2002-01-08
You know that business about sleeping when the baby sleeps? That is very good advice. It only took me a few days to learn that not following it would be at my own serious peril.
It's hard to get over the basic assumption that once it's night, I'll be able to get some sleep. You live for 38 years or so counting on the fact that if you can make it eleven or twelve o'clock, you'll be able to get a bunch of hours of consecutive sleep. I know I'm lucky in assuming that; others struggle with insomnia and barking dogs and the like. But sleep has mostly been mine for the taking and it is no longer.
Not all the nights are rough. Many of them are, like last night, quite reasonable. Mostly quiet, punctuated by hour-long periods every three or so hours where I nurse the baby. During these periods I might lie in the dark, in a state of semi-sleep, or I might read or even watch part of a movie. I plan for these periods, stashing glasses of water and snacks and activities for myself near the bed. (B has temporarily camped out on an air mattress in his office.)
More nights are reasonable than are not. Most of the rough came early on, before I'd discovered the connection between my ingesting onions and the baby screaming for hours on end. But some have come even after this discovery, generally when our schedule has been disrupted. There have been some very dark nights of the soul.
I'm learning, figuring some things out and left baffled by others, and it's generally getting easier. It got massively easier this past Monday night when my sister arrived. She's been cooking and cleaning and doing laundry. Today, God bless her, she gave the upstairs bathroom the only decent cleaning it's received since before we moved in.
She lives on the opposite coast and we've never been particularly close (I doubt I've ever mentioned her here). I wasn't sure how it would be to have her around, but it's been great. It's taken a bit of getting used to, letting someone help me and--at times--wait on me. It's that independent streak of mine, along with the knowledge that she's only going to be here a week and when she goes it's back to the way things were.
I'm cognizant that things are going fairly well and could be much, much worse. Clay is, from all I've heard others tell, a relatively easy baby. Breastfeeding has seemed to go remarkably smoothly and I got confirmation of that at yesterday's doctor's appointment; he's back to his birth weight after only a week and a half (all babies lose weight right after birth and getting back to birth weight by two weeks is considered good growth).
The doctor who examined him was the big, goofy resident I mentioned meeting several weeks back; he ended up being on call the night Clay was born and attending his birth along with my regular doctor. I was happy that he was available to do the first well-baby visit. He thought Clay was doing wonderfully, everything looking and sounding as it should.
I have to confess that I don't yet feel the intense attachment to Clay that I hear many parents speak of. I assume that I will, that it will sneak up on me at some point and grab me and not let go. Meanwhile, I'm definitely glad he's here.
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