Over it.

I am officially over my "back to work blues." I am entering Week 4 of back to work-ness and I have to say, I'm kind of loving it.

I am being wary, though. Several things could be contributing to my new outlook. For one, it's winter which means it's cold which means I am in the house a lot. When I am stuck inside, I am also stuck inside with a baby, that I love dearly, and a husband, who I also love dearly but, let's face it, people get sick of each other in tight quarters. When I'm at work I'm around other people and fresh faces. Also, going to work means I get to look presentable. At home, I wear jeans or sweats, and I may or may not wear makeup. At work I get to dress nice, wear shoes that are not slippers, and wear makeup.

How do I know I'm over the blues? After being snowed in for three days in a row I was about to lose my mind. My husband asked me if I was dreading going back to work this morning and I said, "Not at all. Get me out of this house!"

My attitude could change at any time. I could also be ready to go back to work because it means I won't have to breast feed anyone for a full 9 hours. So for now, work is A-OK with me.

A working mom.

In the moments between Story waking up, and my husband coming home with my mother-in-law, I felt like finally blogging again. 

I started back to work this week, both excited and reluctant. All the working moms I know said something along the lines of "I cried my eyes out the whole way to work after dropping my baby off for the first time at daycare." I was expecting this, so when I dropped Story off at a babysitters and not shedding a tear and feeling pretty good, I was pretty surprised. I was even more surprised when, picking her up that evening, I felt kind of sad. I had missed her whole day. And while her babysitter is amazing and I'm so glad Story is in such great hands, I didn't know what her day was like. I got an outline of when she slept and ate, but what was she like? Then, imagine my surprise when I worked from home the next day with Story by my side, I felt even worse. I couldn't get any work done, and now Story's schedule was all screwed up so she's fussing and I don't know why. Before if she was fussy all I had to do was look at the clock to figure out what must be causing the tears and then fix it, but now I had no idea and I felt as though I was back to square one. All that hard work down the drain. And to top it all off, I felt like a terrible mom for not knowing what was going on with my daughter.

I am no longer a new mom on maternity leave, I am a working mom who has to use her damn breastpump at work. That's a treat. Let me just say this: whoever said that breastfeeding is more convenient than formula is a damn liar. No it is not. Breast milk is better for the baby, that's where the convenience ends. So now I have to spend 60 minutes of my work day pumping. And also, by the way, not producing enough to feed her the next day. Having depleted my milk supply when Skip and I got sick, I am down to my last stock of breast milk and it's not enough for the day. She'll have to have some formula. Which isn't a big deal, but any mom can tell you the guilt some moms feel for giving their normally breastfed babies formula. I feel like shit.

Sorry to post such a bitch-fest of a blog, but this sucks. I just want to stay home and take care of my girl. It's the one job I'm actually good at.

The towel.

I have had a lot of jobs in my life. A lot. Literally upwards of 20 jobs in my 27 years on the earth, starting from when I was 16. I remember after the first day of any new job, driving home and thinking, "That was so hard and stressful" and then realizing it wasn't over, I had to go back the next day and do it all over again. Something so hard had to be only a one time thing, the thought of going back always scared me.

Being a parent is a similar sensation. This past week has been the hardest thus far. Late last Sunday night I started to get sick. Really sick. From 2am until about 7am, I was puking every 45 minutes, topped off with some serious diarrhea. It was incredible. I haven't been that sick since I was a kid. I couldn't believe my luck that Story decided to sleep 8 hours straight that night, if I'd had to get up to feed her, I am sure I would have puked all over her. 

My husband called off from work the next day and stayed home with me to take care of the girl. I spent the morning upstairs, seriously dehydrated and totally wiped out. About noon, he started to get sick too. My sister in law came over and took the girl for the day. Luckily I had a store of breast milk in the freezer that would last the day. We spent the day in bed, sleeping and moaning and feeling awful.

We slowly made it back to life. I felt good enough for Story to come home later that night and take care of her, although I was terrified because I was still exhausted. The thought of having to walk her around the house to calm her down made me want to lie down and sleep. She has also decided this is the week to be the fussiest she's ever been. 

Then came Christmas. Having barely eaten anything more than toast and Sprite all week, my husband and I still felt yucky, him being worse off than me. Christmas Eve at my dad's house had Skip going home early after presents and me following shortly after. Story was still super fussy. The next day was the run around to the moms' houses, but by now we could at least eat a little bit. Story got a cold, thus the fussiness. By the time Sunday rolled around, I was ready to quit. Story had just spent most of Saturday night awake and crying, and I remember laying down on the couch just thinking, "I quit. I quit." I wanted to throw in the towel, roll over and go to sleep. How could I get up and do this all again the next day?

Sunday afternoon, we all went over to my mother-in-law's house and I let myself be a slug. She took care of Story, fed us brunch, and I proceeded to lie on the couch and cuddle up in a blanket for 2 hours while we watched a movie. I couldn't have done anything more if I wanted to. I couldn't move. I have never felt so exhausted and further from myself. I was drained.

Having a 2 month old and being so sick is scary. Will she get it? If she does, we have to take her to the hospital. Is it the flu? Is it food poisoning? I also had to worry about producing enough milk since I was so dehydrated and undernourished. Her nose is stuffed up, is that a cough or is she just clearing her throat? I still haven't bought the parents' Christmas gifts. We don't have food in the house. I'm too tired to get up and get dressed, let alone make sure the girl gets a bath. Skip missed 4 days of work, will we be ok financially?

All of this lasted one week, but it easily felt like two or three. Story cried all week. It was the holidays. We could hardly eat anything. We got no sleep. 

That was so hard and stressful. It's indescribable.

Time?

Over the past few weeks, I've had dozens of ideas about blogs that I want to write. But the moment I get a ...er, moment to write one, I forget what I want to write then I discover something else I'd rather do. Like clean up all the junk mail clutter that trails throughout our house.

This blog first started off with  me tracking my weight loss accomplishments after the first year of marriage left me about 10 pounds heavier. It was great to see the results and also have a venue to vent.

It sort of ended with me getting pregnant and being too tired to do much of anything other than sleep and eat. I continued to work out for a while, although I had to skip my beloved half marathon, but I got discouraged at the thought that I couldn't really push myself anymore. When I work out, I like to sweat and I like to hurt a little bit and I like to be sore the next day. You can't really do that while pregnant, I was too tired anyway, so I gave up working out.

Thus, here I am. With a tiny, awesome little being on my hip and about 15 extra pounds everywhere else. I probably went a little too gung-ho on the whole "eating for two" thing, but hey, I've learned my lesson and I won't do it again. I was excited, when I was pregnant, to gain the weight because I was totally up for the challenge of losing it again. But then I had the baby, and now I have no time. For anything. Including blogging.

But here's the cool thing: you know how you hear new moms talk about the new respect they have for their body after they've had a baby? Yeah, that is totally true. I am a freaking champ right now. My body doesn't fit into the "fat jeans" I had before I got pregnant. I've had to go up two sizes from where I was earlier this year. My once flat stomach is kind of flappy, so are my arms, and I've inherited my dads thick legs which are, at the moment, without much tone.

And it's pretty okay with me. Don't get me wrong, I really want to start working out again. Badly. I want to start running. I want to lift weights and get sweaty and kick my own ass again. With the cold weather making going for walks impossible for an 8 week old, and her not ever wanting to be put down making it hard to for me to pick up my weights, I find myself just trying to watch what I eat and go with the flow. I'm trying not to freak out when I hear about celebrity "post baby-bodies" (Heidi Klum did the Victoria Secret fashion show two months after having her third child, how do you compete with that??), and I'm doing an okay job. I'll get back into the swing of things once it gets warmer outside and she starts sleeping for longer periods of time at night (I've been tired for almost a year now). I read somewhere once that a way to help your child feel a secure love is to make certain sacrifices, which can include sacrificing your once-svelte figure to spend time with your child. 

So it's okay with me. For right now I'm going to enjoy the holidays, eat as healthy as I can (the great thing about maternity leave is having time, sort of, to make great dinners), and just enjoy this time because I won't ever get it back. One day she will be too big to be held and kissed and rocked and cuddled, and I know that I will miss these days. So I'll stick with my few extra pounds, thank you, if it means a few extra hours with my girl.

Sleep, damn you!

I can't sleep. My whole life, it has been easy for me to wake up in the mornings and be productive almost immediately. In college I woke up 4 days a week extra early to go to the gym, including Saturdays. I rarely am able to take naps during the day, and I am horrible at staying up late. Granted, there have been a few exceptions, but mostly this is always true.

Toss a baby into that mix, and things get exhausting. "Sleep when the baby sleeps!" they all tell me. Um, I can't. I can count on one hand how many daytime naps I've taken in the three weeks since the girl got here. When nighttime rolls around, I am so tired I can hardly think straight. I go to sleep, wake up every two or three hours with her, sleep with her on the couch if I have to, and then when she wakes up in the morning to eat, whether it's 6am or 9am, I wake up too and then I'm up for the day. 

I try to sleep. I make myself lay down and I turn the TV off, but usually all I can do is think about all the things that need to get done around the house and around my life. Sleep when she sleeps? Yeah right, life still goes on, and my to do list is only getting longer and longer. I need to cancel my membership at the gym. I need to vacuum my bedroom. I need to empty the dishwasher and color my hair and go grocery shopping and eat lunch (is it lunchtime already??) and call about car insurance and write in her baby book and spend time with my husband and check my email and feed her again and send in my timesheets for work.

Shit. I forgot to send in my timesheets for work.

What comforts me is that one day she will sleep through the night, and I will finally get some work done.

It needs to be said...

Breastfeeding sucks. It sucks. It is hard and it is painful and I can say with confidence that is has been the hardest part of the whole giving birth/new mom package. 

It hurts. I have never been so aware of my nipples in my lifetime. Granted, almost three weeks later, the pain is subsiding and things are getting easier. But for a good week or so there, every time the girl needed to eat I would have to grit my teeth and bare (bear?) down to get through the first few seconds. 

It's hard. Being the sole source of my new daughter's nourishment is a huge responsibility, and thank goodness we've had an easy time of it. We haven't had problems with latching on or any of the common troubles that can occur with babies learning to nurse, but it is still hard. I'm the only one who can be there for her in the middle of the night. Skip can get up and change her diaper, but ultimately it's me who has the job to do. I can't hand her off to anyone else and say, "Here, you do it." And you can only sit down and lift up your shirt so many times before you feel like a cow. The on-demand-ness of it is what makes me the craziest. 

I'm all for breastfeeding. To read the research and information on how awesome it is not only for her but for me, it's extremely clear not only that our bodies were built to do this, it's not just a coincidence that women can also nurse their babies, but it feels like I'd be cheating her out of the, literally, best food for her in the world. And she's only a baby! She doesn't deserve to be cheated out of anything.

But damn all those people who told me, "Your life is about to change forever!" or "Get your rest now!" Why the hell didn't anyone ever tell me, "Enjoy the last few weeks of your nipples feeling normal! Breastfeeding's a bitch!"

Well...

...she's here! After I ended up kind of going into labor on my own, getting a sah-WEET epidural, and pushing for maybe about 15 minutes, the girl finally got here. Six pounds, 13 ounces, 20 inches long. She was born about 9am on October 15.

And man is she tricky. Babies are pretty hard to take care of, which is strange because they just eat, sleep, and poop. Literally, they aren't lying about that part. But what is also weird how there is no time for anything. Anything! It's really hard to take everyone's advice and lay down and rest when she does. It's hard to not do laundry, or clean the bathroom, or mop the floor, or put things away. 

But she's completely worth it. It's surprising how, at 3am after being woken up for the fourth time that night, I don't resent her at all. If anything, I just look at her and love her as though I'd just gotten a great night's sleep, drank some Starbucks, and just had my hair done. It doesn't hurt matters that she is absolutely adorable. 

I can't believe how much I love her. I just can't believe how much I freaking love her.