Dear God
Okay Bobbie. You’ve made comments about being wasted in the weeks after giving birth, and I’m so finally there with you. I’m so exhausted. I have all these thoughts rumbling around that I want to think and read and write about, as well as physical tasks I’d love to accomplish, but I’m just so tired. It’s all I can do to keep the baby fed and happy today. And me. Last night I participated in a panel discussion on blogging and spirituality (Karen, Chris and Sarah were fellow panelists) – a really great-hearted group around the table – and it so reminded me how much I love discussing things with people. But wow, being involved in such things is such a bigger ordeal now than before (husband needing to be available for childcare, trying to time feeding the baby right before I leave [let alone showering], pumping afterwards, etc.). I feel my hunger for intellectual stimulation and engagement with adults, my love for my baby and mothering, and exhaustion almost in equal measures today.
When do babies start sleeping through the night? Or maybe a better question: When will this baby? When he does, a whole new day will dawn for me I think. Right now, though, night – or the fatigue most of us associate with it – stretches all around the clock.
Last night we were asked if blogging, for us, is at all like prayer. I said yes.
Amen.
September 28th, 2005 at 4:43 pm
please know i didn’t wish that on you at all! so wish i could have heard you all the other night - i’m sure you helped a lot of people understand much more about the blogging world. it is a prayer for me many times too.
i’m 1/2 way through deep river and it is becoming a ‘friend’.
you can email me if you want my 2 cents about sleeping babies - i hate to leave ‘advice’ that is unsolicited, it can sound so bossy and know it all. praying for a good stretch of sleep for you tonight!
September 28th, 2005 at 5:20 pm
My twins started sleeping “through the night” (meaning 4.5 - 6 hours) at 13 weeks. They were 6 weeks premature, so hopefully 13 is a bit late for a term baby. Now, at 15 weeks, they sleep around 10 pm-3:30, then 4-7 am. I sleep then, too, then again from 7:30-9 am, and that gets me through the day. The nightly crying, and the 3-hour feedings, were going to do me in by week 10. I was fatigued beyond what I had ever known before. It finally got better - less crying, more sleeping - on all our parts.
People gave me lots of advice for how to get them to sleep (and how to stop crying), but I think it was just time. I believe their brains developed, and tummies too, to a point where they could sleep longer. I don’t think our tricks helped at all, except to give us somethign to do while we waited.
Such hard, hard work and such joy. I love your first paragraph. I, too, long for all I used to have (unencumbered time and energy, work, a social life), but also love this new kind of life more than I can describe.
September 29th, 2005 at 1:40 pm
Sleeping through the night varies–sometimes it takes months, and sometimes it is only weeks. This is a really exhausting time of life, but our selective memory will dull the fatigue and later you’ll remember the good stuff. Same with childbirth itself. If we remembered everything, there wouldn’t be any more babies.
September 29th, 2005 at 3:00 pm
Okay, so I developed mastitis through the night. Woke up shaking incontrollably and am fighting a fever of over 102. Just started antibiotics. This too will pass…right???
Thank you Bobbie, Jenell and Fran. Bobbie, by all means feel free to share some tips. My email address is in the sidebar.
Back to bed…
September 29th, 2005 at 3:01 pm
Oh yeah…and I’m so glad you’re liking Deep River! Quite a remarkable book.
September 30th, 2005 at 9:15 am
Hmmm… is blogging like petitionary prayer? Our blog posts have intersected…
Yeah, I guess the baby crying thing at night seems to last forever while it’s happening, I have a friend going through the same thing.