I’m not sure where to begin really but here goes my rambling:
I didn’t have an easy pregnancy, there was a lot of morning sickness for 9 months, and I developed excruciating pains in my third trimester that at the time was always put down to acid reflux from several trips to hospital about it, resulting in being signed off work two months earlier than planned before baby boy was born. The labour was pretty traumatic too, forceps and heavy blood loss and anaemia, and prolonged baby jaundice. What follows is extreme tiredness as baby wants to feed every hour and refuses to sleep in the Moses basket at night so I have to hold him awake each night, having a nap in the day while my mum looks after him and partner is at work, and a very painful breastfeeding journey!
Fast forward two weeks postpartum, and the pains return, finally get booked in for a scan and gallstones confirmed, most likely caused by or worsened by pregnancy. Have several gallbladder attacks until fast forward to June 2023, little one just turned three months and experienced the worst pain ever, needing to be hospitalised for a week with pancreatitis and gallbladder finally removed, bypassing an 18 month waiting list.
It all started to get a little better and brighter when I no longer lived under the fear of gallbladder attacks, baby slept better in the big cot only waking once or twice a night, and I moved to formula milk so he was feeding less often and I didn’t have the breastfeeding pain.
Everything became harder again with weaning on to food (he’s not particularly fussy but I really struggled worrying if he was getting a balanced diet, when to drop milk feeds without affecting his night sleep, sticking to purées for longer than I should etc) and then harder again when baby started crawling and into everything and literally not a moment to myself to even think.
His sleep has been amazing at times the older he’s got, every week several nights he’d sleep 7.30pm to 7-8am, through the night, the dream!! However he’s 10 months and I’ve just returned to work full time (the only option for us money wise), he’s in nursery three days a week and with my parents for two days.
He had settling in sessions before Christmas and got ill soon after with a stomach virus plus teething, and now I’ve been at work for one week and he’s ill again with a cough, cold and conjunctivitis. Bless him, he must feel awful. His sleep is awful since nursery too, wakes up screaming like nothing I’ve heard before.
Two tired stressed out parents who worry with every illness and snap at each other throughout the day, it’s like the newborn days again. I know he’s going to be ill from nursery for a while yet, and I have to remember it’s immune system building, but the worry is awful!
I’m not sure what I’m even really asking with this post, I guess I just want promises that parenthood does become more enjoyable more than it’s not, that it does become less hard work? That it will all click into place, or should it have gone by baby being 10 months old already?
I want to feel like myself again but sometimes I just look in the mirror and I don’t recognise my body, I question if any clothes even look good on me anymore and the constant being needed each day is wearing me out a bit. But all part and parcel of what we signed up to in parenthood I guess.
I love my baby so much, when he laughs and smiles and wants to be cuddled it’s pure magic, but I do crave the simplicity of my old life and I’m very much put off the idea of another baby by the horrible pregnancy, birth and all the first year worries so far.
Anyway, hope my ramblings make sense and maybe helps another mum identify with this too, to know we’re not alone in feeling this way.