Thanks, everyone, for sharing your stories and kind words. As always, it means so much to me. I’ve been re-reading your comments a lot these past few days.
I am not miraculously better but I am in a better state. I’m still not getting as much sleep as we’d like, but we’re doing OK. I’m trying to be more mindful of napping when she naps, but it’s tough as we’re simultaneously trying to get her to sleep less on us and more on her own. I can hear the eyes rolling from here on some of you, but it’s a choice we’re making. Having her on me so much is just as mentally taxing as anything else, and it’s the battle we’re choosing.
(That said, I was really licked last night and opted to do a four-hour stint in the glider with her, rather than go through the production of swaddling her, bouncing her and using the white noise track for 35 minutes only to get about 2.5-3 hours of sleep.)
Tomorrow my dad is coming to visit, and Wednesday my sister is coming over. I’m getting my hair done in the afternoon, and Scott and I are going out to dinner for my birthday. Thursday two of my in-laws (father and stepmother-in-law) are coming and on Friday my mother-in-law will be here.
We are blessed and well taken care of, I know. Though I know that this sort of help was absolutely necessary and vital to me getting better, it feels excessive. Do I really need daily intervention? Deep down, I know the answer is “Yes, right now, yes.” A colicky, refluxy baby and a mother with postpartum depression make it so. We’re lucky to have this sort of support, so I’m trying to keep my hands off the wheel and let them all steer for a while.
Thursday is my first appointment with a therapist. My midwife found me someone local, who has worked with patients with the midwife group before. I’m not looking forward to this visit as much as I am the family members who are all coming by to so I can sleep, but I know they go hand in hand right now.
Yesterday I read all of Brooke Shields’ postpartum memoir. So much of her experience rang eerily true, down to the things she told herself and thought. I was worried that reading it would set me off somehow – after days of not a negative thought crossing through my brain – but it didn’t. It gave me hope and, like so many things of its nature, helped me to feel less alone.
The appointment with the midwives went fine – I had to take the same postpartum screening and I scored five points higher on Friday than I did on Tuesday but it was still in the “fail” zone. Everything else checked out fine, though I’m still not allowed to do much more in the way of exercising than fast walking and yoga. I’m going to give this until the end of the month, but there is no way in heck I’m going to manage this whole depression thing if I can’t at least begin to jog a little bit.
The good news is that Abigail is taking naps during the day in her swing, which has given me some breathing room. And when she wakes up? I’m so excited to see her and play with her, though I’m careful to let her explore things on her own, which basically means not hovering over her when she’s lying on her playmat. I’ve gotten much better at putting her down, but it’s a challenge at night.
With the colic, she won’t just fall asleep. Colicky babies don’t work like that, at least ours doesn’t. Around 6 p.m. – the infamous witching hour – it’s like a switch goes off in her and I could be sitting with her, like I was tonight, feeding her 5 oz of the formula with a rice thickening agent in it, and have her pass the hell out in my arms. If it was 2:30 p.m.? I could move her to the swing and there she’d stay sleeping. At this time of night? Holy hell. The screaming. It’s blood-curdling. And there is nothing else wrong – she’s been rocked, burped, changed, cuddled and fed. Tonight we just left her up there for 20 minutes. We had to or we’d lose our minds.
Scott is up there with her now, presumably getting her down for the rest of the night. It’s now 9 p.m., and no matter routine we do, it always ends like this and will until she gets older and grows out of it. It’s this 3- to 4-hour slog every night just to get her to settle down and sleep at all that led us to just put her in her crib and not on us. Those of you who have been there know what I’m talking about. It’s soul-sucking, and it pretty much goes on until the next morning.
And we’re lucky. At least Abigail will settle down by 8 a.m., and the blood-curdling screaming stops and she acts like a normal baby. Others, I know, aren’t so lucky.
So yeah. I guess I need to take all of the help I can get right now.
She giggles and smiles and coos now. And she’s learning so much every day, and holy smacks is she a chatty girl. Honest to Pete, the girl is a talker. It’s making our days together a lot brighter. Our nights are still something akin to using a toilet in a crack den but our days are getting better. According to you all, the nights will come soon.
Things are getting better. I’m not sure what we’d do without all of these wonderful people in our lives, but I’m grateful.
And now it’s 9:21 p.m. and the baby is asleep in her crib. Since I don’t know how long it’ll last, I’m off to bed.
Thanks for your authenticity!
I’m glad it’s getting better. It’s true, the nights will get better soon too, but I know that it feels like a long-ass time. I know it’s hard to let people help, it was hard for me, too, but you have to just lean into it for a little while. Think of how you’d treat a friend in this situation and then treat yourself that way. Anthony was more like Abigail, about 7-7, but at least he slept some in there. My husband has a friend whose first baby was colicky, screaming and wide awake, from 2:00 in the afternoon until 2:00 in the morning for months. Ugh. Anyways, I am thinking of you, as always, hang in there.
I’m glad that you’re starting to see the light. I understand from sad experience how devastating it feels to go through the reflux, the colic, the PPD. Like you, we went through a not-what-we-envisioned labor & delivery with our much-wanted first baby (also an Abigail), and there were so many times that I thought the last day I was happy about having a baby was the day before I had her. (And then hated myself even more for feeling that way.) Abigail did two things – cried and slept – but she never slept more than an hour at a stretch those first few months. She would sleep on me, and she would (sometimes) sleep in the car. Swaddle? Hah! She would mostly stop crying if you danced energetically, but there was no one in our house at 3am up to dancing but her.
One of the few very clear memories I have of those weeks was sitting in the ‘new moms’ support group and saying as a matter-of-fact update that we were all going to die from the crying and lack of sleep. I couldn’t quite envision any other possible outcome at that point.
I am sitting here crying just remembering those days. But…getting the right treatment for the reflux helped. Time helped. Friends and family were…well, they saved me in ways that they probably can’t understand to this day. Over time, somehow that magical thing happened and the colic and reflux got better and she turned into a happy, cheerful, amazing baby. She started sleeping. Regularly. Deeply. And one day I realized that she took regular naps and slept through the night every night.
And now she is five (Five!) and an amazing, fun, cool, sweet kid and an amazing big sister to her two-year-old sister (who never gave us a single problem with sleeping or colic and whose reflux was easy as pie to manage). She is one of my favorite people in the world, and I would go through every minute of those first months again to get to where we are today. You and your Abigail will get there too.
Good for you for taking care of yourself! Happy mama = happy baby! I too loved Brooke Shield’s book.
Hang in there. My sisters who have had kids told me there is a theory about the first three months being a fourth trimester. It will get better, and you are doing so well to get the help you need during this tough period.
It will get better, but you actively seeking out help will make it get better faster. I’m really glad you’re sharing all of this, too; I had terrible, TERRIBLE ppd and didn’t feel like I could tell anyone. I remember sitting on the couch, crying and wishing desperately that I didn’t have my children, didn’t have my life, just wanting something to change. Thanks to every deity out there that I never hurt any of us, but there were times that I was on the cusp of simply losing my shit. Postpartum depression is real and scary, but it’s also something that we *don’t* have to suffer through. I’ll be sending lots of healing thoughts your way and hope that every day is just a little bit better than the one before.
I had a colicky baby from about 6pm to midnight, with 8pm to midnight being the worst. My husband and I would take two hour shifts to keep our sanity. My daughter is now 10, but I remember how trying and stressful those days were.
It will pass, true. But meanwhile, keep looking after your own needs and accepting help.
Also, when I was on maternity leave I tried to do too much–laundry, cleaning, etc. while taking care of my first baby.
I now realize that maternity leave is all about focusing on the transition to motherhood. Some days, that felt like my full time job and that’s okay!!
Becoming a mother–and all that it entails–is a major life transition. To me, it made the transition of getting married seem like a walk in the park. It’s huge. It can be overwhelming.
hang on. take care. keep writing and sharing. we’re listening.
Thanks Erin for your authenticity. I am so thankful you are getting help for all three of you!
I don’t know what it is about the dreadful 6pm hour, but I can so relate….colicky baby everynight for three months from 6pm to midnight. I could not understand how a baby could scream and cry for six hours straight and not be completely exhausted! If you can survive the first 100 days, you will be fine. You are doing it! One day at a time, you will make it. Then, you have to deal with the other stuff, like some 16-year-old boy showing up on your doorstep to take Abigail to the prom!!!! Hang in there. I want to commend you for you honest writing, you are helping so many out there who are in similar situations.
I don’t have much to say other than I’m so proud to know you. You are a total inspiration.
I would like to join the throng thanking you for writing honestly. I wish I would have been able to read this last summer, when I was going through the same thing. I didn’t even have a colicky baby, and yet I felt enormous guilt putting him down, even to, as you said, let him explore and experience his surroundings without me hovering! I may be one of the few who relished (rather than dreaded) my child being more mobile, because now I have a better idea of when he wants to play/be with me and when he’d rather play on his own!