It’s Saturday morning.
It’s storming like crazy outside.
For the first time in a month I actually have a sense of calm or peace. I have a million things to get
finished, but they can wait. Ken
is in the shower. The babies are
sleeping, hopefully for another couple of hours… and Mr. Harvey is getting some much needed “mom time.”
It’s amazing how it only takes a few moments of peace to
ground you sometimes.
It’s been one month since we brought the babies home. At the doctor yesterday, Oliver was 7.4lbs
and 20in. Olivia was 6.4lbs and
19in. They are doing
amazingly. Last night for the
first time they went 4 straight hours between both feedings, so we actually got
a little sleep (that could be making the difference in my sanity today as
well). They are struggling a
little with reflux, but after a few visits to the doctor, inclining them while
sleeping, being held upright for about 30 mins after eating and taking Zantac
seems to be helping them both.
It’s amazing how quickly their individual personality traits
begin to show. How quickly they
really become little people…
Olivia-Olivia is very much like me. Difficult. She wants things her way, all the time. She fusses, she makes sour faces, she
wrinkles her nose and forehead and grunts and stretches. She can’t stand to be tied down or made
to be still—swaddling is miserable for her. She wants to be up, looking around, investigating the world,
seeing everything she is able, pushing herself up and being the most
independent child she can be at 6 weeks old. I love that about her.
So curious, so alert, and wanting to do more than she is possibly
capable.
Oliver-Oliver just, makes me smile. He is our little man. He is always happy, content, and
peaceful. He sleeps when is should,
he eats when he is supposed to (slowly, but well). He smiles in his sleep, and in general for no reason at
all. He stares at us—not
everything around him—just us, like there is nothing else in the world. He also thinks he should nurse 24 hours
a day, everything that is in sight, including his sisters head if he can get to
it or a finger or the sofa cushion, but hey—he knows what he wants. He thinks the baby K’Tan is the
greatest thing ever! Being
strapped to mom all day, where he can snuggle down and go to sleep—euphoria.
They are both so different already, and making such
incredible leaps everyday. It’s
fascinating to me how excited you get over the smallest things. Olivia tried to put her own pacifier in
her mouth last night in the car.
I, of course, called to tell my mom. There have been so many spectacular moments already, I have
a hard time even imagining what is in store for us in the coming months and
years and they continue to grow and learn.
As wonderful as this month has been—I would be lying if I
acted like or said it was all roses.
It has also been, quite possibly, the most difficult month of my
life. With somewhere between very
little and no sleep, the days just simply don’t have enough hours in them to
accomplish everything. Since I
work for myself—I didn’t get the traditional maternity leave. I was back to work from my hospital bed
the Monday after I delivered the little ones. So, needless to say—managing one newborn full time is
exhausting. Taking care of two,
plus a full time job from home…I’ve got say, some days….feels hopeless. The bottles (18 of them a day, 15-30min
each), the diapers (about 25 of them a day), the pumping (about 2 hours a day),
vitamins once a day, medicine twice a day, holding-on demand, dishes, dinner,
laundry ---wash, rinse, repeat……….. Over and Over. Then the day is over and starts again. Forget time for putting on makeup—I’m
lucky if I get a chance to shower.
At the beginning of December I hired a nanny/intern/assistant to help me
out with everything. Just having
that extra set of hands a few days a week is priceless. It’s hard. It’s not just hard it’s physically, mentally and emotionally
wearing.
For the first time in my life, I find myself neglecting my
work. Granted it’s out of
necessity, but none-the-less, it leaves me feeling like a failure in many
ways. My body is in horrible
condition, with awful stretch marks, already saggy boobs, and new wider hips
and rounder stomach muscles. I
find myself getting mad at or frustrated with Ken of little things or really
for no reason at all other than being overwhelmed and exhausted. I never knew that I could be so
incredibly happy, and so miserable with myself at the same time.
People talk about post partum depression, but I’m not
depressed. I’m happy. Life is just changing and evolving,
priorities are changing in a way that I can’t control and sometimes I don’t
know if I was ready for—but when are you ready to give up yourself entirely and
the person you have spent years trying to become.
My work is something I have always taken extreme pride in—to
give up even a little bit of that, while I am happy to do it for my babies, is
still a little disheartening.
Actually, it is a lot disheartening. It’s giving up a piece of who I am, or was. With that, a decision was made for me
this week that I have needed to make myself for sometime and haven’t had the
will to do it. So, now I am
walking away from a place and work that had an oddly special place with me, and
from people that I felt a strange connection—but also away from a chaos it
created. Maybe that contributes to
the sense of peace I feel this morning, but it also hurts.
Another hurtful moment this month… our “family” dog, Ruby—my Christmas gift when I was 14, had
to be put down. I don’t know that
I have ever felt sadder. Watching
that, as awful as it is to say, was as bad as watching my grandparents
die. My mom had a mobile vet come
to the house, rather than taking her to an office of strangers. Without going into details—I’ll just
say, it was horrible to watch one of our family go and have to make that call. She was a dearly loved pet and will be
missed greatly.
It’s safe to say---this month has been a roller coaster, as
I’m sure many more in the future, and pretty much, the rest of our lives will
be. It’s life. It’s a beautiful mess, but the moments
of pure joy with my babies, husband and family make it…happy.
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