Fantasy Versus Reality

Scene:

A woman and her husband make the decision to have a baby.  They begin talking and planning and fantasizing, knowing exactly how they want everything to go.

“I’ll never get frustrated with our little angel.”

“I know!  I’ll always put her down when she’s sleepy, but not asleep.  We wouldn’t want her to be unable to self-soothe…”

Then, just over ten months later:

“Take her!  I can’t handle it!”
“I’ll give her a boob.  That’ll put her to sleep!”

Sound familiar?  This is exactly how things are going for us!  I think we need to cut ourselves a little slack when it comes to the fantasy parenthood we planned.  New parents have no idea how things are going to go, no matter how many books they’ve read on the subject.  This has been a difficult lesson for me to learn.  What follows is an account of the fantasies Dan and I had before Alice came along versus the reality we live in now.  

“I’ll never deviate from the recommended diet while I’m pregnant.  That way I’ll never get morning sickness, lose energy, or have trouble at all!”

Right.  Though my morning sickness was manageable, only sending me running for the bathroom a handful of times, I didn’t have much of an appetite.  I especially didn’t have an appetite for the large amounts of dairy and protein recommended by WAPF (my chosen diet).  All I wanted was bread and crackers, and that’s pretty much all I ate!  Forget about fish and vegetables; I wanted nothing to do with them.  My energy waned to nothing, and I struggled in many areas.  Why?  BECAUSE I WAS PREGNANT.  No shame in that.  I didn’t do anything dangerous for the baby, and we all came out of it just fine.

“I’ll never get an epidural.  It’s only one day of pain.  I can handle it.”

One day.  Ha!  I labored for thirty-five hours, three of them on pitocin.  After twenty-two, I’d had enough.  I wanted those drugs!  You know what?  I’m proud of myself and everything, but that epidural was the best thing in the world, and I’d do it again!

“IF I give my baby a pacifier AT ALL, I’ll wait at at least six weeks so that I don’t ruin her latch.”

Just shy of two weeks postpartum, I sat crying in my grandmother’s wooden rocker.  Dan had run out to the store and Alice had been screaming for I-don’t-know-how-long for no reason that I could find.  Less than five feet away sat a clean, beautiful, plastic pacifier.  I told myself it wasn’t worth it.  I told myself I could rock her to sleep and it would be alright.  I told myself that Dan would be home soon to help.  To no avail.  I needed respite.  The nuk was suddenly in my hand, and as I looked down into that crunchy, purple face, I knew I would lose this battle.  In popped the pacifier, and silence reigned.  Her relieved blue eyes fluttered closed behind long lashes; mine sobbed fat tears.  I just knew she’d never nurse again!  Right.  When feeding time came around, she latched right on and went to town.  Turns out she was harder to ruin than I thought she would be.

“I’ll never nurse the baby to sleep, it’ll create bad habits.”

Nothing to say about this.  I do it all the time.  It works.  Maybe I’ll regret it later.

“The baby will certainly never sleep in our bed.  That co-sleeping thing is weird.”

We transitioned Alice to her nursery after one month.  It went well!  It was tiring to nurse or change her, however, because she had to be deeply asleep before she would let me leave her alone to go back to bed.  The process of unswaddling, nursing, changing, re-swaddling, and soothing all the way to sleep took about an hour each time.  At three to four times a night, I was losing a lot of sleep.  No problem...until I went back to work.  

I couldn’t function.  Dan and I discussed it and decided it wouldn’t hurt her to sleep in the bassinet a little while longer.  It was such a relief to me, and I was happy with it, until we got the stomach flu.  I was terrified that she would throw up and aspirate, so I brought her into the bed with us, “just this once.”  The ease of nursing was shocking!  She still sleeps with us to this day.  Even Dan was supportive when he saw what a difference it was making in my life.  He wasn’t married to a zombie anymore.  We plan to slowly transition her back to the nursery when I finish work, but for now this arrangement is perfect.  Plus, it’s actually nice to have her tiny body snuggling up against my side while we sleep.

I could go on and on, but the point is this: you never know what parenting will be like until you’re in the thick of it.  It’s okay not to fit the ideal you set up before Baby was born.  In fact, I daresay it’s part of the fun!  The key is to go with the flow, and to give your baby the most love you possibly can.