Life outside the womb

(So I wrote this post a few weeks after giving birth to Jacob and decided not to post it because it was so personal and kind of negative. After recently re-reading it I have decided I want to post it because it records how I really felt right after giving birth to my precious baby boy and although it's not often talked about, I feel like many new mother's, not all, but many, feel like this and feel like terrible mother's and I want to reassure them that it is ok and it will get better. Also because I can gladly and gratefully say I do not feel this way anymore in the slightest. So read at your own risk :) Some of the information is repeated from other posts I have posted.. But that's ok. I'm also not adding pictures to this one)

What a change these past few weeks have been. It is quite the adjustment to go from having all the time in the world to do whatever you want to having ALL of your time occupied by a little human being. The first few weeks were very hard for me. I suffered a lot from baby blues. I had a hard time enjoying or even liking our new baby boy which of course made me feel like the worst mother in the world and made me even more emotional. Scott was my absolute life saver at this time. He just adjusted to being a Daddy so easily and he loved every moment of it. It was hard not to feel a little bit jealous of him because I wanted to feel like I loved being a mom. But it was his love of doing everything he could with Jacob and being involved in anyway he could that helped me so much. But to tell you a little bit of the going on's of the last few weeks I will start back in the hospital.

It is typical for a c-section to stay in the hospital for 3 days but my Doctor told me if everything was looking good and I was feeling up to it they would let me leave at 2 days. The day of the c-section I felt great! I'm sure the drugs were still in me... But I felt good and was up and walking around by that evening. The following morning is when it all hit and I woke up feeling awful! I was so sore and the emotions had hit. Scott was such a trooper in the hospital and took such good care of me. At times I felt like I was in a nursing home and he was my CNA. Not a pretty picture. But he did everything so willingly and I was so grateful. Both nights we had the nurses take Jacob to the nursery so we could get some sleep. Sara was our night nurse and we both loved her! She was the only nurse that made us feel like she was there for us. We asked her all sorts of questions and she willingly sat and answered all of them. We are both very grateful for her. The little pull out bed that Scott had to sleep on was very uncomfortable so I let Scott sleep in the bed with me. He was worried he would hurt me but I reassured him that I would be fine. Jacob was a great sleeper for the first week. But I guess most newborns are. He would sleep for 4-6 hours at a time. I think Heavenly Father knew I needed that. By the end of the second day Scott was more then ready to leave the hospital. I think I was anxious to go home and have to do everything on my own so I wasn't sure if I wanted to leave. But we ended up leaving. We had wanted to leave around 7 Monday night but we didn't end up leaving till 11pm. We just wanted to make the most of our money that we could. :)

My mom stayed with us for a few days after we got home from the hospital. I was so grateful for this because I didn't know what I was doing and it was nice to have someone there to answer all my questions. It seemed that evenings were the worst. That's when all the emotions would hit and I'd just have to go off on my own and cry. I don't know what exactly I was crying about. The pain of surgery, the pain of breastfeeding, feeling overwhelmed. Probably all of the above. People warned me that breastfeeding was painful but I never imagined how painful that would be. It was definitely hard to enjoy breastfeeding and I would dread Jacob waking up because I knew he'd be hungry and I'd have to feed him. There were times when he would latch on and I'd just start crying because of the pain. I also think it was just because I was emotional to begin with.

When Jacob was one week old we drove to Rexburg to watch my mom run her first marathon. Have I mentioned that my mom is my hero? When she turned 50 she made a goal to run a marathon. Not many 50 year old's would have the desire to run their first marathon at 50. But my mom did because she is awesome like that. She trained diligently for over a year and signed up for the Teton Dam Marathon. She ran it in 4 hours 36 minutes beating her desired goal time of 4 hours 45 minutes. I am so proud of her! After she crossed the finish line she was hugging everyone and we were all crying. She is and will always be my roll model.

Scott took a couple days off of work after my mom left to help out. Again it was so nice to have him around. I seriously would not have made it through the first few weeks of Jacob's life without him. I don't know how single mom's do it. I have a new respect for them. I had the hardest time when everyone went back to work and I was left alone for the day. I felt lazy because I couldn't do much because I was recovering and I got frustrated easily when I didn't know what to do for Jacob. I'm so grateful for everyone that came and visited me at this time because just having someone there made everything mentally easier for me.

When Jacob was 2 in a half weeks old Scott left for a week to run the Ragnar Relay Race and then to go on a three day canyoneering trip with a few of his friends down in Southern Utah. I was hoping I would be up to going down to Utah to watch his Ragnar race but emotionally and mentally I just wasn't up for it. I was pretty disappointed. I instead decided to head home to Driggs for the week so that my family could help me with Jacob. There was no way I was trusting myself to stay in Idaho Falls by myself for a week. Being home was really nice because I had my mom and my little sisters to help me with Jacob. My little sister's love babies so I pretty much just had to feed Jacob and they did the rest.

I do feel like my baby blues is getting better. I don't feel as emotional or mentally unstable. I often feel like I take care of Jacob out of obligation rather then out of love and that is really hard for me. My biggest fear is that I will always feel that way.