June post partum

June 11, 2018

(3/9/2019 note: I think this was more of a reflective piece, rather than an entry capturing my current state. We had come back from Italy a few days ago, I think, so the travel exhaustion triggered all these thoughts on the many stages of exhaustion I had felt)

A school of exhaustion 

• Motherhood has schooled me in how to put one foot in front of the other while exhausted. It is still so difficult 
• First pregnancy exhaustion: Nausea knocked me back a lot. Spent hours every day on the couch watching TV during the worst of it (about 6-8 weeks).  
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• Then iron deficiency. At the end of every day it felt like I had run 15 miles. That is not an exaggeration. I have run 13 before and that was exhausting, but then I felt like I had gone well past that. 
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• The middle of the night exhaustion in the beginning: Tearing yourself from your bed is a difficult process. You are fighting against so much inertia. But, because it's the early days of having a baby, you can still manage to feel refreshed after a few solid hours of sleep.   
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• Then the 7-month exhaustion, when the adrenaline of a new baby has worn off ages ago, the months of slept debt have accumulated, and the rest of your life is coming at you 100%.  To top it off, the constant bickering with your spouse is mentally and emotionally exhausting. In this period I never felt "turned off." Up and at it in the morning with school, getting home in the evening to put Charlotte to bed, helping Daniel with homework until late at night, waking up once or twice to feed Charlotte during the night. There was no reset button, just a constant cycle of having to do something at least every couple of hours, night and day. This is the most soul-crushing exhaustion where I felt like I was doing everything wrong and nothing would ever change. My joints ached, my throat always hurt (probably from all the yelling at Daniel) and I felt like I was running a slight fever all the time.  
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• The wired exhaustion. Many a night I have laid in bed unable to sleep despite being exhausted because of deep anxiety about something. Usually it was about how long Charlotte would sleep. When we were sleep training her, I dreaded hearing her cry and then forcing myself to sit through it. The dread would keep me up, one time I didn't sleep at all.  
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• The travel exhaustion. Being all the above exhausted, but just in a new place.  
• June 29, 2018
• Charlotte's birthday is rounding the corner and I feel like I'm preparing myself to say goodbye to someone. It's the same feeling I had before Ali went in her mission. An undercurrent of dread and then a sudden tsunami of emotions when the car pulls away from her sister's wedding reception and you can't help crying even though Jordan and Zach are singing "I want you in my room boom boom boom," as an attempt to lighten the mood. It seems ridiculous to cry. It seems ridiculous not to.  
  
  
  Changing out Charlotte's 12 month clothes for 18 month clothes was the trigger. I shed some tears. I could hardly bear to look at her newborn clothes. Her activity, her independence had hinted that she was growing up. I can't help wonder where I was when all this changed happened. Crazed from sleep deprivation or sweating bullets trying to get everything done. Or just bored of watching Charlotte be Charlotte but not realizing that I could perhaps be watching her do something for the last time, like rolling instead of crawling to get somewhere.  
  
  
  
  
  I went to Laura Marostica's baby shower today. I gave her some solicited advice. But I want to tell her so much more! Mostly to validate the human experience of becoming a parent. Ask me anything I secretly begged all night. Oh my gosh, so many feelings seeing the tiny clothes and swaddles. Once upon a Time we swaddled Charlotte and she was just a mewing kitten.