How does time go by so quickly? Being a loss mom, I try to absorb every minute with Emily, taking her in and knowing how lucky I am to have her. I am not always successful, there are times like any mom when I get frustrated because she is shrieking so loud my ear drums are about to burst, or when I get really mad when she pulls my hair; the combo of her doing something naughty and the pain of when she grabs on and yanks just sends me over the edge. But at least once a day, often more, I just watch her, trying to memorize every single feature, every single expression as she does the most mundane things. The adorable look on her face as she smashes a too big piece of a PB&J sandwich into her mouth, and then the subsequent look of relief on her face as she takes a drink to help wash the sticky peanut butter down.
But today I was scrolling through some old pictures on my phone, trying to make some room because I am tired of my phone constantly telling me I don't have much space left. I look at pictures of her a year ago...just one year ago, but even just that short of time, I am amazed at how different she looks, and it is hard for me to remember her being a baby. She seems like such a little girl now, it's hard to believe that those pictures are just one year ago, and that she was this mostly helpless little baby who couldn't even sit up this time last year, and now she is running around, climbing on the couch and chasing the cat around.
I am also constantly amazed at how much and how often she absorbs new things that I don't even remember teaching her. In her toy box is a bottle of bubbles and I think it has been at least several months since we played with them last. My MIL has an app on her phone that she lets Em play with, where the bubbles appear with a swipe and she can tap the screen to pop them. So she digs out the bottle of bubbles today, clambers over to me and shoves the bottle into my hands and says bubbles bubbles bubbles! I can barely get the bottle open fast enough for her. We'd play for a little bit and then she'd start to lose interest so I would put the cap back on, and cue the screaming and crying for more bubbles.
I am just amazed at how much she learns every day. How she equated playing with them months ago, to the bubbles she pops on the phone. And her little voice, getting all high pitched and saying bubbles with the most pathetic sounding whimper between cries. Ugh, I just love her beyond words.
Last week I was reading an article on Facebook about an idea for a mother-baby hospital bed in which the crib is attached to the bed so moms can better reach their babies. Somehow the comment section got talking about sending the baby to the nursery. So in come all the sancti-mommies yapping about how horrible and selfish it is to send your baby to the nursery and how scared the babies must be and why did you wait nine months to have this baby and then send them away as soon as you get them. And all for sleep, isn't motherhood all about not getting sleep?
I just wanted to reach into my computer and slap every one of them. I am so sick of all this judging bullshit between moms. I can understand how if you never felt the need to send your baby to the nursery, it would be hard to understand why someone would. But the judging and acting like we are bad mothers really struck a nerve. And the people who have the balls to think just because their birth experience didn't call for it, think they can judge others. I admit, I used to be a pretty judgmental person. But if anything, becoming a mother made me way less so. Things I could never understand before, I now understand or can at least sympathize.
Things I said I would never do, I now do. Unless a mother is putting her child in harms way or abusing them or neglecting them, I am very good now about not judging parents for how they do things, even if they are different from how I do it. I was in labor with Emily for 32 hours before I had a C-Section. I had round the clock, very painful contractions from the Pitocin for 30 of those 32 hours. Time after time I experienced defeat every time the doctor would give me the billionth painful cervix check only to tell me I still had not progressed any further. I was about to deliver my baby, almost a year to the day of delivering my sleeping baby, and being terrified for her, but also terrified of now having to parent a living child. By the time I got out of surgery, I was beyond exhausted, no doubt just as emotionally exhausted as I was physically.
I kept falling asleep in the OR as they were stitching me back up; the only thing that kept waking me up was 1. the nausea and 2. the guilt that I had just had my beautiful baby and all I wanted to do was sleep. Once I got to my room, it was all a blur. I remember eating dinner, I remember talking to my aunt on the phone, and I remember being so happy and in love with Emily. Tons of family was there to visit and passed Emily around. I don't remember at what time they all left, but we decided it was best to send her to the nursery that night. I was so tired I couldn't function. I couldn't have stayed awake if my life depended on it. My husband was also no doubt wiped out as he was likely just as emotionally exhausted and was awake much of the time I was laboring. It wasn't a matter of "oh I think I would like a good night sleep, take my baby away". It was a matter of, it was physically impossible for me to be awake and alert enough to care for her.
The nurse would bring her to me every couple hours to try nursing. I remember being so confused and foggy when the nurse would wake me up, she would put Emily in my arms and then I would fall back to sleep. It felt like two minutes later she was bringing her back to me, but really I had fallen asleep during, so she took her back and then brought her back in to me two hours later. I had no choice in the matter, I couldn't have cared for her that night. The only other time I had been this tired was when I landed in Paris at 9am their time, 3am our time and having only four of the eight hours of sleep the my body wanted after taking a sleeping pill. I was so tired it hurt, and this experience was about ten times worse than that. I also felt guilty. I felt horribly guilty for sending her to the nursery, and our family and the nurses all assured us that we weren't being bad parents, we were no good to her unless we got some rest. But it is because of judgemental bitches that make new moms feel guilty.
With Kayla, I was in labor for 12 hours before she was born. I don't think I slept more than 15 minutes off and on that whole night. The physical aspect of the birth was relatively quick and easy, but of course emotionally I was going through hell. But even then, I was tired but nothing compared to how I was when Emily was born. I had no issue whatsoever staying awake and being alert after Kayla was born. So to try to compare two different women's experience giving birth and claiming that if they went through this that and the other thing and didn't need the rest, then no one should is ridiculous. How I felt after the birth of my two daughters was as different as night and day. In fact, I would have loved to have had Kayla in bed with me that night, but I was too afraid of hurting her.
Even though she had passed, she was so tiny and delicate, I was worried she would get pushed out of bed during the night, or maybe squished between the bed and the rail, and if anything like that would have happened I would have been heartbroken. It didn't matter that she wasn't alive to feel the pain. But as soon as I woke up that morning, I got her out of the crib and held her in my arms.
On Emily's second night, we kept her in our room because we felt well enough to have her, and of course because we wanted her there. She cried ALL NIGHT LONG, so I was awake with her all night, holding her, afraid to go to sleep because I had her in my arms in bed with me and I was afraid I would drop her or something. So to say that I was selfish and didn't care about my baby infuriates me. One woman even had the nerve to say that her daughter had to go to the NICU and didn't have a choice to keep her with her, so people should be so lucky to have a healthy baby and not send them away to the nursery. When I replied that I knew all too well how lucky I was, and that I had delivered my sleeping baby the year before, all she could reply with was that everybody has a sob story and it doesn't change the fact that mothers who send their babies away are selfish.
I realize these are idiots on the computer, hiding behind their anonymity and I shouldn't get so worked up about it, but still, these idiots are real people with these opinions. I am just baffled how people can be so bitchy about something they know nothing about. Some women also said how bad it must be for the baby because they were inside their mother all their life and then they're sent away. First, let's not forget the baby had a big day as well. From the minute she was born until the next night when she tested out her lungs, she slept. Second, I trust that the nurses held her and rocked her when they could, and she was brought to be every 2 hours. Third, when I was born, going to the nursery was the norm. Mothers didn't have their babies with them in their room every second of the hospital stay like they do now. I assure you all, I do not remember being "abandoned" and I have no lasting affects from it.
I just feel like, being a parent is the hardest job in the world, and becoming a parent opened up my eyes to the fact that each and every one of us has to raise our children and take care of them the best way we know how. It may not always be the way someone else would, but it doesn't make it wrong. It's like the day I became a parent, it became open season for others to look at everything I do with a microscope. So if other moms feel this way, and I know they do, why not come together instead of judging others?
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