How would you describe those first few weeks?

[glitterkitty]

I was thinking of how to describe it realistically to a childless friend... this is my description.

Like being woken at various times throughout the night and made to put little glass beads on a metal tray in little batches of three, then carrying them gently to a very high shelf and sliding the tray on without moving a single bead- or you have to go back and start again.

Then when you finally do it right and go back to bed someone comes along and smashes the tray to the ground and you have to start over. This might happen 1 hour after you went back to bed- or 5 hrs or 5 mins. Random is the key.

At 5am you get up.

Repeated every night for 3 months.

Whats would yours be?

that no matter how planned and how desperate you were for a child, there will be one moment in that first night home with the new baby where you think "What the hell have I let myself in for"

i loved it, it was dreamy - then you're suddenly jolted into real life again

a blur......that gets even more blurrier with each subsequent child

Lovely
Both times, as well... I know i've been v v lucky

I know I wouldn't change a thing BUT despite nearly everyone we know having kids and saying it's hard work, we were still unprepared and overwhelmed and are just taking each day as it comes in hope it will get easier.

Like the start of a big love affair - when you forego sleep for other pleasures and are content to just gaze at your new love for hours on end and where no demands made on you seem at all unreasonable

Second time round it is the same but more like an illicit love affair as you desperately try to avoid your DC1 seeing the extent of your love for the new attraction lest they be consumed by envy. Guilty love perhaps!

my first baby is now nearly a month old and i'd say the last three weeks have been totally exhausting, overwhelming, and incredible..nothing on earth prepares you for it, but it's just an amazing experience - so glad I did it but there have been many low moments(mainly due to exhaustion!) and i'm sure there will be many more to come!

Definitely a blur. Have never been on drugs but imagine that the feeling might be similar. I remember people talking to me but they sounded so far away....

Was strangely contented though. And loved it all 3 times.

A blur, definitely. And a new discovery of yourself including a whole host of 'soft spots' you never thought you'd have like being really touched when strangers say 'how sweet' or getting hugely upset when your mother says something casual about 'starting a bath routine' or being completely unable to stick up for yourself when dealing with health professionals when you were previously and assertive and on-the-ball kinda chick or... etc

lol, I was just going to say "a blur". And sometimes horrendous. But I get a warm, fluffy feeling thinking back to it all.

I was highly anxious about everything, severely sleep deprived and recovering from major surgery. So not the best time in my life, then. :-)

I'd do it all again, though.

I would say 'hell on earth'

Hell.

ktnoo - If drug experience was anything like this, far less people would be taking drugs.

Utter bliss - but I'm weird that way!

op - you'd frighten anyone off with that response.

I would say "it's the hardest work you'll ever do, but it's the easiest because you really want to do it"

I always tell first time mothers to be that in the last few weeks of pregnancy they should sleep and sleep as much as they can and conciously try to enjoy and appreciate it because after giving birth you'll be on call 24/24!

that the huge surge of emotion towards the little being in oyur care overwhelms anything felt before and significantly puts all your worries/angst/self absorbation whatever in perspective.
its a most precious time.

insanity

the first few weeks are the calm before the storm, at 6 weeks i seem to recall, they find their voice!

surreal. looking back I don't know where the time went. why was it so hard to even brush my teeth before tea-time?

Like I was in a tunnel. No beginning or end, just a continuous round of light and dark.

I could'nt tell you the day let alone date for the first 6 months.

Foggy, fuzzy haze of utter exhaustion.

But through all that, I felt elated and smug that I had produced this dazzling creature.

First time was revelatory. I didn't know I could work so hard.
Second time was weeks and weeks of catching projectile vomit and no sleep from cleaning up vomit and worrying about him choking on vomit. With a toddler to look after as well.

Exhausting. The hardest work I've ever done. And at a few (bleak) times, desperate and regretful - (to be fair there was only one occasion when I leant on the handle of the pram, with ds screaming, the dog barking, and me sobbing 'what have I done??!'). I love my ds more than anything ever, but nothing can really prepare you for the rollercoaster of those first few terrifying weeks!!