1/15/23
Staring longer at baby’s face now, it’s just wonderful and fascinating to me, like I can’t get enough of looking. I can tell he’s thinking of things while nursing cause every so often his eyes get wide and his eyebrows raise, hahaha.
did the math the other day, and just realized, that my next credit card payment, I don’t have enough money in the bank to pay it off, I will be about $900 short, even with my next two paychecks factored in. since realizing this, have felt really disappointed and a little depressed about myself, because for the past twenty years of my working history, I’ve always been able to pay for my life in full, without ever paying just the minimum. I mentioned this to R tonight, and he responded, “well you never had a baby and a mortgage and two cars before either… we have a lot of stuff. If there’s nothing happening in your life, you’ll have money. But if you have a lot of stuff going on in your life, you won’t have any money.” it sounded like he believed this- he said it with conviction- and it made me feel a little better actually. Even though I know technically…it IS possible to have a lot going on and still have money, I don’t really inhabit that realm, so it seems less true to me.
1/16/23
he’s bit down on me the last three nights right as he falls asleep, at the end of nursing. My only solace is that I’ve seen the shape of his teeth when he talks and laughs, and the front part that bites down are pretty square-shaped, so as it’s happening i keep telling myself he’s not gonna bite all the way through / bite off my nipple, even though it sometimes feels like it. It still hurts enough that I cry every time though.
1/17/23
finally got a break after three hard nights and had an “easy” night tonight: Felt happy and content while nursing him, it didn’t take hours, and he didn’t bite at the end. he did do a weird thing where it seemed like he fully woke up at the end- he unlatched and sat up and started crying “mama mama” very loud for a few seconds, but when I laid him back down and just stayed near him still touching, he fell all the way to sleep.
Been thinking of birth lately, was just reading about it and also some coworkers have recently given birth. I was just thinking before falling asleep tonight, that if you are like deathly afraid of the pain of childbirth, it’s almost like you don’t believe in your own body. Because up to this point, you have formed a whole entire new living human person inside your body. do you really believe that after ALL that, your body is not capable of following through to the end? The question becomes: how fully do you believe in your ability to finish things – to see things through to the end. I wonder if one consciously finishes a lot of projects during pregnancy, it magically-metaphorically translates into an easier birth.
1/18/23
I know I’ve mentioned this before, but one of the biggest shocks of new motherhood to me is just how constantly and how immediately I have to let go of my plans, how my time is no longer my own, how I am always on-call now, in a way. if there’s no one here to help me, like in the morning before they pick him up or in the evening before R gets home, I can’t even eat or go to the bathroom or cook or take a shower or do any work on my own time. Today as an example (but every day there’s an example), early afternoon, caught up on my remote work, getting ready to finally get into cleaning out my upstairs bedroom, happy about it, I’ve been looking forward to it for days, even weeks, everything is humming along, plans forming in my mind, visions of a clean organized space, then mom texts me that they are bringing him back early because he has a fever and over tired and I am the one that he needs most. there’s nothing I can do now but get ready for his arrival and drop everything when he gets here (wailing) and tend to him. But as I’m writing this, I think…how does it even compare? The room can wait, I can clean any day. But only right now is he young, is he my baby, does he need me. No one other than me can do this- I am the face and the voice and the scent and the milk that he knows. He is crying, crying, crying as I carry him to the bed and fumble with my shirt, but as soon as he latches on, he is quiet, and is now almost asleep.
1/19/23
8:47 PM, eating hamburger while nursing, resting the plate on my right hip because I’m lying on my left side and bringing it up to rest on my collarbone every time I take a bite, in the dark with my phone flashlight on, because he has been sick and so has been nursing for long stretches, and I was so hungry, it was so good even though I was eating lying down, rodrigo made it for me. at one point I bit at a the wrong angle and burger juice dripped down my chin and I had to use the T-shirt I was wearing to wipe it, because I had no napkins around me- nothing else to use. I never in my right mind without a baby would use my own t-shirt to wipe my mouth, and further never imagined myself in these kind of desperate-for-resources positions, but with a baby, i realized, they happen all the time. Even when I try to anticipate my needs, more happens, or something different happens, so that I’m not prepared. I hardly ever feel prepared anymore. But I guess this is one of the great lessons of baby: being okay with the unsettling feeling of not being prepared; not being unsettled by it.
1/20/23
something i never needed before that i now need pretty frequently: someone to cook/warm up food and bring it to my room, because he nurses for so long, that even if I eat right before, I start to get hungry as hours pass, and I can’t leave.
1/21/23
Hunter was sick with a fever from Wed. to Fri, temp ranging from 99 to about 101. On Friday took him to the doctor (cause i Google-read that a fever shouldn’t be more than two days), who said it wasn’t an ear infection and everything else looked fine, that it was maybe respiratory, and so they tested him for COVID and the flu, which both turned out negative. By the end of day Friday he lost his fever temperature, and I just checked him again today to make sure, and it has gone back to normal, like 98. I, however, since yesterday, have felt something coming on, probably the same thing baby had – we are so close, sleeping and playing together, I guess it’s inevitable. But it doesn’t feel that bad for now – I don’t feel tired or foggy-brained, like I did with the last fever, a month ago, that sent me to the hospital. Have been taking lots of vit C + zinc, but I’m sure what’s helping me most is the increased sleep I’ve started to get in general (last three nights, however, were all interrupted sleep bc the sick baby wanted to nene all night, which was tough, but keep telling myself it’s just temporary).
Marriage Journal 