Project Baby Week 3: Inching Close to the Blues

Ju's pacifier. My friend.

It's  the third week of Juju's life on earth and my post-natal transition has moved dangerously close to the edge of ennui, fatigue and depression. The first ten days were unbelievably pleasant if only because Ju's feeding, pooping and sleeping schedule ran like clockwork: every 3 hours. We had time to eat and go online, receive guests and the sleep interruptions and loss weren't all that severe anyway since we were still on a new baby high.

Then came day 13 and everything started to unwind.

Ju's awake periods began to lengthen. He was alert and we would revel in his shortlived cuteness until he would inevitably start to whine. At first we thought he had wind or hadn't had enough to drink (this despite the boobs plus bottle) but we soon realised he had to sleep and needed the boobie for a comfort suck to lull himself to sleep. 

It was draining. He would cry after we'd fed, burped, changed him. He wouldn't go to sleep for more than 5 minutes before howling again. His asleep periods would sometimes be nonexistent between feeds so that I had no time at all to do anything but respond to his every whim and whimper. This was especially trying at 5am in the morning after I had nursed him in a hunched position for almost an hour and stuffed another 50 ml of formula down him.

Last weekend I came dangerously close to the Edge.  I was crabby and snapped at Daniel, I had no interest in pacifying Juju when he went on one of his whinging moods after he was "supposed" to go back to sleep. I just wanted to lie in bed and sleep for 20 hours.  The worst part was, I still did not feel like I had "bonded" with my kid. In the exact words I said to Daniel: "I just see a cute baby when I look at him."  I found myself getting teary and even crying every time I thought about Juju and how I could not muster the energy and will to pacify him, nor did I feel enthusiastic about having him. To my own horror, I admitted that the words I tended to associate with my baby were "duty, responsibility, chore" rather than "love, love, love".

I know he's mine, don't get me wrong. But knowing is like a theoretical concept, I did not feel the connection. I shed tears at the hospital, I smile every time I look at his cherubic face and go gaga (like everyone else) whenever he flashed his angelic -- albeit accidental -- smile.  I've been conscientiously recording poos and pees, exact time of feeds, quantity of formula intakes and the like. I've been manually expressing my own breastmilk in all the different positions imaginable, even while nursing him, taking care of my boobs that they don't get clogged and end up engorged, worrying they would get engorged and worrying that the milk would never ever fully come in. I've been stressing over getting Juju to sleep before we take him out either for a meal or an excursion to the mall, receiving people who've been streaming to our apartment to have a look at him, making sure his daily baths (which used to be a total nightmare for all of us) went well now that Daniel has perfected the art of bathing Juju without the ritual turning into a torture session.

Maybe I've been focusing on everything else except the most important thing of all -- just being a Mummy.

A girlfriend assured me that this was normal, she also had a c-section and it took her a few weeks to completely accept her baby and feel the outpouring of love that Daniel confessed he had instantly felt at the hospital gazing at him through the glass window of the nursery. Ironically, because of the way Juju was born, Daniel got to witness a lot more of hus birth than I did, being drugged and semi-paralysed behind a cloth screen in the operating theatre.

Yesterday I gave in and let Daniel buy Juju a pacifier. Turned out to be a good call as it meant I didn't have to keep whipping out my boobs every time he wanted to sleep but couldn't.  I've also been worrying myself sick over how I would cope when Daniel went back to office full-time (today and tomorrow I would be alone) and I would have to do everything including the chores by myself on sleep loss. Thankfully my mother came over in the morning to relieve me, letting me get 2 hours' shut-eye while Juju lay awake. She will babysit later while I go pick up Daniel from work, a routine from our forgotten "normal" childless days that I look forward to.

It's only been three weeks, you must be thinking. Yes, but it's been three weeks in the first chapter of the rest of our lives. I would describe it as more than just sleep loss, the lack of privacy and the fact that our lives are now dictated by a 4.5 kg poop-making machine. It is all that plus the stark reality that there's No Going Back. It's either go over the edge or go on down that endless, thankless road to parenthood.

I'm here to stay