Some thoughts and experiences since welcoming Olivia into this world....
Being a mommy has been absolutely wonderful so far. I've seriously loved every moment of these past 8 weeks! I'm so in love with our little girl. That does not mean that things have been completely perfect and smooth for us, but we have been lucky that any rocky patches we have had so far have not been major crisises. We've been able to work through everything thrown at us, with most of the tears coming from me.
My maternity leave was the most marvelous thing in the world. I absolutely loved being able to be home with Olivia all day, everyday for those 7 weeks. I've been lucky not to experience any serious "baby blues." During the first couple of weeks after Olivia was born, when Dave had just returned to work, I thought I was going to get a serious case of postpartum depression. I would cry when he would leave for work, and then cry again around 6pm in anticipation of him coming home. If Dave wasn't home by 6:10pm, I would call him worried and frantic as to why he hadn't gotten home yet. Thankfully, all of that passed in just a couple of days, and I'm guessing it was just a lot of the hormones balancing out in my body.
Speaking of my body, holy moly having a baby does crazy things to your body. It truly took me about 4 weeks after Olivia was born to start feeling normal again. I had always thought I would be the type of person to bounce right back after giving birth, but I felt like it was quite the opposite for me. In those first 4 weeks all I wanted to do was be in sweatpants and be at home. Luckily, once the holidays were over, that was pretty much all I did. I think being able to stay at home and rest all day while taking care of Olivia, I was able to finally start feeling normal, and slowly get out of my "hermit" funk.
Olivia has been an awesome nighttime sleeper. It took us about 3 weeks to really figure out how to get her to sleep for her longest stretch of the night. Dave is the best swaddler and rocker when it comes to bed time, so for awhile he was in charge of getting her to sleep for the night right after she ate. I would then immediately go to bed to try and get some sleep. This method would usually allow me to sleep from about 8pm to midnight. Once I had that solid 4 hours of sleep, I was usually charged up and ready to go for whatever type of night Olivia wanted to have. She has never been so fussy that we just didn't know what to do, yet. She has also started to sleep for even longer stretches on some nights. Those nights I feel like I get even less sleep because I'm in and out of sleep anticipating her to wake up and want to nurse.
I've realized that co-sleeping is the absolute way to go, for us, at least. Although Olivia likes to eat several times throughout the night, being able to feed her immediately in bed before she starts crying, allows me to get much more sleep than when I tried putting her in the bassinett the first couple of nights. Plus, we get a ton of cuddle time in, which has been priceless since my return back to work.
Nursing has become one of my all time favorite pasttimes. I felt like we had a rough start to breastfeeding because it took 5 days for my milk to come in, however, the more I read up on breastfeeding the more I realize that is rather normal. Those first 5 days were the roughest because she was a very sleepy baby and wouldn't want to wake up to eat. I wasn't sure if she was getting enough and we weren't seeing the number of wet diapers we should have been. Concerned about this, we took her to her pediatrician, Dr. P., whom we absolutely LOVE, and we were reassured that Olivia was doing just fine, and to keep trying to nurse her as often as possible. Not even 12 hours after that visit, my milk came in, and almost everything with our breastfeeding relationship has gone very smoothly since. My little porker even put on more than 2 lbs between then and when we took her back to the doctor for a skin rash at 5 weeks old.
It has absolutely killed me having to return to work and be apart from her. I just made it through my first full week back. I wish there were a way I could stay home, but unfortunately we need to be a dual income family at this time. Everyone tells me that it's a wonderful thing for both of us that I return to work, and that she gets to experience daycare. Part of me knows that is partially true, but another part of me knows that there is no one better than me to care for her day in and day out. I also am wrecked with that mommy guilt already, I know my return to work is affecting me way more than it's affecting her, but it's still hard to swallow and push through.
A career change is something I've been really considering, as I would love to become a teacher in the future. This would take me back closer to my original desire to become a social worker, plus I will be able to work with crazy children, rather than crazy adults. Who knows what the future holds.
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