1/21/23

he’s at a stage where the stupidest things make him laugh – you don’t need to know any jokes, just like make a sound really fast, and he laughs, like I did this morning – I kept going, “ma-ma-ma-ma-ma MAMA” really fast, and he kept laughing, like twenty times in a row. lol.

1/23/23

maybe babies are here to push couples into this conscious state: “if you need me, no matter what time of night, just call me. if I don’t wake up, come get me, it’s OK.” This is what I said to R tonight (and what R has said to me before) as we parted ways to sleep (he’s still sleeping with Baby and comforting him back to sleep the multiple times a night he wakes, so that I can get more sleep).

1/24/23

woke up feeling almost high today, had a lot of energy when I got up and was feeling great. Not sure why. When I first got up around 5:47 AM and went down to sleep with baby, felt tired as normal, and felt super tired when we got up around 8 AM. But after I slept from 9 to noon, woke up feeling groggy at first, but once awake, felt super, better than any time I can remember in recent past.  appetite was ravenous, ate a lot, pasta from last night’s dinner, not gluten-free. Feel almost like I had caffeine (which i only indulge like a few times a year) but haven’t had any caffeine…just some regular chocolate brownies (gluten free from Simple Mills mix) that I made myself. did have a huge orgasm last night w/R, but that can’t be it, could it? can’t think of what else it might be, vitamins and supplements as normal. Feel strong and in control in a way I have not felt in a long time, in both body and mind, and even while nursing for two hours straight in the evening. and despite (or because of?) being at the tail end of this fever/sickness (just have a phlegmy cough now). The only thing i think it might be is that i’ve been, in general over the past month, getting more sleep than I have in the 15 months before when I slept with Baby, and maybe i’m starting to feel the good/rehabilitory effects now.

Just as I was about to go to Acme to buy ingredients to make lasagna tonight, parents brought baby home because he’s teething and very irritable and wanting to nurse, so I just stayed home and ordered Instacart, which for just a few missing ingredients and priority delivery, cost about $50. made me wonder if it would’ve been cheaper to just buy a lasagna from a restaurant.

a prayer that rose out of me as it was getting dark and I was pulling the blinds down over the window that faces the forest trees: Please let my body still be magic. After all these hours and hours, these days these weeks these months, these turning into years of sucking, sucking the life and the juice out of me, please let me still be able to hold magic, and be electric. Amen.

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).

1/8/23

Felt something like PMS yesterday. Didn’t realize it til nighttime when I was crying before sleep and it hit me that that was the 3rd time I cried that day. The first was in the bath, second was while nursing, and third was while trying to go to sleep after a hard day (really late at night and felt emotionally out of control to a point I haven’t felt…I guess since my last PMS over a year ago). Got suddenly very angry at R before my bath for not taking the trash out like I’d asked, and was kind of throwing things around the house while cleaning up. The epsom salt had formed big clumps inside its plastic bag, and normally I would take them out and crush them with my hands over the bathwater, but yesterday was so frustrated that it felt good to bang the entire bag against the side of the bathtub, loudly over and over, until they were all fine grains again.

1/10/23

Got period back – for the first time in two years. Amazed at how body really reacts to/is in tune with my environment/what’s happening around me – i know i only got it back bc I’ve just recently started sleeping for longer stretches (and that it only stayed away bc i was breastfeeding so constantly and through the night before).

1/2/23

while we were nursing in the half-light half-dark, baby holding a small cut-out felt pig, he put his other hand to his forehead for a second, and his eyes were closed and it looked to me like he was sorting out big problems, and I felt sympathy – what kind of things has he seen or heard so far in his 15 months on earth that frustrate or overwhelm him? Which led me to think, of this boy. That I had a boy. Of my biases and prejudices for his gender that I know I still harbor, deep-rooted and stemming from one man in the past that hurt me, even though I’ve tried to recognize and cut them down as much as possible. And tears started forming, and I prayed,  “God, help me. Don’t let me mess him up. I know nothing about raising a good person, a good man. Help me, please, push everything out of the way in my personality that might impede him. Don’t let me mess him up.”

1/4/23

not sure if this is a coincidence, or maybe partly because he’s so much cuter talking now, but since I’ve been getting more sleep and feeling a little better, I find im actually looking forward to when my parents bring baby back home at the end of the workday. I used to dread it only because I felt overwhelmed and like I could never get enough done in the time he was away, but now, even if I don’t get everything done, I miss him more than i want to get everything done, and I enjoy him a lot more, and I always wonder how he is when he’s away.

1/5/23

it’s so funny how he looks like a little man now. He doesn’t look like a baby anymore. His gait is also funny: his posture is very straight while his toddler legs bend at the knees and he keeps his arms kind of elbows turned out, like a bodybuilder.

with all the time restraint and warped sense of time and feeling like I am stuck in a never-ending loop and just all the radical changes in my perception of time in the last year since Hunter was born, just today realizing maybe there is a message. it seemed to say: it doesn’t matter how much work / how many chores you get done or don’t get done every day. You’ve been reborn as a baby- you’re growing up again- everything is new, all that matters is now, every day, playing, having fun, learning, love, joy, happiness. Forget the rest. Release it from your nervous system. Release everything that wouldn’t matter to a growing child.

1/6/23

i wonder how many hours of breastfeeding i’ve logged…it seems so many endless hours all through the day and all through the night up until recently. And he currently still breastfeeds for hours at a time, daily. Even though he stopped (or more accurately, we stopped him by me and R switching beds) breastfeeding through the night, he’s doing a thing now where he’ll breastfeed from early night (8,9,10 pm) until like midnight, 1 or 2 am.

1/7/23

even though things are getting better now with my sleep, part of me subconsciously is like: why did everyone around me let it get to this point? I know I should take care of myself, but this is the first time I’ve been through this- a first-time mom; I was just trying to survive each day, literally taking it minute by minute. Now in retrospect, the different points of my downward spiral of the past 15 months are just starting to come together for me as I look back.. Why didn’t my mom or my dad or my extended family or husband watch over me better, see the signs, see the changes in me and take some action before I got to the point where I was hospitalized?

main lesson from year 1 of Baby: without proper sleep, everything falls apart. Even the highest-quality vitamins and supplements won’t save you, if you don’t have that basic building block to stand on.

The hardest thing I’ve done so far with the baby has not been giving birth. It was sticking to my decision to breast-feed for the past 1 yr and 3 months. At least when you’re giving birth, there’s all this support around you: I was surrounded by midwife nurses doctor husband encouraging me to get through it. Once I left the hospital, even tho they said call if you need anything, it was kind of like, “bye-bye and good luck.” With breast-feeding, there’s so much aloneness, and darkness, and alone in the darkness. In the dark at 6 PM, in the dark at 9 PM, in the dark at 12 AM, in the dark at 3 AM, in the dark at 6 AM, in the dark even during the day because the shades are drawn bc Baby is feeding and drifting off to sleep, again. Today I also cried really hard (silently, cause he had just fallen asleep) when he bit down several times at the end of a feed – i couldn’t get myself out of his clenched jaws and had to just wait it out and it hurt so much.

12/28/22

it’s only been one week, but since rodrigo’s started sleeping with Baby at night, I feel as if things are doing a total 180. I have more energy and stamina and a more positive outlook/default mood/feeling in general. I also feel my appetite normalizing/returning: I’m hungrier and maybe eating a little more. I feel like I’ve even gained weight (which I want to do, as my weight dropped into the 80s this past sleepless year) but haven’t weighed myself yet. The best I can describe it is, that my core strength (not abs- a different core) feels stronger; I don’t feel like I’m all-day collapsing from the inside out anymore, like I did before for the past 15 months with broken sleep. Now I sleep from about midnight (whenever Baby falls asleep for the night at my breast) to about 6 AM (when rodrigo comes upstairs to get ready for work)- i get five or six hours of unbroken sleep which is like double the amount I was getting before- I don’t think I ever slept more than three hours at a time when I was sleeping with Baby. This really seems to be making all the difference.

So far, rodrigo tells me that sometimes it’s easy and baby only wakes one or two times and is easily put back to sleep, and other times it’s hard, where it seems he wakes every hour/wakes up and stays up for hours and can’t be comforted back to sleep. but it’s so different for me now- i’m excited and look forward to going to sleep because I know I will get actual rest, instead of dreading it/being depressed by nighttime coming, which is how I felt every night for the past 15 months.

*

for the past few days, have felt a sort of non-painful ache (but kind of stronger – I even feel it whenever I sit down and stand up) in my abdomen-uterus similar to when I was in the fertile middle of my menstrual cycle, and also there seems to be extra mucus/egg white. Still have not gotten my period since Hunter was born. Wondering if because I’m not breastfeeding like every three hours throughout the night anymore, it’s my body gearing back up to bring my period back. I have to say, I didn’t miss it. But…it’s also nice to have it as a sort of time measuring tool, to know where I am in the cycle/reassurance I’m not pregnant.

12/11/22

Day 2 of fever: still feeling awful, bodyaches, the head pain has migrated to the right side and back of head too, I am alternating getting sweaty and then super cold, and mouth is all messed up- throat, gums, lip- can only eat soup-like things.  Even seeing weird moving lights in the periphery of my vision sometimes. Tested myself for Covid, but it was negative. Can’t move fast bc of head pain; moving like an old person. Ate cold applesauce from the fridge and it was heavenly.

12/12/22

i’m afraid, that once I can, I won’t remember how to sleep right again. That I won’t sleep through the night anymore. All-night broken sleep is all I know now – it’s my norm. It sounds weird to think I’ll forget how to sleep, but I am afraid.

(update 12/25: fear proved unfounded; since R has been sleeping with baby- almost one week now- when I go upstairs to sleep by myself, I sleep like the dead – I lay down and don’t get up until he wakes me/it’s time to go back down.)

if you don’t break down and rebuild, if you don’t break out and heal over, if you don’t break open to give life and maybe never fully close again, have you really lived?

Feeling better today, feel good enough to pack a box and drive it to the post office and do chores, still slowly. But yesterday felt so bad I was nonfunctional, couldn’t even check email really, just could only lay down; getting up and walking around hurt a little. And last night the headache pain was the worst, it seemed on all sides and more constant- impeded sleep- lying there wide awake from head pain. Woke up this morning to fever blisters around mouth, but they don’t look too bad, and again feeling better, head pain has diminished definitely compared to last night.

i can’t keep up with the pace of this baby. Today as an example: he wakes up ready for the day when i’m the most tired. after his grandpa takes him, i get up and dressed and do work that’s come in, try to eat and do a few chores, and suddenly mom’s texting me that they’re bringing him back and almost here. I’m always in the middle of something. i want to finish making the bed so we can hop right in when he gets fussy for the night (which can be really early), but he’s here now and wants to nurse NOW. I need to go pee and he follows me (all the way in if i don’t shut the door) and bangs on the door the whole time i’m in there. I need to put a load of laundry in the washer but he wants to eat oranges NOW and since R is in the middle of changing him, i get it and peel it and sit with him while he toddler-eats to make sure he doesn’t choke. While R is washing the mountain of dishes, I mop up all the spilled orange pieces on the floor and couch and leave the dish by the sink (the start of another mountain) and go put the laundry in, getting in bites of my “dinner” this whole time. I have to poo but the bed needs to be made up first (all the dead skin from last night swept off, toys and clothes caught in the sheets removed, etc), then the poo is almost coming out of my butt but he wants to nurse again NOW. During all this time- a few hours- he’s needed his diaper changed 2-3 times. And lots of attention, or else he will do loud and sometimes dangerous (like climbing up furniture) attention-getting things. Now he’s wound down for the night and ready to sleep and tells me so, so to buy myself just one minute i tell him to go kiss daddy goodnight, which he does and comes back quick. then i must drop everything to nurse him to sleep (takes about 1-2 hours). I’ve been trying to write this entry but had to keep stopping because his free hand while nursing kept stabbing into my belly button or trying to squeeze and twist my other nipple, or slap me in the face. Past 10 pm as he’s still nursing but almost asleep now, i still have to get ready for bed and try to poo (i can’t really feel it anymore, i think it gave up), and put the laundry in the dryer, minimum – there’s so much more i could do though. And this was all with R here to help. Once i’m ready for bed i’ll climb in quietly beside him and he’ll wake up maybe a half hour after I do, just as i’m falling asleep, to nurse. then wake up throughout the night to nurse a few more times, and suddenly it’s morning again – repeat.

update: after first night nurse, got away with enough time just to use bathroom then heard him crying; ran back, he must have swung his arm and not felt me there or something. Then after the second nurse, i got to brush teeth and move the laundry; he must’ve been in a deeper sleep. could not ask R to help or watch cause he goes to sleep early to wake up early for work.

Day 3 of fever: headache and bodyache pain receding, but mouth and throat still feel terrible; gums red swollen inflamed and for the first time in my life, got fever blisters all around my mouth, even on my chin. Had to Google it to learn what they were. FUN Fun Fun!!! The headache pain kind of reminded me of labor pain; it came in waves and constantly and was just severe enough that i couldn’t think thoughts- only ride the waves of pain until they were over. and over. and over. got even less sleep than usual bc of this.

i was looking at one of the wedding photos we have in the house, how much more glowing and healthy we both looked just like 3-4 years ago, compared to now (i think i’m in the worst physical shape of my life, all stemming from lack of sleep at night)- and i thought, “in sickness and in health. this must be the sickness part.” but also…”we can do this. we’ll get through it to the other side.”

12/14/22

had the weirdest dream/not-dream last night. At the time…it seemed like it wasn’t a dream because like every second of it, i was aware of myself narrating every word (it was just full of words, not really images). basically the whole time, i was yelling things at R right into his face, screaming my head off like it was a release of the whole past year’s worth of suffering- things i would never say to him irl. i blamed him for everything. i told him or implied that he’d made my life harder, that he didn’t do shit for the baby compared to what i have to do night after night, that he’s lazy, that he doesn’t keep his promises or do what he sys he will, all this kind of stuff. it was just one horrible screaming rant, and at the time, i knew it wasn’t real – i was more like….FANTASIZING about doing all this while baby was nursing and i was falling asleep/half asleep/more than half asleep. i blamed him for everything.

in this dream/not-dream, i remembered yelling, “do something! fucking do something!” a lot, bc i hate having to tell him every time he has to change the baby or something.

there was also me pleading to him, “at least tell me I’m doing a good job” and “have some pity on me.” things I really do wish he would do more of, but I’m afraid to ask for, because maybe I’m not doing a good job, or he doesn’t think I am, I don’t know –

i told him, “until you’ve stayed up every night for 15 months- you have no right to judge me for anything.” i went on about how his life has not been so radically changed as mine- that at least he still gets his nights- still gets to go to sleep all night, each night. That’s not a small thing.

it was almost like a fever dream. i guess it was a fever dream…i had an actual fever while entering dreamstate.

*

i was thinking, if you love someone, if they do something that strikes you as lazy or not enough or offensive, you can’t be quick to accept that was the intention. Like if you love someone and think that they always try to do the best thing, then your first reaction to all that stuff should be, “what am I missing?” As in: what am I missing about his experience or his viewpoint that made him behave this way or what am I missing in my own perception, because I know he would never mean to hurt me.

Just remembered today while typing for work and music happened to be playing, that back when we were in the office I used to play music in my headphones while simultaneously transcribing through the same headphones and dancing a little, as much as I could with my coworkers around me, in my seat while I typed, I had so much energy, and it felt good to listen to whatever i wanted  🙂

Wondered for a moment if I should thank R for making me a mother. Then realized that no…that only the mother can make herself a Mother. By fully stepping into the pain (of pregnancy, of birth, of childcare), of accepting all you have lost because of your child- his price- and being not only ok with it- realizing all that you’ve lost will at first hurt like hell and then double back into gain. I just know. I know it will, if I can just get to the other side.

12/19/22

was admitted to the hospital (Virtua Voorhees) on Friday 12/16 and I’m still here as of Monday 12/19, though they said I might be able to go home today. how I got here: on Thursday night, my neck (the skin) hurt so bad during the night and nothing seemed to quell the pain so that I was up all night. Only when I massaged my shoulders did the pain recede a bit, but just came back as soon as I stopped. so I called a nearby dermatologist for a telehealth appointment the next day, and pretty soon after she saw how bad my neck looked on our FaceTime call, she said that I should go to the emergency room today. I asked things like, “what’ll happen if I don’t treat it, can I self-treat at home, will it resolve on its own,” etc. But to all these questions, she firmly said no, go to the emergency room, you need antibiotics through IV. so lucikily, rodrigo was home, I think he had finished work early, he waited around for me to finish work at 2 o’clock and then he took me to the ER.  I had to show the guy my neck, and tell him a few things like my height and weight, then we waited in the waiting room not too long, maybe an hour? and they took us back. A few different nurses and a doctor I think and an infectious disease specialist came in to see me, all while I was getting IV saline and antibiotics, and they weren’t sure what it was, and my face got red and puffy but it subsided later, and I had a fever of like 100.3, and R stayed with me the whole time. I was very self-conscious about showing everyone my neck, how ugly it looked (red, swollen, eczema-out-of-control-like) and R was the one that kept having to tell me to show it, to look up, to remove my mask, because I was very, very shy to do this with every single person. I was feeling pretty bad the first day at the hospital: woozy from the fever, pain shooting in my neck, sad about having to come to the hospital (I feel like I “failed” if I have to go to hospital/like I can’t manage my own health), etc. So the past few days- Saturday, Sunday, and today- have just been rounds of antibiotic IV, antiviral pills, periodic vital sign checking, and being woken up at like six in the morning to bright lights and a phlebotomist collecting blood samples from my arm to send out for testing (but thankfully that did not happen this morning, my last morning – I was kind of dreading it would again last night). The redness and puffy swelling gradually went down in my neck, and the pain subsided too, and today it’s looking better, as confirmed by the infectious disease person and myself too looking in the mirror. So now, 11:36 AM, just here with my work laptop in front of me about to do a little work, the IV machine is beeping because the bag of antibiotic is finished so I’m about to call the nurse, and also order some lunch, and hopefully be out of here today. I miss my baby. been pumping milk the whole time here, but mom says he’s not drinking much, just eating a lot and asked for water last night when he woke up only two times. she said he goes back to sleep pretty easily, which gives me some hope that maybe I’ll be seeing sleep in my future. It was really nice to sleep the whole night here at the hospital and nap whenever I wanted, not to mention the room service for every meal. it was nice, but I would much rather have just been healthy and my immune system able to defend itself and never had to come here.

The last time I was in the hospital like this was when I gave birth 15 months ago. And before that, never.

12/24/22

Sleep deprivation doesn’t just happen at night. When you’re sleep deprived, it’s 24/7 until you remedy it. It’s 24/7 because when you wake up in the morning, that’s when you feel the worst, and the effects last throughout the day: your appetite is totally messed up, not sure what you want to eat/craving sugar/greatly reduced appetite, you can’t think clearly, your brain is foggy, your decision making is poor and so every chore/everything you do is more slowly, and when nighttime comes around again, it’s depressing because if there’s no end in sight to the sleep deprivation, it’s like a never-ending cycle and this is part of the whole 24/7 thing- this feeling like you’re living in a torturous loop. And then the dread when you actually go to bed of just not being able to sleep, the “anticipation” or knowing it, and then the actual sleep deprivation throughout the night, and then waking up to do it over again, over and over again.

12/5/22

I like how, all I have to do most times is squish the tops of my breasts down with my fingers, and gauging by how hard or soft they are, know if my baby needs to eat or if he’s OK. so efficient, and not dependent on any third party.

12/6/22

the confidence that comes with repetition over time: “I’ve done it the past like million days in a row already – I think I can do it one more day.”

12/7/22

The last two weeks, dad has been picking up Hunter from my house in the morning and bringing him to his and mom’s house for the whole day, dropping him back off here when I’m done work around 5. The most prominent thing I noticed: the heavenly, delicious silence. To be able to hear minute changes in the traffic just outside, quiet sounds from our house that I can never hear when baby’s here talking and screaming. The silence, I realized…I need it, it rejeuvenates me. By the evening time when they bring back baby, I’m more peaceful and better able to play and interact with him, because of the quiet time I’ve gotten and because I’ve missed him, too. Him being out of the house also, I noticed, lets me get my work and chores done faster- I can better focus. When they stay here caring for him, I was always helping them out and it just seemed to scatter my focus and efficiency.

12/9/22

i’m pretty glad right now that I never stopped working after I had my baby. I feel like giving birth and the subsequent time period is and was so life altering and identity-boundary-dissolving, that if I didn’t have the constant of this transcription work that I’ve done for years while I was single through marriage, and until now with the baby, I might not even be able to remember who I was as completely – the changes in the last year have been that dramatic, that I feel that parts of my brain are missing or out of service. When I’m typing for work sometimes, I can remember still who I once was, because I typed this way when I was single, I typed this way when I was childless, I typed this way before I was a mother. Although it does take time and attention away from baby sometimes, it’s also like this important anchor for me. I wonder if..i tug on this and follow it like a thin thread i left for myself that weaves through the forest, I could find my way back and remember…or at least not lose more of myself than I need to.

12/10/22

sick today; felt it coming on yesterday morning and now have: body ache, head ache even into ears like earache (and sometimes sharp pain near the back left side of head), neck tightness, leg weakness, skin pricklies/really sensitive to touch, sore throat, a little dizzy, very cold (wearing my parka inside the 70-degree house) while my body got very hot last night in bed fighting it, a little bit loss of taste but not completely, no loss of smell, fatigue, malaise, appetite loss. So glad mom and dad came this morning and took Hunter over their house while I just take it easy here (R’s working today). I’m still doing chores, but doing them ultra slow like half the speed I usually do, because I just can’t move fast, it hurts to. Peed a lot all through the night like every few hours, now drinking some baby electrolyte solution but it takes yucky, i can’t finish it (I thought it would be sweet like juice but it’s salty too). I was just feverish not too many weeks ago, but that was over in one night; this one is taking longer and feels worse. Def getting sick (quantity-wise and severity-wise) more than usual compared to before baby, when I had adequate sleep. The one nice, showing-progress change lately: baby doesn’t ask to breastfeed during the day anymore- he’s just doing it at night now, all night still.

11/27/22

he’s making sentences now. He just said “hold silver” bc he wanted to hold one of my Silverettes while nursing. the tone of absolute certainty he has, in such a young voice, is really cute. i feel blessed to witness all this growth.

A few times already, I’ve bent over to pick something up and knocked baby right on his butt with my butt, because he follows me so close all the time now – he really tailgates me. i’m trying to remember now when I move, that he might be within inches of me, so I stop knocking him over.

12/1/22

I just want popular media/literary outlets to acknowledge that waking up all throughout the night for baby is torture. I want them to stop glossing over it, ignoring it, or sugarcoating it – it is torture. It’s the same as the torture device used in war: just when I’m falling into deep sleep, the sleep my body and mind need most to repair and rest, I’m woken up, and have to stay up, and have to keep my body in a certain position until he’s done, which can be an hour or more, even if the position is so uncomfortable I can’t fall asleep during. And this happens multiple times a night, all night, every night. What would you call it? How would you describe it? And would you wish this on yourself? I just need people to acknowledge this so I can stop feeling like I’m abnormal for viewing my nightly breast-feeding routine this way. it’s torture and it brings along all the same side effects of torture: weight loss, loss of appetite, loss of mental clarity, mood disorder, physical degeneration. every night I sit up awake is a night of healthy sleep I can never get back. The only difference/respite is that, because of help from my parents, and if I don’t have any urgent work, I can sleep for a few hours in the morning.  He kept me up for so long last night that my body was exhausted and I needed to sleep this morning (and i did), but I feel that when I do this, it just perpetuates the cycle, because then I feel wide awake early at night (like 9-10 pm), so I go to sleep late (like 2 am), then lose sleep because of breast-feeding, then am tired in the morning again. I love this amazing, innocent boy so much that if given the chance, I would (insanely) do it all again. But I’m just confiding to you, diary: though I want to be this lovely, skipping, lighthearted mother, these nights are fucking, fucking painful.

12/2/22

today R’s mom came from Brazil and brought me medicine from R’s coworker’s mom, it’s homeopathic for my skin, called calcaria carb psorium, I’m taking six drops three times a day. it’s OK, just tastes like alcohol and a little bitter, R said to stick with it because it takes a long time to take effect.

realized i’m living with two men who both need different things from my body.

12/3/22

an unexpected wish as a result of all this childcare: all I want to do is sit with my husband and watch a movie all the way through undisturbed with him, like we used to do pretty much whenever we wanted when we were a childless couple; we haven’t done that in over a year, maybe longer. I’ll even take a kid’s movie, but baby’s still too young to pay attention to one or let us watch one; we’re just watching Hickory Dickory Dock vids on YouTube all the time, cause that’s what he wants.

11/21/22

9:35 pm

sometimes it feels like all parenthood is, is household chores to the 10th degree.

1:12 am

something that sucks is pretty often, like maybe once a night or every other night, i’ll be falling asleep while breastfeeding but then he will do that thing where he bites down right at the end when he’s done, and it of course wakes me right up, which makes it take longer to fall asleep again. He’s asleep and i’m just staring into the dark wide awake now.

1:54 am

sometimes when it gets hard, I pretend I’m me from 20 years in the future and he’s all grown up and moved out but I’m getting a second chance to relive a memory, coming into this moment, missing all the special baby closeness I had with him so long ago.

11/22/22

it’s not just the waking up all night to nurse; it’s also, while i’m lying in bed trying to sleep, the dread thinking about when the next time i’ll be woken up will be (usually every 2-3 hours, more or less). this lack of peace now, compared to when i was childless and would lie down knowing i wouldn’t wake again til morning. This pretty much 100% certainty of broken sleep each and every night- it’s a kind of sinking feeling i’ve gotten used to. there’s this underlying feeling of “why bother” going to sleep when i’m always about to be woken up anyway.

11/24/22

I don’t think I’ve ever said to anyone before, “I’m going to try to take a shower,” but I said it to R tonight, while the baby was sleeping, and we both understood what I meant. before the baby, it was always just, “I’m going to take a shower.”

11/25/22

I had a thought today that maybe a reason people insist on you getting married before having children is because of the possibility of children aging you and bringing so much turmoil and upheaval into your life that you need the like bond of marriage before you go through all that, or else you would leave each other/be more inclined to split up just to get away from it all?

today was left alone with the baby from when we went to sleep last night (and he woke up all night to nurse as usual) until this morning when he woke up for the day finally and I was so tired all I wanted to do was just have a few hours’ interrupted sleep but I had to get up with him because no one was here and rodrigo had left early for work while we were still in bed, and all day it was just baby and I, him needing constant attention and love and care, and me just trying to fit things in like brush teeth and eat or drink something, him pulling at my clothes and my pant leg needing me every minute unless he was sleeping (which he only took approx one hour nap), and at one hyper point again (for like the second time this month) hit the back of his head on my lip which bled and left a dark red mark right in the middle of my lip, and later while nursing he bit me and was laughing even though I said “no” seriously, it was late afternoon and the biting was just kind of the hair that broke the camel’s back and made me start crying cause it hurt on top of everything else, and it was during this cry when I had this disturbing thought: “I can’t kill him now because there’s so many photos and videos of him on Facebook, that people would notice he was gone.” And that I had such a horrible thought about an innocent baby made me cry harder. I noticed though, that i only have these kinds of thoughts when I’m pushed to the limit, which is when I have no one to help me all day. i realized i really need a break in the morning- that is, for someone to take him when he wakes up, so I can sleep uninterrupted by myself after a night of constant interruption. If I have this kind of help, I don’t have these thoughts.

weighed myself yesterday at parents, i was 88.4. idk. Still eating as much as i want, but my sleep schedule still messed up from night nursing. my undies and pants that fit well before are now like falling off. and it’s annoying. I’m not spending money on new clothes; I’m just gonna grow back to my usual size when I can sleep like normal again.

11/15/22

from the beginning, breastfeeding has felt like a ball and chain to me: constantly, and at any given moment, tied down unmoving and still in one place, often for hours. And that hasn’t really changed; it’s still like that. But i realize it’s – at the same time- this connection to baby that he has with no one else. Day and night, he calls “mama mama mama.” The other day, he was running to me and i stuck my arm out just to keep him away for a second and he bounced off it, his top-heavy head toppling him back and i cringed as he landed on it. An accident that I felt terrible for. Still, even after that (he was crying from the fall) and mom was taking him away to play so i could work, he still called for me. i can’t fathom needing someone that much, or thinking you need someone that much. And i don’t even know if it’s the breastfeeding…could it be just the amount of time we spend together (all day and night)?

11/16/22

last night when he was sucking on my right nipple it was so irritated and sensitive i had to basically pull it out during suction (and it always amazes me how much of it is in his mouth, i always underestimate that) and stick the left side in (he protested but not much, cause i did it quick and he was half asleep). i really think Silverettes saved my life in terms of breastfeeding tho- i think things would have been so much worse without them. They’re worth the like $67/pair and within a few weeks completely healed the irritated area I had back in like June, and it hasn’t come back (and I had the irritation for months and months).  I really wasn’t sure what to think when I first bought them, but I guess you just have to try new things sometimes if you want to discover some treasure.

kind of…monumental day, for me, tho no one else would notice. today he went 7, almost 8 hours (during the day) without breastfeeding. He usually does it every 3-4 hours. he has been eating more lately, and this morning he ate eggs  and strawberries with grandpa and later puffs and maybe more quail eggs and other stuff with granny. same foods, but just he’s been eating more quantities of it. It does seem like he’s slowly weaning himself because of these reasons. It made me feel …better, A bit relieved. That we’re going forward, and this cycle of nonstop breastfeeding won’t be forever.

11/17/22

what if, even when everything seems the most messed up it can be and out of alignment and just not right, like with your skin, what if you embraced the mindset of any current situation you are in as being perfect? Perfect not as in the ideal situation, but perfect as in complete, not striving for anything, nothing wrong with it. While it’s true I am always trying to move towards the goal of healing my skin, I just realize there’s also this mind place that is the healthiest place for my mind to be in: that there is nothing wrong with me. That every step of the journey is beautiful, whether I get there finally or not. I’m lucky just to be here. I’m lucky just to have life and energy and intellect to keep trying, regardless of whether i make it to where I really hope to go.

11/19/22

tonight during the hyper-energetic burst he gets right before falling asleep, he banged his face against mine and hit my lip with his teeth so hard my lip was bleeding and it hurt so much that my left eye was tearing.