Hello from the Trenches

I'm exhausted- bear with me.

Mommy Guilt is a real thing and when it hits man, it hits with a vengeance.
My days are pretty much just mushed together these days, so my timeline is probably not accurate- but I'll do my best.

12 out of the last 7 nights have been spent soothing our newly cranky baby. They warned me in the NICU that as he reached his due date he was going to start "waking up." This essentially means that he is going to start acting like a newborn and no longer like a preemie. So basically, we have a 2 week old baby at home and I need to continually remind myself of that. He's almost 3 months old, but he was also 2 1/2 months early. Cue mommy guilt trip.

We had an idea of what to expect when coming into parenthood: crying, pooping, eating, sleeping, spitting up, cuddles, etc. But I find myself continually asking myself- well is that a baby thing? Should he be crying that much? Is it a preemie thing if it's not a baby thing? Will he grow out of it? Should I be doing something different? Should I be eating differently? Am I somehow upsetting his stomach? Shut up, man- not everything is about you. Maybe he just really does want to be cuddled 24/7 and who are you to deny him of that?

It's a guessing game. At the sign of the first cry I'm confident, calm, "don't worry buddy we are going to get you squared away."

Are you crying because your hungry? Lets give it a try- okay, we nurse for 5 minutes and then pull away screaming and arching your back like my nipple was made out of shards of glass...goodness.

Alright, so you must need to be burped. Lets give that a try- so we burp and you scream bloody murder into my ear while tearing at my face with your tiny finger nails. By the end of this endeavor I look like I got the crap kicked out of me by a cat.

Still crying? Okay, lets check that diaper- a little wet, nothing to FREAK OUT ABOUT...but lets give it a try. No? Still not quite what you want?

Alright....I'm going to swaddle the crap out of you which, like diaper changes, is quite similar to wrangling a wild animal twice my size and with kitty claws.

Still not quite what you had in mind? Alright...lets walk and bounce and sway and do stair laps and pray and cry together and do some squats, twists, SHOOOOOOSH in your ear, sing, bargain. By this point my confidence has dwindled.

Oh, you're getting drowsy? Yes! This is great, because now it's 2am and you're going to be ready to eat again in like an hour so I can get a solid 45 minutes in!

Oh wait, you're hungry now? Okay, cool. Let's do that.
And the cycle begins again.

In the NICU all I wanted was to bring him home, I longed for him to keep me up at night because it felt like that would be my baby growing up and growing out of the "preemie" phase. And now I'm complaining about it? I can't be too hard on myself because parenthood is hard, any parent has and will tell you that. But you can't help but feel a little guilty complaining sometimes.

There are days that I envy Lance as he leaves for work. Why? I know he would love to spend all day with him. I get to spend all day in my sweatpants with our beautiful son. But caring for a newborn is like juggling 8 different things and all of those things are on fire and crying......But he's so perfect! He's so cute and is growing so quickly and developing before my very eyes. How lucky am I to witness it through puffy sleep deprived eyes, while drinking my now freezing cold coffee.


Ohhh being a mommy. To all the other mommies out there going through the same back and forth guilt trip...Hello from the trenches. Hang in there, we'll get through it.