Welcome

There’s lots of things to discuss right now and I’l try to put them in chronological order, but I can’t promise that’s going to happen.

Through most of my pregnancy (which is still weird to say that I was pregnant) I had a small baby growing and his abdomen was small and he was small in general and I was small, and people commented that I was small, so then I was self conscious that I was growing a kid that was going to have issues. I was also told my pelvis was small on week like 12 or 20, whichever week she first checked my bits for the shape of my pelvis.

From like 32 weeks and beyond I was in for ultrasounds and non stress tests and checking him all the time. I saw him more than an average mom to be because of all my ultrasounds, so I actually felt good about that part. So 36-37 weeks comes around and there’s talk about induction and I’m not so sure, but did research and wasn’t too concerned. I sort of wanted all of this to naturally start, however my uterus may have been not doing the correct thing and the longer he was in there not growing, the harder it would be on him. So I thought ok…whatever is best for him. And I understand too that back in the day, people like me may have died in child birth as population control because my cervix was in no hurry to dilate and he may have never really been able to come out.

So April 16th rolls around and I’m admitted to the hospital to start the process and what a process it was.

That night I spent not sleeping because I was uncomfortable with the whatever-thing they put in there to help the process along of dilation.

Nope. That didn’t work.

The next morning there was Pitocin and that’s a lot of NOPE. I spent that whole 24 hours feeling terrible with little to no dilation. I’m uncomfortable, the baby was turning and doing stuff that was unhelpful. At one point he tried to come out at 4cm and his poor little head once we saw him was…a little cone shaped. The next morning I was puking and crying and shaking and overall unhappy and I made it to about 2:30-3:00pm on April 18th before I gave up and succumbed to the fact that he was not coming out for hours and hours if I tried to do this without a c-section. And with my pelvis, he might not have been able to come out anyway according to the doctor who labeled me with the somewhat rare small pelvis situation that may cause me to have to have another c-section in the future.  Before getting pregnant I never once even thought a c-section was a failure. Or a problem or made a woman less than, but when I gave up in my mind I cried about the fact I had to have one and that I wasn’t going to experience what other people did. I did feel like a failure and I did feel like my body wasn’t good enough and I did feel like shit that I said yes to an induction. When I start thinking that way now, I look at my son and realize however he got here was fine and he is healthy and I’m healing and at seven days postpartum, I sort of almost feel like a human again. A very tired human, but a human.

At 3:29PM on April 18th, I did get to meet my son and he’s pretty cool and I’m a parent now, which is weird.

I knew I was going to be one, but I also couldn’t ever imagine me as one, which was also an odd thing.

I don’t miss being pregnant. I know some woman do, but I do not.

I do miss feeling like myself, not in pain, not incredibly swollen from all the fluid they had to put in my for medicine and just from being pregnant.

I don’t hate my body when I look at it these days although it is bruised in many places from needles and scalpels and staples.

I have a new appreciation for nurses. I can’t actually put into words how much I respect their work and what they do for us. It’s incredible and humbling.

It’s true what they say about the love you have for some tiny thing. I was one of the people that did instantly connect with my baby and I continue to do so, but that doesn’t mean that everyone does that and that’s okay. The hormone fluctuation women go through is so intense.

The labor was hard. That is for sure. Something that was almost harder was having to deal with my parents here as I learned to navigate my new normal.

During many a breastfeeding session, I think deeply about my childhood and my relationship with my parents. There wasn’t a lot of love there shown, and there was in material items (just like now) but not in feelings and words.  And that may be an odd realization but we didn’t talk about feelings. I never really confided in my parents growing up.  I used to tell me sister things until we stopped being close around the time I was 23 and got married. She was about 35 then. I realized my family dynamic was somewhat shit after I saw a commercial of a mom and daughter being cute and friendly and hanging out and I wished I had experienced that. My mom saved all of her feelings and love for her students and I got some too, but not really, I came to decide. I’m working through the fact that they were a shitty example of a couple, that it’s amazing that I turned out half as normal as I did with relationships when all I did was watch my dad cheat and I watched them yell at each other. I watched them make terrible choices, I watched them be snarky and rude to each other and I just sit back and wonder how I’m suppose to want to hang out with them or see them. My parents are getting old and I feel bad for having these thoughts and feelings, but when they are around I get incredibly stressed and I don’t really want to talk with them. I get annoyed when they say things that are annoying. My mom is pretty superficial and my dad…well he’s kind of having memory issues, but also he still says really annoying things that I have a hard time with. So many times I try to talk to my mom about feelings and she totally changes the conversation or sweeps them away. It’s okay really because now that I am a mom I want to do my very best to let my son know he can talk to me, I won’t judge him, we are here to help him when he’s upset and that as a male it’s totally okay to have feelings. I can’t wait to parent him in a way that my parents did not do for me.

And it’s just been the last few years that I realized my relationship with my parents is kind of terrible and it’s probably the best they could’ve done, but it is not something I want to ever continue. I realize I want my sister to accept me and actually she’s been nicer now that I’ve become a mom, but still…I just want relationships with my family. Comfortable, loving relationships but it’s too late for that now. I will have to just have my own family and cultivate that. Maybe this is why I am mean to my hometown. I love it. I love to think about it in the spring and summer. I love the smell of it. I enjoy the comfortable feelings, but there’s not a lot of people there that I want to be around besides like one person (bestie).

Like I said, LOTS of things I’ve been working through with all that extra time at night awake, looking at this little boy that we created.

I think that’s a fair update on my last 7-8 days for now.