Friday, December 30, 2016

On the First Weeks of Motherhood... Again

So as I look back on the piece of garbage that the year 2016 was, I have to really just concentrate on one thing, the newest blessing to our family, Theodore Robin Light or "Teddy", who was born just a few days before Christmas. I have to concentrate on this one thing because at it's core, I could not find a ton to be grateful for this year. I did my very best to be positive after the death of David Bowie (a serious loss if you know me), through an exhausting pregnancy, after what was the most tumultuous and ultimately the most supremely disappointing election cycle on absolutely almost every personal level for me and a work project that went from one month of 50 hour work weeks to four months of working like a dog up until, literally my water broke... I'm sitting here, writing this, and even with my newborn sleeping like an angel by my side, I am still finding it really hard to be appreciative of what I have and how good I've got it- healthy family, great support system, blessed with a home and everything we need and the list goes on...


Perhaps you're saying to yourself "Amanda, maybe you shouldn't write blog posts with only one week under your belt with a newborn. You need perspective." To that, I say, I most certainly should be writing a blog post and I'll tell you why. Life with a newborn is motha effin' hard. Like super hard and I need to get this off of my chest. On one hand, you have this precious little creature who is dependent on you for every single thing at every hour of the day and on the other hand you have a precious little creature who is dependent on you for every single thing at every hour of the day. Besides the human child, there's everything happening in/on your postpartum body. I guess I don't remember being that irritated after Wes was born but my body is reacting all sorts of cray right now. Post labor healing aside (which is maje don't get me wrong), I have a rash on my chest and stomach. I've totally broken out on my face, like more than I ever have in my entire life. My hormones are manageable yet still all out of whack thus making me sad. I'm happy to have the baby living outside my body but I still look pregnant so that's a bummer to the already limping self esteem... You know, all these things add up when you're running on 3-4 hours of non-consecutive sleep a night at best. As if that wasn't enough, I have mastitis which, simply put, is a breast infection, that hurts like a mother, that you basically have to breast feed through with antibiotics. Yikes, that's a lot to deal with, right? But you have the help of your husband, no? Well, yes and no. Both my husband and toddler have been sick with the plague since we came home from the hospital so while my husband has been taking care of the two of them, I've been basically using my person to block my newborn from anything having to do with the other male peoples in order to hopefully keep him from getting sick... but all it's really doing is stressing me out. We've been to the pediatrician's four times this week because Teddy is/was jaundiced and has been monitored consistently. Each visit required an extensive blood draw which left a screaming 8lb munchkin melting in my arms. A nurse told me on the other day "this too shall pass"... that's the line I use, and it's not working this time, sistah! I'm kind of friggin' exhausted and can't help but live in my "now"!


I know myself and I'll get through this because this is peanuts compared to what some people have to deal with but I'm SO ready to say a big "SEE YA 2016! DON'T LET THE DOOR HIT YA!" I already love my new family with our sassy little butterball as the newest addition. I know I love our little family despite being absolutely miserable otherwise... it's going to be a matter of workin' some stuff out on the homefront here. I feel like this post can be a cleansing breath that is much needed. 2016 wasn't ready to let me ease on out! I'm going to take this weekend, hopefully with a little more sleep, and really reflect on what I should be grateful for, what I am looking forward to this coming year and what I hope to achieve with this precious time that I've been given with my peoples. I know I've got some ass kicking to do in 2017 so it'll be time to mentally prepare for it! Now to swoon over my newborn because newborns, if nothing else, are just so sweet to look at, and hold, and smell, and love on ... and they also have no problem staring you down, wide awake at 2am lol.


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