-series on the TRUTH about motherhood. From my perspective anyway. My becoming a mom is inextricably tied to my work as a photographer and my title of “small business owner”. How can it not be? For those of you out there who have typed email responses one handed, while checking a voicemail on your business line because you couldn’t possibly have picked up the phone while your kiddo was *ahem* complaining about the state of their diaper (how professional sounding is crying in the background, right?) and soothing a fussy baby (while silently cursing yourself for not keeping a 5th pacifier handy next to your computer) – yes, those of you who are stay at home parents AND small business owners or work from home parents – you understand my situation and why I just can’t separate “mom” from “business woman” or “photographer”. And to be honest, I don’t want to. Well, I don’t want to today anyway.

So here is my quest (yes, quest – it sounds more noble that way, don’t you think?): to offer up my perspective on actual, real life, day to day motherhood. Translation: this includes the not-so-pretty stuff too. If you just stop by for the photos, that’s fine. Really. I get it (I didn’t stalk uncensored mommy blogs before getting pregnant, so I really do get it) and it’s ok if you want to pass by these posts when I do them from time to time. But if you want an honest look at what my experience is like as I’m learning, then read on, dear interweb friends.

There he is. My little bundle of joy. It’s been a crazy journey in the last 7 weeks. I’ll be honest, it feels like longer than 7 weeks most of the time. Probably because I’ve been awake for most of the past 7 weeks. Well, “awake” isn’t the right term. Conscious is more accurate. I’ve learned a lot, but mostly almost everything that has happened has fallen into the category of “trial and error”. Advice abounds, believe me (some solicited, most not), but I’m learning that what worked for someone else rarely works for us.

One of my favorite pieces of advice is a little phrase that goes like this: “sleep when the baby sleeps.” Sounds great, right? Especially since little babies sleep like 18 hours a day. This sounds blissful. But now, everytime I hear a mom say this, internally I’m rolling my eyes. Sleep when he sleeps? I try, but honestly, that’s my ONLY time to do things like find the last pair of clean underwear in the bottom of the drawer, start a frantic load of laundry (which I may or may not remember to put detergent into), take a shower, and, if I’m lucky, eat something that doesn’t come out of a bag that crinkles. And oh yeah, I’m supposed to run a business in there too. Speaking of laundry, it’s utterly astonishing how much laundry an 11 pound wonder can generate. Seriously.

There are a lot of things that moms don’t tell other new moms. I’ve been lucky to have a great girlfriend in my friend Christen who was honest and helped me prepare a little more realistically for birth and post birth issues. For the record, birth is not beautiful. It’s messy. It’s gross. It’s somewhat embarrassing sometimes. And yes, it’s very very painful. Some of the things I wish I had known beforehand are as follows:

Breastfeeding is not easy and it may not work out. Even when you try really really hard. A lot of people just assume it comes naturally (it doesn’t) and that everyone can do it (they can’t). This is still a little bit hard for me to talk about, but here it goes. I tried breastfeeding and had to stop. There were medical reasons behind it, but basically my baby wasn’t getting enough nutrition by a long shot and was losing weight at a frightening pace. Once we started supplementing with formula, that was it. C was no longer interested in me now that he was getting something real. I cried about it. A lot. I wanted to do this for him, provide him with the best start possible (what mom doesn’t?) and couldn’t. And believe you me, I took flack for it from a few people (fortunately not from anyone who’s opinion really mattered to me in the long run).

Speaking of hormones, though once again warned appropriately by my buddy Christen, I wasn’t quite prepared for the onslaught of emotions. I mean, I was emotional during pregnancy. But nothing like postpartum. Holy cow. I cried all the time. When he cried, when my husband said he loved me, when I felt like I messed something up, when people said he was cute, when I looked at him sleeping, when I looked at him awake, commercials, dogs barking, loud noises… No joke, I literally cried over spilt milk.

And nothing prepared me for all the incessant worrying. I’m a stress kind of person, but my word. The first trimester I was worried about miscarriage. My second trimester, I relaxed about the miscarriage thing and started worrying about just how much weight I was going to gain (and if it would ever come back off). I also started worrying about delivery and just how bad it would be. Would I do ok? Would I make a fool of myself? My 3rd trimester, all that worry about delivery went out the window. Get. It. Out. I’m a whale and I haven’t seen my toes in weeks. I don’t care how, just do it. Then he was born and we came home and all I could think was Put. It. Back. I didn’t realize just how many things could go wrong and hurt my precious (and very fragile) boy. I can’t do this. I don’t know what I’m doing.

And the constant doubt and worry about not knowing what I’m doing hasn’t gone away. The first couple weeks we had him home, I was up and at the side of the bassinet for every single little noise. Every grunt. Every gurgle. Every snort. Every coo. Fortunately, I felt slightly less crazy because my husband was right there too. I question everything I do and wonder if I’m doing it “right”. Everything from the serious to the not-so-serious. Is it just me or does everything cause S.I.D.S.? Am I bathing him enough? Too much? Am I permanently damaging him by letting him have a pacifier? Does he sleep too much? Eat too much? Too little? Should we avoid co-sleeping like the plague? How soon do we move him into his own room? Why does the thought of leaving him in the church nursery scare the heck out of me? I’ve turned into not the best wife either (not that I’m claiming that I was a great one before, but I was better at it than this). The hormones are receding, but I know my poor husband, besides having to deal with the temper flares due to sleep deprivation from time to time, has a few more nights of holding me together while I go to pieces in his arms ahead of him. Ok, more than a few. I’ll get better, I swear.

All in all, it’s been both thrilling and terrifying. I wouldn’t trade any of it for anything (not even a month of good sleep). I know that I’m still trying to work out how to do it all (and frankly doubt I’ll figure out how to juggle all of it). It’s impossible to keep up with work, keep the house clean, remember to bathe myself, be a good wife and take care of my baby. But I’m working on it. And I know that it’ll get better because nothing, and I do mean nothing can replace that feeling that spreads through my chest and, yes, makes me cry when my son smiles at me.

My son.

Still feels strange to say. Ok, hold on people, I’m having a mommy moment (girlfriend translation: pardon me while I cry again). This is the best job ever. And the hardest. But worth every second despite the roller coaster between frustration and elation.

Somehow we’ll figure out how to do this. It might be messy, but it’ll get done. Somehow.

::b::