Revelations

Greetings from new mom land, loyal blog readers! It took me almost exactly 8 weeks to get my self together enough (or rather, to clear my mind for long enough - turns out that whole "pregnancy brain" phenomenon gets to be even more of a problem in the post partum period) to scrape together an entry. But here I am. I might be carrying a sleeping baby on my chest in a baby bjorn while bouncing on a large exercise ball (best trick ever, by the way) while typing, but hey, I'm here. Triple tasking. That is the name of the game these days.

As you all may have gathered, I did not, in fact, become the first woman to be pregnant forever, as I seriously had thought might be the case. I had a beautiful baby boy at 39 weeks 4 days. Yes, all you Asian women - it was a boy all along. You were all correct. Except for the half Vietnamese half Caucasian baby who stood on my belly and raised a foot. But you can't trust babies to be consistent on anything. This much I've learned for sure in 8 weeks.

My first revelation as a new mom (or as it was at that point, a soon to be new mom) was that delivering babies as a doctor in no way prepares you to deliver your own. I will spare the gory details, but in sum will state that labor is no f@#*ing joke. I have new found respect for all women everywhere who have birthed. Especially the Yupik women in Bethel, Alaska who often do it with nary a peep. And those native Alaskan babies be chunky, folks! Mine was a little peanut at 6 lbs 13 oz, though it felt less like a peanut and more like a watermelon covered in razor blades on the way out. But enough vivid imagery.

My second revelation has been that most of those cliches are true. It is the most amazing thing. You do forget (in a mere few weeks) the trauma of childbirth. Your baby IS the cutest, most brilliant baby ever to happen upon this earth. And time does really fly. The past 8 weeks have been a complete blur. I always hated it when I asked people with toddlers what it was like to have a newborn and the reply was, invariably, "I honestly can't remember it at all." I always wondered if these people were secretly boozing it up in their child's first year. But, no. I think it's more like hormones + extreme sleep deprivation + hormones + altered circadian rhythms + hormones = amnesia. And it's probably a good thing. Otherwise we'd have a whole lotta only children running around.

My third revelation has been, much like revelation numero uno, is that being a doctor in no way prepares you for not only birth, but also newborn care, and the general post partum period. Specifics that would fall on this list:

1. breast feeding. Super hard! Tres time consuming. And whatever time you are not actually breast feeding the child is spent worrying about something breast feeding related. (Is he getting enough? Too much? Am I choking him? Is he fussy because of something I ate? Should I eliminate dairy? )

2. sleep deprivation. It's nothing like being on call! Because when you're on call, you are in short time "off call." Turns out, there is no post call rest up day with a newborn.

3. general newborn care issues. Something about being sleep deprived and being actually responsible for a human has made me question many things I know the text book answers to. But when it is your little being that you are sustaining, it is a different story. (Why is he sneezing so much? When will the baby acne go away? Is he too hot? Too cold? Getting enough tummy time? Why does he spit up?)

4. post partum issues. Why doesn't anyone tell you at your 6 wk post partum visit (or hey, maybe even at a prenatal care visit) that it's normal to not be able to fit into your clothes?! Or that crying every day for the first 2 weeks is status quo?

But all in all, we are doing really well here in our new reality. He's a pretty darned good baby (and obviously the most adorable one ever). And on the upside I'm certain this experience will make me an infinitely better provider of prenatal, post partum, and newborn care. If I could only get my mind clear enough to actually think medically again. I guess that will come, like most things at this point in my life, with some time and patience.