Thank you, thank you, thank you! And what happens when you get cocky!

This post is for you.  The reader.  You guys have shown such support, such encouragement, such wisdom, that I'm literally blown away.  When people talk about how there's no goodness left in the World, I will forever be reminded of the advice, the words of encouragement, the offers of help by you lovely ladies.  Some of you I haven't seen or spoken to directly in years, but you have reached out and offered me assistance.  This means so much to me.

I had hoped that by starting this blog, I would be able to share my ups and downs with friends and family.  I had no idea that so many of you would be interested in reading, or sharing your own experiences, which so many of you have done.  It makes what I'm going through seem less of 'hurdle' and more of a 'hiccup'.  Cementing the fact that you truly are never alone.

I would like to advise that the previous post was in reference to a night we experienced 2 weeks ago.  My blog is a little behind as I was trying to catch up on all that has happened since his birth.  We've had two wonderful weeks since.  Not even lying.  Mushroom got into a distinct routine, hell knows how we managed that, and our day went something like this:

Awake at 5.45am.  Feeding, bonding time with Mummy and Daddy, cuddles, watching Mummy and Daddy have breakfast, kissing Daddy good bye as he goes to work, more feeding.  Asleep again by 8am.  In the last few days we have then gone for a walk but initially the following would happen: Jess sits around and wonders what to do.  Does laundry despite being told not to by nurses, doctors and the Juffin. Facebook, shower, watch some tv, read the news online, stare at son and take stupid photo's of sleeping child, blog.  Decide what to have for lunch, take out meat for dinner....  Mushroom awakes around midday. Nappy change, feeding, cuddles, more feeding.  He falls asleep.  Back in the hammock by 1, 1.30pm and Jess is alone again....  Juffin comes home for lunch.  Yay!  Adult conversation!  He's only here for a half hour or so.  Get in trouble for doing washing.  He gazes at son adoringly, Jess' heart melts.  Off he goes back to work.  I then hang out/bring in washing, play games on my phone until it dies, take more photo's of son, more facebook....  decide to have a nap.  We both wake around 4.30 5pm.  This is the alert period of the day.  You know, the time when you actually need to get stuff done, like cook dinner, show your other half that you appreciate him, talk to your friends who have been at work all day!  Mushroom will stay up for approximately 4 hours.  We feed constantly, cuddle, have bathtime/shower time with Dad, sing songs and change about 4 nappies.  Back to bed by 8-9pm and then he's out to about 1.30am when he wakes up for night feed.  Which lasts about half hour and then he promptly goes back to sleep and we start it all over again at quarter to 6 the next morning.

I know. It's awesome.  Feeding going famously well.  Mum and Dad getting sleep, we're able to eat food, shower, you know, all that stuff that makes you feel like a human being.  And I was so fucking pleased with us, like we did something right and we had this fantastically advanced newborn who was adhering to a dream schedule and we were totally not going to have that horror new baby experience that so many people have had.  What a douche.

On Friday just gone, the Mushroom basically said 'fuck you Mum, I do what I want' and threw that routine out the window.  I honestly thought I was home free.  Idiot.  I mean he's only 3 weeks old.  What the hell was I thinking?!  We have just had a crazy 2.5  days of constant feeding, very little sleep, crying, crying crying, and some pretty nasty looking nappy rash.  And we're doing cloth nappies.  I thought I'd heard all varieties of crying but not like this... wowsers!  I feel that we've sufficiently paid back our neighbours for their constant dog barking that kept me awake when I was pregnant.  I've now been in the same nightie since Friday night.  I honestly couldn't see the sense in getting changed as it's a breast feeding nightie and my boobs have been out for two days anyway so what's the point?

This morning, at around 5am, I finally got him to go down and stay down for longer than 20 minutes without crying.  The poor little bastard looks so tired.  I feel so bad for him and then I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and feel bad for both of us.  I'm hoping that this is just a 3 week old growth spurt, as the intermenet keeps telling me, as I'm not sure that my boobs (or my sanity) can take much more of this.  Fingers crossed that it's all over now and I can get the fuck out of this nightie. It stinks and has breast milk stains all over it.  In fact, I'm off to take a shower whilst I can!

Success!  Sleeping like Superman!  

Next time: Our first outing in a nutshell and hopefully sanity has returned...

This is hard

Juffin only took a week off from work. I know what you're all thinking, that's not enough. And you know what, you're probably right but that's what we did.  Our reasons for this are as follows:  new job, financially nonviable and I'm going to have to be by myself with Mushroom eventually.  Juffin comes home from work for lunch every day and is only a phone call away if we need him.  Neither of us foresaw that I'd be having a cesarean, and we did talk about him taking another week but honestly, there was just no point.  I was getting around fine, Mushroom seemed to be settling in... despite our teething problems re breastfeeding so Juffin was off to bring home the bacon.

Sunday dawns, the day before Juffin goes back to work, and Mushroom has several visitors.  He seems to handle the attention ok, and we get to bed around 9pm.  All of us.  I'm a little nervous as Juffin will not be here to help tomorrow and I'm hoping that he gets enough sleep tonight.  Ok, so I'm peaking out.  I have no idea that I'll be able to do this by myself and I'm worried that I'm going to kill our son.  I do the wrong thing all the time.  Like not watch him at the change table.  I forgot to get him a singlet and I turned around went to the drawers and got him one.  And I JUST LEFT HIM THERE!  BY HIMSELF!  This is a giant no no.  There's really no hope for me.

Maybe because I'm peaking out, or maybe because we had too many visitors and he's overstimulated, or maybe because he's a bloody baby, but when I wake up to feed the Mushroom at 1am, or thereabouts, he has a shit fit.  And I mean serious shit fit.  There is screaming, which we haven't yet heard before, and it's like a mix between a dying bird and a nanny goat.  Thinking of poor Juffin, having to get up to work tomorrow, I rush the Mushroom out of our bedroom to the safety of his room.  And so begins the endless cycle..  I change his nappy.  I feed him.  I cuddle him.  I rock him.  I change him.  I feed him. I cuddle him.  I rock him.  I try a combination of feeding, and rocking.  I walk around the house, mainies of our kitchen, with the Mushroom attached to my breast and my arms jiggling him at the same time. This goes on and on and on for hours.  My boobs are leaking all over the place, my eyes feel like sandpaper and I desperately need to go to the toilet.... this is the shite that everyone was talking about.  I can't deal with 6 weeks of this fucking crap.  I'll die.

Obviously I won't die.  But you know what I mean.  So many horrible, awful thoughts went through my head during those hours to dawn.  Not only did I want to tie Mushroom's hands behind his back and mash his face into my boobs, but you doubt your ability to be a parent.  The self blaming starts again.. the "is there something wrong with me because I can't settle my baby", "is it my milk" "do I have enough milk" rears it's ugly head again. The tears were never ending, mine and the Mushrooms.  I was so overwhelmed and scared of doing something wrong or thinking about doing something wrong that I worked myself into a right old state.  It was like Mushroom was punishing me.  Like he knew that I had wished, just for a split second, that he wasn't here so I could get some sleep...  Horrifying.  I mean how could a baby read my mind, oh wait, that's not the horrifying thing.  The horrifying thing is HOW COULD I THINK SUCH A THING?!  You're probably disgusted to read that, as I'm disgusted in myself whilst writing it, but it did happen.  I told you I was going to be honest about these things.  It's only a split second, like when you're halfway through a block of top deck and you think you should stop, but you don't.   It's only a second.  And sometimes in the throes of panic and exhaustion, with this tiny person relying on you body and soul, it feels like too much and you can't help but think these awful things.

Somewhere close to dawn, my beautiful Mushroom nods off.  Exhausted from the endless roundabout of crying, walking, pooing, jiggling and feeding.  I breathe a sigh of relief and put him down, crossing fingers and toes that he stays asleep for at least 3 hours so I can get some shut eye.  Juffin has managed to miss the brunt of the storm so is getting up for work relatively refreshed, whilst I feel like I've been run down with a tractor.

I stand over his hammock, making sure that he's definitely asleep this time and look at my tiny son as he sleeps.  And it breaks my heart.  I'm totally spent, exhausted.  My legs are aching from walking around and around my house 5000 times, my abdomen is sore because only a week ago I was sliced open, and my boobs are in agony from having a tiny person's mouth attached to them for the better part of the last 5 hours and I'm standing over this hammock, grinning at my son because of course it's all worth it.  I can endure a million hours of this and it still be ok because I love him.  When you have that gorgeous newborn cuddle time with that beautiful soft skin, that baby smell, those big eyes staring into your soul and his little heart fluttering against you as you hold him close... all that other stuff goes away!

Making it all worth it!  

Next time:  First outing!