"I had a life I liked before"

I am OK, but am worried about my best friend (she's in danger), and if anyone who prays could pray for K, that would be lovely.

I just pulled this out of the comments from last week:

"I feel unmoored and defeated. I had a life I liked before I got pregnant. I knew it would mean giving up at least my career to have a baby. And it has. I don't mean to be melodramatic: I knew there was a cost, and I went in with my eyes open. I just didn't know that the cost was going to feel like it was... everything."

Have you ever been in the ocean, and a big wave comes and you close your eyes and take a breath and let the wave wash over you and it's scary but you know if you just stay still and keep kicking your legs you'll eventually break the surface once the wave passes?

Contrast that to seeing the wave coming and struggling to stay above it, kicking and clawing furiously and struggling struggling and feeling like it's sucking you under.

I think the first few weeks/months/years/decades of parenting are like being in the ocean and having wave after wave come. If you know it's coming, and it's going to be scary and not AT ALL like standing on dry land was, you can accept that and let yourself go under while it passes. And then your head is above water again. It's not like standing on dry land was. Ever. But floating and swimming and turning into a mermaid can be just as much if not more fun once you're used to it.

If you fight and berate yourself for not seeing the wave coming or for going out into the ocean in the first place or for not loving the wave or not floating on top of it, though, it can really suck you under.

I don't know if that analogy is useful or just strikes you as stupid, but it's how I've always seen the enormous cosmic hazing of the first few months of mothering. Like everything you thought you knew is taken away from you, and you have to build yourself back into place, piece by piece.

Did anyone else experience this? Did anything help you feel more connected to your baby and to your new role and your new life?

Comments

[rkmama]

Beautifully said. Luckily I was able to let it wash over me and my life is different, harder but truly so much better now that I've broken the surface (for now), but it could have, so very easily, gone the other way.
Sending good thoughts and support to those who are struggling. Hopefully you have someone to tread water with but if not, the moxie community is always here kicking and thrashing right along with you.

[Carrie]

I felt like this the first 18 months or so. The things that really helped me were 1) Going to the gym every day. That hour and a half of childcare was my savior. Not my ideal type of alone time, but I could read my book and be happy. Now I am into classes and have discovered a whole new social network.

2) Doing the rounds of moms groups. It took three tries before I found a group I liked and made friends who I really enjoyed, but it was well worth the angst (I'm naturally shy). I figured out that in order to make friends in these groups I had to be friendly. I just pretended like I was outgoing and fun and for some reason people believed it. Life is so much better for having friends we can hang out with during the day.

[sarah]

I'm not sure how old the poster's child is but, in my experience, your life does come back in stages. I was quite miserable for the first year and resentful of giving up my exciting and rewarding career, which I had worked towards my whole life. My son is 2.5 now and I'm very happy to have made professional sacrifices to be available for him. Once he started daycare at 18 months I returned to exercise and 'me time' and now, a year later, I feel like I have my own life back with the added bonus of a magnificent toddler who brings me more joy than anything else. Which raises the question, and I willing to do it all over again for another baby? And, I truly don't know the answer to that question as I am finally truly, deeply happy again after being rather miserable for the first 12-18 months of my son's life.

[Erica]

Such a timely post for me. I definitely felt that way for the first year, which I still see in my memory as grey. I think part of my problem was that I didn't even see the wave coming, I had no idea how many sacrifices I'd have to make. It was getting better for awhile, then in the past month, the wave seems to be coming towards me again and things have become a struggle. In a lot of ways things are easier now that he's 21 months, but I still sometimes feel trapped, especially since he's not a great sleeper. Two years of sleep deprivation is pretty much just hell. At least he's a happy, outgoing, charming little boy outside the hours of 8 pm to 5 am.

[lauracamacho]

Even enjoying my 3 year old quite a lot these days, I have moments of that suffocation: "What the hell have I tied myself down to???" But I also cannot fathom what my life would look like without this burden of joy.

Here's something I wrote about a year ago, just before Dd was 2...

"Being a mother has been a really difficult and lonely journey for me. The first year was simply 12 months of survival mode; we were barely hanging in there for a while. After we got Sophia’s food sensitivities cleared up, there was a long period of inward-focused recovery time - our small shell-shocked family was finally getting the chance to get to know the real us.

When you become a parent, you put aside your self. You put aside selfishness. There is simply no room to be self-centered - this new little being requires every ounce of time and energy you have.

Right after Sophia was born, I realized that in some small way I was grieving the loss of my self as I’d known her - the loss of the girl who was Laura. My identity was stripped in the blink of an eye, from “Laura (woman, wife, friend, Warcraft-fanatic, cook, photographer, writer, book-lover, etc.)” to “Mommy.”

The subsequent years have been trying to recapture an identity that encompasses the all-consuming role of Mommy, without allowing it to swallow me whole.

It's hard. But I'm through enough of the really rocky parts to know that it CAN be worth it.

Now I'm starting all over again with a newborn in February, and all these doubts are starting to flood over me again! OMG - starting back at square one! AGH! :)

[heather]

I too had a difficult time when I became a mother. The hardest part for me was having someone need me & depend on me so totally and completely. I was used to being independent, then I had a baby and all of a sudden I was IT -- no one else would do but me.

What helped was understanding that it wouldn't last forever. I went back to organized sports (my 1 night a week out of the house!) when my baby was 5 months old. For 3 hours that night, my husband dealt with the baby -- it was a godsend.

During the day (when it was just me & the kid(s)) what helped was having a routine that involves getting out of the house at least once a day. Sometimes it's a playgroup, other days it's running errands. Seeing the outside world & interacting with other adults saves/saved my sanity.

My oldest is almost 3 now and my youngest is 7 months. I certainly wouldn't say I have my pre-kids life back, but it's slowly coming back in bits & pieces.

[scharkey]

I have a 10.5 mos old. I am working right now, but my contract is up in Feb. and I will be SAHM then. Part of me is looking forward to spending time with my little girl, but part of me is sad. I never in a million years pictured myself SAHM, and I don't know how I feel about it when I apply that label to myself. I don't think I will truly know until I've been there for awhile...

Just wanted to share.

[annonynonnynonny]

I still struggle with this a lot. In the 7 months before my pregnancy I married, moved away from my family, struggled to find work and then found an amazing job which (when I was childless) was head-spinningly big and glorious.

My pregnancy was physically wonderful and the darkest mental time of my life, my husband and I both knew that if pregnancy lasted a year instead of 40 weeks our marriage likely would not have survived. During the widowhood that preceded this marriage I was comfortable not seeking therapy or medication but considered both and tried one while I was pregnant.

Anyhow.

Now I have a toddler and we are making the effort to come out of survival mode (which for us lasted about the first year, it took some solid mobility and some sign language before it felt like there was a PERSON there to work with). I have lost my chance to finish my Masters in my 30s. It will be 3 years from my decision to run my first half-marathon to a chance to actually DO it. It has mauled my ability to get home to my family and twisted what happens when I get there (need to see great-grandma over my friends even though I only have 72 hours twice a year!!). I was just beginning to really develop as a cook in my own home and that has been thwarted by the need to feed an omnivore, a vegan, and a Shortstack who is trending vegetarian about 8 seconds after we all get home.

Shortstack is a great kid, and I like being a mom but if I was honest about it I liked NOT being a mom maybe a little bit more. For as drastic as the fork in the road of my life was - I can still see/feel/imagine what the road left behind would be and it HURTS because that was the road I always planned to be on.

As a data point, I kept working and still love my job but I was back "working" for about 8 months before my head really got back into it.

It would be easier to delete this. To let others speak and let their stories of coming through the wave bring you hope. I can see from the first few that they didn't clear the wave by the point that I am at ... so maybe that clearing will come for me too. But just in case it helps to hear that I can adore Shortstack and still be sad and hurt about the changes ... I'll hit post.

[texasanon]

I hate those damn mommy cards (sorry to those who use them) that say, "so and so's mommy". Yeah, I'm a mommy, but I'm so much more than that and I too grieved/grieve loss of time to do things that I love so dearly. I really liked Moxie's answer and lauracomacho's answer, it is a wave and we just have to go with it. It took me caring for my newborn niece to realize that it is SO MUCH EASIER without all the guilt, the worry, the "is she teething, is she cold, I think something's wrong" I'm trying my best to let go of all the worries and just be. Sleep deprivation just makes everything more intense, more nervous and hard to deal with. It took me a long time to come out of the fog and now I feel like I'm okay. My husband also had to grieve too, for loss of time with me, loss of my boobs, and loss of sleep for him too. It's helped that he's my best friend and we are honest and open about it, but we also have a dynamic, passionate, wonderful 2 year old who is in every way us.

[cs]

The first 6 months of my son's life I thought I was losing my mind. I'd given up a career I loved, and worked so hard for. I'd been driven and success-motivated since school age. honour role! international fellowship! running a company at 30! and then suddenly my life was reduced to trying to get poop stains out of onesies. And failing at it.
I struggled hard with the lack of "accomplishment" in a day. At work, you have a project, you work hard at it, you finish it, people commend you for your brilliance - it is so satisfying. As a SAHM, everything you do just needs to be redone at 2 hour intervals. And you can't help feeling completely inadequate at this new job, and it's an extra kick in the pants that you were so good at the old one.
But as my son got older, I got more of my life back. Some time to myself once he started solids and could drink from a sippy cup. And the rewards of all that work started to appear to me through all the funk. I have this lovely toddler who makes me happier than I could ever imagine.
It is an amazingly difficuly process to re-invent yourself to incorporate "Mother" into your life and still make room for the person you used to be. Be kind to yourself and give yourself the time to adjust. And try to make time for you - just you - a few times a week. Our next child will learn to drink from a bottle too at an early age. That's my only regret.

[texasanon]

Getting out of the fog took a couple of things:

(a)Taking care of some physical issues (I had to get a hip replacement)
(b) Sleep training a la various methods, including supernanny
(c) getting out of the house (with and without son) and
(d) wonderful mommy mentor Sharon (www.mommymentor.net I think)

[Sarah]

My first year with my first was hard hard hard. That first year with the subsequent 2 kids were not as hard by far. I like the wave analogy. I think it would have helped. I was pregnant unexpectedly - just a few years earlier than I would have planned. I learned I had no such control, not a bad lesson for all of life, really.

The thought that made the third so much easier, besides the fact that she sleeps like a dream, was that I knew this was a a phase. Diapers - 3 years and we'd be done. Preschool in 3 years. Full day school in 5. It isn't endless. With my first, the waves crashing felt like I would never ever surface. Maybe I would have to learn to live underwater. Do I know how to swim? With the third, I could see the shore.

[Jessica Star]

These days I feel as though I've given up everything, too. I thought that the life I had before could be "melded" with a baby, but as everyone here knows, it doesn't work that way. My previous life was shattered. And I was super pissed about it. I felt like no one had told me the truth and that maybe I wouldn't have given it all up if I had known. And as everyone said before, it took 12-18 months for me to absorb the shock of it and move on in any significant way. My little guy turns 2 this month and I'm still processing it all, still coming to terms with everything I've given up. But (not to sound cheesy) I've found things that fit into my new life and I try to focus on all the things I can do and all the ways my life has improved. It doesn't look at all like it did, but if I'm totally honest with myself, I wasn't 100% happy with everything BC. A lot of it was me doing what I thought I was supposed to be doing. And now, because my "me time" is so precious, I don't spend it doing anything but stuff that makes me happy. And as the little guy gets older, and the love we have in our little family just grows and grows, it feels worthwhile. (Most days...) And I'm enjoying this turn my life has taken. It's just another sign that I can't control everything. And how boring life would be if I could!

[Melissa]

I have a two year old. I'm still struggling with the mom part of the equation and haven't been able to let the waves crash over me.

Besides not being a good sleeper, she's a joy. But I feel sometimes it's more of a love/hate relationship of how I feel about actually being a mom and all that entails...i.e. loss of who I was before, always having company for going to the bathroom, different dynamic with my husband, lack of sleep on a whole new level my college days never competed with, etc.

[Becca]

Oh my gosh I LOVE this analogy! I went from being a lawyer at a large firm to stay at home mom to a (now) 4-month old and like the original commenter said, I knew things were going to change. I just didn't realize quite how overwhelmed I'd feel most of the time. Thank you for this, I really needed to hear it today.

PS: can I just say that I love the commenters on this site? You all are so open and honest and nonjudgemental. I don't comment a lot but you have all helped me a ton by sharing your experiences. So thank you all too. :)

[E-anon]

@Sarah 12:17 -- Thank you thank you thank you! All of these posts are WONDERFUL to read but yours really hit me. I'm pregnant with my 2nd and scared to death. The mommy thing hit me hard with my first (she's 16 months) and I still haven't recovered. The wave analogy is good; maybe I'm fighting it. I long for the days when I did what I want, when I wanted and had a career and could travel. But in life, the past often seems better now than it was when it was the present. And I can't imagine life without my daughter. I just can't wait until I feel like myself again. So, Jessica, you've calmed my fears greatly as I think about #2 being here next year. I'm going to look for the shore this time around. Thanks to all who are posting.

[Cloud]

I think I chimed in last week on this subject. It took me months, probably a full year, to find my new normal and truly be happy with it. The new normal doesn't have everything that the old normal had, but it incorporates the most important bits, albeit with some changes to accommodate the kids.

For me, going back to work was a big part of the adjustment- for better or worse, my work is a large part of my identity, and I needed to see how to incorporate that into my post-baby identity. For me personally, I would have had a harder time adjusting if I'd been adjusting to being a SAHM in addition to adjusting to being a mom. Those of you who are doing that- go easy on yourselves! It is a major adjustment. I totally agree with the previous poster who said that it is a bit of a shock to go from having days with accomplishments the rest of the world acknowledges to having a goal of getting poop stains out of baby clothes... and not succeeding. One of the best things going back to work did for me was make me feel competent again. (BTW, someone turned me on to using bar soap like Ivory to get the poop stains out, and it works better than anything else I've tried.)

My second daughter is just 2 months old, and I think one of the reasons I've had an easier time adjusting this time around is that I've already done the work of adding "mom" into my identity. I still occasionally look around and wonder "who are these little creatures who have strewn their toys around my living room, and when are they going home?" but for the most part, I feel like a mom and am just working on figuring out how to make things work with a second child to care for. Also, as someone up there said- it really helps to know that everything is just a phase. I'm less overwhelmed by the difficult things, because I know that they will pass.

[gaba]

I agree with the comments I read so far. In my experience I felt overwhelmed the first year of motherhood but then thing started to come back into place. You will get your life back :-)

[Fiona]

The first year was hard, yes. But it smoothed out surprisingly fast (we're at 19 months now).

And I think my son helped me think more broadly about my choices. I got a degree that goes with a particular kind of job. And there's a huge amount of pressure to get that kind of job (check!) and then stay in it (check?).

Once I reoriented my priorities to include my son's life, it seemed a lot less obvious that I should accept the job because it was linked to my degree. Now, I'm considering a much wider variety of choices. So I think that being a mother has altered my thinking in ways that are good, not just "including professionally" but "especially professionally."

Also - and I don't want to go negative but...ok let's go negative! - be sure you distinguish between what's gone in your *own* life and what's gone because your friends can't make the same changes. Some of my friends couldn't cope with the adjustments that accompanied my pregnancy and my son. I don't blame them, but I understand that some of the fun things I used to do are gone not because I'm not willing to play but because they aren't.

[Cathy]

This is sort of a many-layered issue.

When I was pregnant with my first, I couldn't wait to get my body back to myself. I got a jogging stroller for that Christmas and an armband radio thingy. The physicalness and the touchiness of a new baby is big. I still get over-touched, and the kids are 7 and 2 this weekend. But then, on the other hand, it was so foreign to have the baby "so far away" in the bassinet at the foot of the bed. There's no winning for losing, right?

And there was kind of a fog where I didn't realize that I wasn't quite feeling like myself, but at about 8 months, all of a sudden, I was ready to pick up the things I did before.

This being a mommy thing is weird. My daughter didn't call me mommy first, she called me Cathy, like everyone else in the house. I did not call myself mommy to her and it sounded really strange to me when anyone else talked about me as mommy. When I realized that's what she was saying, we worked on it. :^)

And the last part is...the giving up of stuff. Dates without hassle, sleeping in on the weekends, sleeping through the night, etc. It took doing something with just my husband that we would normally have done with everyone (a trip to an amusement park), for me to realize that even for all of the percieved hassle, that is what I like better and want to do - go with them, be with them, take care of them, that I felt that feeling melt away.

I think it's fair to greive the change in your life - it's a major transition. Just like you are going through a major transition in the first year of marriage or as you are deciding that you are not having any more kids. There were a few good books I read about it as I was getting married - let me find the titles.

[giddy]

I believe hospitals should send new moms home with a copy of the wave analogy....wow to me it's wonderful, and perfect!

[caramama]

With the first, it really took a while to get out of the fog and start adjusting to the new normal. And to hit on something discussed in the Primal Scream post last week, it also took a while for me to really get interested in my work and career again, too. Definitely over a year, and even after 1.5 years I still didn't feel like parts of my old self was back.

After the second (almost 6 months ago), the fog has been clearing MUCH quicker and the adjustment from being a Mom to being a Mom of Two is going much smoother and quicker.

So those considering having more than one, there is hope! Hang in there!

Oh, and one last thing. I think even if people warn you and tell you all about it, even you understand the composition of the water and the size of the wave and know exactly what will happen... it STILL doesn't prepare you for what it actually feels like when it hits and you have to sink or swim. You just don't know until you're in under the water. (Great analogy, Moxie!)

[the milliner]

I think the wave analogy is a good one. I'm just starting to figure out now, at 18 months for L, that the wave keeps coming, and keeps coming. Nice breaks in between. But you can be sure there will be another wave.

For me, that back and forth, the two steps forward, one step back is probably the biggest adjustment for me. And I'm still not really comfortable with it / have a hard time accepting it.

Challenges I can handle. It's when the same issues (Hello not sleeping! Hello seperation anxiety! etc. etc.) keep coming back after we've worked through them and I've gotten better at managing them, but then they come back and it does feel like back to square one. I think it's this feeling that I hate the most. (Though if I looked closely, I probably would find that I am slowly gaining knowledge and do manage better when the issues occur, but it's still demoralising none the less).

In pretty much all other areas of my life, I work hard to learn from mistakes and things that are not working, or things that are challenging and can be improved, so that I don't have to keep re-visiting the same issue again and again. One thing I've learned about myself through a lot of introspection is that I have an insane ability to retain a great 'mental muscle memory', so that unconsciously I'm putting everything I've learned together and applying it to new situations. Which means, I'm realising as I write this, that I'm pretty much in control, even when I'm in a new or challenging situation.

Ah ha! Well that's the crux, isn't it. Parenthood isn't so much about control. Which is probably why I'm not comfortable with the round about loops in moving forward and having successes. When I'm in control, it's more linear. From worst to bad to OK to better to best. Rarely does it go back to bad or worst for the same situation.

In the low moments, I totally feel defeated, like the commenter from last week said. While I was pregnant, I knew my life would be different. And could imagine some of the ways. Quite frankly, it would annoy me when people would say 'Oh, you'll see, your life will change.' And I would think, 'Well,duh, I'm not thinking I'm going to keep my old life.' What I don't think I understood, and is really hard to understand until you live it, is all of the emotional work and challenges that are required of you as a parent. I like to think I'm pretty self-aware, and being a parent still throws me for a loop and brings up thoughts/feelings that I just did not anticipate.

But, the good news (at least IME so far) is that it does get better overall. At 18 months I have much more of my 'old' life back. Or really it's more of a new normal that encompasses more of what I had / did in the past.

I just had a wave crest last night with feeling overwhelmed with work deadlines due before the holidays and loads of stuff to do for xmas, and feeling annoyed that yet again, this winter, we are not prepared enough in advance for the onslaught of foul weather (winter tires, closing down the deck, closing up the container gardens, etc.). I felt angry, useless, disorganized and discouraged. Yet, we managed to get the snow tires on this AM, the gardens & decks are done (at least well enough to survive the first snowfall until we can do a better job on the weekend) and oddly enough, all the snow has put me in a better mood - feels more like Christmas. Recovery time is getting better. And I have big hopes for next year. I'm scheduling all essential maintenance activities a full year in advance. Sometimes it's still hard to remember that I can't get as much done in as short of a period as I used to.

My plan is essentially to continue to try to go with the flow, make small progresses, and enjoy the moments I can with my little guy.

Anyhow, happy snowy day to those of you in the north east!

[Karin]

Funnily enough, I've always used that exact analogy. (Well, if you can call the three years since my daughter was born "always). I tell people it's like being dropped in the middle of the stormy sea, going under, fighting for breath, then resurfacing, slowly learning to swim - and eventually, slowly, you get the hang of it, and then you're just playing in the surf, having fun!

[anotherredhead]

I have an amazing 3 1/2 year old daughter who is full of love, empathy and a joy to be around 85% of the time. However, that still doesn't change the fact that I feel like I'm STILL treading water. Being the mother I wish to be is hard. I can see the shore, but it's such a long ways away and I'm not sure my arms have the stamina to get me there. And these days it seems the closer I get to the shore the deeper I get caught in the undertow. Even though I've always been the go-with-the-flow type I too often feel as if I'm swimming against the tide. I try to just bob along and go where the current takes me but somedays the struggle to keep my head above water is too much.

I never planned on a family and was on a different trajectory. I never wanted to give up who I was to become a mother. I do try to make sure that I get my needs taken care of but things are different now. Unfortunately I'm always the last on my list and there is never enough time for me. It wasn't until my daughter was 2 before the fog began to lift for me. Once it did, things got better and I could see the shore line, but now I'm once again drifting out to sea and treading water. It could just be that this is a really tough age for my daughter and she won't always be this demanding, stubborn and head strong. I'm holding out hope since many parents have told me that I'll get a reasonable facsimile of my life back when she starts kindergarten.

The wise woman in me knows that like all things, this too shall pass. I just get moored in the present sometimes and forget that everything with babies and children are phases and stages. I know when she is thirteen I will mourn this time of our lives just as I now mourn my life BC. Instead of wanting to spend every waking (and sleeping) moment with me I'll be lucky if she even says hi to me. LOL!! And hopefully when she is an adult I will have taught/given her all the tools she requires to have all the strength she needs to tread the waters of life.

I look forward to reaching the beach and basking in the sun with my amazing child beside me. May you all get there.

Ps: Moxie, I hope your friend will be okay. And thanks for letting me get this off my chest.

[Jessica]

The first year was so hard-- but things seemed to get exponentially easier when my son turned one. The honest truth is that I didn't feel like myself physically until I stopped breastfeeding; of course, now I miss it, but still. Now my son is 2.5 and the rewards far outweigh the challenges--everything feels much easier.

Here's how I kept (regained?) my sanity:

1) Finally letting go of the high stakes parenting mentality

2) Full time day care starting at 6 months so that I could go back to school

3) Frequent date nights with my husband-- worth every baby-sitting penny

4) Forging friendships with moms, keeping friendships with non-moms alive

5) Exercise, but only the kind that actually makes me feel good, not the obsessive "I need to run X miles this week" kind

6) When all else fails, when I'm not feeling up to it, popping in a dvd for E. and pouring a glass of wine for myself and taking a very deep breath helps a lot

I also am lucky enough to have an amazing husband who is an equal co-parent in every sense. That might be more important than 1-6.

I think we as individuals and as a society place too much emphasis on "snapping back to our old selves". The celebrity Mom "she had a baby and 6 weeks later is wearing a tiny bikini" syndrome is just one symptom of a larger phenomenon. (Truly, is not the demand for immediate post-partum MILF-dom like some sort of 21st century corset? Whither spanx...) I know I certainly put a lot of pressure on myself to lose the baby weight, exclusively breastfeed, make my son's baby food, obsess over his sleep schedule, keep the house tidy, excel in my studies, go out with my friends, get back to running, and, and , and...and I got sicker than I have ever been in my life (bowled over with fever & flu for 10 days) when my son was about 10 months old. Things can get pretty exhausting when you insist on being hard on yourself-- in my case, my body decided to take over and put me on forced shutdown.

I have a very, very wise graduate advisor (a man in his 60's with kids) who kept pressing me to cut myself some slack. It finally sunk in. And you know what? When I did slow down and cut myself some slack and accept that I couldn't do everything I used to at the same level, everything was still alright. Eventually I did lose the baby weight. And my son's brain didn't turn to mush from letting him watch cartoons for 10 minutes while I took a shower in the mornings. And while there are ways I'm not able to keep up with my younger grad student friends who have time to take on extra projects and more classes, in all the ways that matter (finishing requirements, progressing toward orals, etc.), I'm doing just fine. In fact, now that I'm slowly getting over not being perfect, I'm able to see that I'm doing pretty damn great.

This, too, shall pass. Don't feel bad for not loving motherhood in the first year-- many, many, many women feel as you do. Repeat like a mantra: "it's time to cut myself some slack". The time that your kids are completely dependent on you is short-- you'll be back on the horse (or another horse, or maybe you'll take up bicycling) soon enough.

[Cori]

Wow! This topic really hits home with me. Thanks to everyone for sharing. My sons are 14 months and 28 months, and I feel like I'm just now coming out of the fog of survival mode. I'm learning to accept my life and enjoy what I can. The process is ongoing.

[ML]

I love the analogy, although I have to add that there are rare times when I've been able to harness the energy of the wave and surf it, the exhilaration and feeling of triumph is unlike any I've ever felt. (Examples: when I successfully reason with the toddler, or when he's talkative, entertaining, helpful, engaged: all the things I could not have expected when he was younger.)

I too have felt overwhelmed with day-to-day life with my 2 kids, but I try not to see my life as an endless grind of meaningless tasks (which it sometimes is: breastfeed, rinse, repeat in 2 hours X for the forseeable future. Same with laundry, picking up the living room, telling the toddler that spitting is gross, etc.), but just a lot of small tasks that will, hopefully, lead me to a place where I myself have CHOSEN to go. (I think women of my mother's generation--or at least my mother--never felt these choices were hers and this feeling of choice makes a big difference.)

Which is not to say I have my s%@# together about anything, including my career, my kids or my marriage. It's all a work in progress, just like me--parenthood has stretched me in ways I wasn't expecting (insert literal pun about my belly) and in some ways I was. I'm finding the journey more enjoyable now that I think I'm on the last baby. When times get bad, I think of something I read in the comments here (I'm sorry I can't remember who or where!) that however bad life gets with a baby, it's better than having no baby (which I always interpret as: if one had a miscarriage, esp one late in a pregnancy).

[marian]

I didn't feel connected and start to relax with my child until the first year had passed...I was so stressed out about doing things wrong that I couldn't enjoy it fully. I will always regret that, but I have a second child, very different from the first, and I'm trying to accept all the difficulties that comprise the first year and know that they will end and that I'll enjoy it more and more each day.

[Charisse]

I like the wave metaphor a lot. It was certainly like that for me, and I didn't discover Moxie until Mouse was 2 1/2! As a yoga person (do I still get to say that when I only get a few minutes a day? sigh) it helped me a lot to think of the repetitions in terms of practice. Not practice in terms of preparing for the real thing, but practice in terms of something that you do because you have decided to do it, that you do over and over again, that you will continue to do even after (if) you "get it right" because that is what you do.

There are moments in any practice when you can't stand it any more - I vividly remember saying to one of my teachers, only half laughing, "but I've done this! I've done it over and over! do I really have to do this again??!" and her answer was "did you wake up in earth time today? then yes, you have to do it again." This continues to help me with things that come up over and over. For example,we decided not to spank before we even had a kid, and I assumed that was that. But I never realized how often I could get frustrated enough, and not know what to do enough, to feel the impulse to hit something...and that choice is before me again. Keeping faith with the practice of gentle discipline that we've chosen makes me OK with having to revisit the choice and make the right one again. Thinking of nursing as a practice helped a great deal too.

There was a great article in Brain, Child a few years ago about looking openly at the actual costs of motherhood--financial, physical, emotional (here it is: http://www.brainchildmag.com/essays/spring2004_feature.htm ) and one of the conclusions it came to was that there is a big difference when your last child gets to kindergarten. For me, that seems to be true. It's different having a schoolkid. Hectic, but different. I'm too busy but I'm more myself as a mother than I've ever been.

(Was that remotely coherent? Sorry!)

[anonthistime]

This was brought up in a previous post, but 1st baby was a breeze, #2 has me under-under-under. Wave after wave, have to time it just right to get a breath of air, my legs are tiring from swimming through the waves. I am just plain burnt out and sick of my mom job. I know this is what I want--staying home w/ the kids--more than going back to work, but right now we're in some rough seas.
We need to find a babysitter soon.
Great analogy. Thanks to all posters, commiseration etc always helps.

[Anon]

Yup, and I'm getting ready to hold my breath and go under again. I've got a 2.5yo who will be almost *exactly* 3yo when this baby is born. I'm only 11 weeks, and I'm struggling with the fatigue and nausea that I had with my first pgcy.

I agree with other posters who have said that at least with the 2nd, you sort of know what's coming, and the sense of self, the 'who the heck was I before I was this breastfeeding pillow for this baby?' feeling. This time I know it will pass, and even if it takes almost 2 years, this baby will eventually let me sleep through the night, will eventually wean and learn to talk.

Although I did swear this time that if this pgcy was as hard as the first, all we'd do as a couple would be gestate and take care of kiddo #1. Instead, I'm baking like a madwoman for Xmas, wrapping and decorating (this is my break from finishing the mantle!), and we are still finishing the basement! because gestating or not, it just HAS to get done.

I do wonder though how, when I feel like I'm already just treading water, I will manage with two kids. I think back to how much I slept (during the day) and nursed with baby #1 and just think of how on earth I'm going to handle feeding and taking #2 to the things that she does and stuff like that. All my friends with two have told me that you just adjust and what was hard becomes easy (like taking just ONE kid to the store isn't such a big deal) and then there's the new 'hard.'

Phew.

[Irene]

I'm bookmarking this post... maybe printing it and all the comments out to carry around on bad days.

To stick with Moxie's analogy, I have days where I feel like a mermaid, and days where I feel like I'm drowning. What keeps me going is that the "mermaid" times are happening more often (my girl is now 20 months old) and the "drowning" feelings are happening less often, and most of the time even if I don't feel completely like a mermaid, I can cope with those waves. During most of Year 1, though, it was a huge struggle to survive.

[meggiemoo]

I think becoming a mother stretches you. And that's painful. We use "muscles" we never knew we had, running a race we had no way to train for. Running is hard, hard, hard, then a little less hard, then easier, then joyful.

I think expectations get in the way of joy. I, like most women of this generation, expected so much from my 1st chance at mothering. My expectations of myself were even higher. And my son knocked every one down. He didn't do anything the same way a "typical" baby would. My maternity leave felt like sheer boredom and drudgery occasionally punctuated by happiness. I would linger picking him up at daycare because I dreaded going home and facing the night.

But we progressed. He progressed. The joyful moments started outweighing the drudgery. Now he's almost 4, and I would say it's 90% joy.

Having #2, I dialed my expectations down to zero, and I have enjoyed her babyhood so much more. Figuring out the details of having 2 still kicked my butt, but 8 months in, I feel good about it. And sad that she's my last.

I found some old emails of mine, pre-baby, in which I was whining to a friend about my life. My free and easy, pre-kid life in which I could do whatever I chose! We think that everything was so easy before, but was it, really?

One thing I know for sure: motherhood has changed me. Yes, I could have had a happy life without kids, but I feel like now my highs are higher (and the lows are lower, too). It's like the part in the Wizard of Oz when it turns from black and white to a color movie. There's magic here.

[hnahk]

first time commenter here. just printed this and will carry it with me. baby #2 is due jan 22 and i remember feeling the above with baby #1 vividly. it's challenging but #1 is almost 1 now (i know, crazy) but i've learned to embrace it.

really. thanks.
that was beautifully written.

[Drowning]

I am drowning. Will it get better? WILL IT? My son just turned a year old and I'm still drowning. Every day I feel like I'm totally lost. My marriage is a wreck, my son doesn't sleep anymore unless he is attached to my boob and
I feel so disconnected. This is not what I wanted, envisioned, dreamed of. How did this happen? Will it get better? How much longer do I have to hold on? I'm so tired of treading water and I feel myself giving up. I feel like a failure. How come I can't do this?

[Cobblestone]

@ Drowning

YES. It will get better. You can do it because you ARE doing it.

The boob thing - I hear ya sista. We co-slept until JC was 15 months old. At about year he was all boob all the time at night and starting about 4a we started having this insane slapfight.
He'd grab my shirt and tug.
I'd be 80% asleep and stop him.
Tug
Stop
Tug
Stop
FINE (he gets boob, dried out from the previous EIGHT F#*%&!ING HOURS of just hanging out there and I'd get those awful dried out spine tingles). He'd fall into a deeper sleep and drift off the boob.
Tug
Stop
Tug
Stop
OMFG FINE!
Lather rinse repeat.

Wednesday before Thanksgiving, with 4 nights at home and without work on the horizon I suprised Mister and said - ok - here is what we're gonna do (modified CIO).

Handed JC a blanket and sparkle cat (2 items he didn't give a flying fig about but DARNIT BOY YOU WILL HAVE A LOVEY NOW!!!).

It took 45 minutes.
The next night it took 15.
The next night he grabbed sparkle cat and my hand and dragged me to his room.

YMMV but it will get better.

[Nicole]

Last night, my almost 3 year old daughter went to bed at 6:45 because she was sick. My husband and I sat down to our first childless dinner in 3 years! What a treat. It reminded me how I spent my time differently pre-parenthood. And it also reminded me that 'this too shall pass.'

I love the wave analogy. As another commenter said, I've really tried to learn and absorb that each of these trying moments is a phase. I had to change a diaper today at preschool, something I'll be doing soon as baby #2 is due in Feb. I had oh so quickly forgotten about it as my daughter is close to potty training. Another reminder of phases that come and go.

What has helped me is not trying to pretend that I am the same person that I was before. I'm not, I'm a mother now. But it doesn't mean that I don't like the same things. Like marriages and love and family, being you takes work.. keeping up old friendships, getting out on dates, going back to work, and building a whole new parent community.

I try to remind myself and friends that whatever age we are-- 25, 30, 25, 40-- we are still only a 1 year old mommy, or 3 year old. We haven't been doing this forever.

I hope that I can float and swim like a mermaid when the next one comes.

[caramama]

@Drowning - It really does get better! Hang in there! I think it's especially tough when you have a child who is not a good sleeper. But just keep on treading and you will see that slowly it really does get better. Not all at once, and it does backtrack, but overall better definitely.

Whoever said the two steps forward, one step back was right on IME.

But now, having been through tough times with my older child, I'm able to look forward to when both of my kids are older. I often talk to my husband about what I'm going to do when I get time for me back. I've already even joined a book club that meets about once every 6 weeks! And when the kids are a couple years older, I have such Plans for Things To Do! (They are actually really small things I would barely have given a second thought to doing pre-kids, but now seem so exciting and huge to plan for.)

So my point is it really will get better. And at some point you will think about the things you will get to do for yourself and realize that you will be able to do them again. And things will seem brighter, even if you can't actually do them yet, because you know you will be able to.

[Erin]

I really thought I was prepared for motherhood. I had been a babysitter and nanny to infants and toddlers. I loved it; I loved them. I always wanted to be a mother, and was so happy and excited when I was pregnant. And yet - Moxie is totally right. Nothing prepared me for it. nothing could have prepared me for it. It was such a shock - losing my life so completely. I had seen friends seemingly balance motherhood and lives so easily, I thought it was easy, until it was me. Part of the complicating factor for me was having my child in a place with no support network. I think the shock would have been less brutal if I'd been surrounded by friends and family. I spent the first six months of DS's life fighting him to sleep and getting spit up on. I mourned - and still mourn - my childless life, particularly my relationships with my husband. It's not bad now, but we never used to fight or have problems, we spent so much time together! Now it's like we're strangers who live in the same house.

I know it's one of the cliches that everyone HATES, but my mom said to me when my son was 5 months old and not sleeping well, "It goes so fast, just enjoy it." I don't know why, but when she said that I took it in, and felt it, and let go of my need to control his sleep, and I stopped crying and started enjoying him so much more! And was able to figure out ways to get him to sleep better, to boot.

But regaining myself comes in stages - for me in some ways it's separate from how much I enjoy my son. Each stage has had its own joy, and each intensifies as it comes. At the same time, I still feel the shock and mourning, in different ways. At 12 months I started feeling like MYSELF, what a relief. But I really believe that coming to terms with parenthood is a process that can take years, as other posters have said. Now we're expecting #2 and it's starting all over again. I might have to give up my career this time. It's hard.

What I wanted to say mostly, I guess, is that the joy and the struggle can co-exist - one doesn't necessarily drive out the other. We can acknowledge them both, and that might bring some relief to the ginormous expectations we all carry of what it means to be a mother.

[Erin]

@ Drowning: I don't know your particular situation, I just wanted to say that often we feel like we're failing because our expectations are so outsized. We have this vision of what it means to be a mother - effortless, graceful, always gentle, wise, loving, patient, in control, organized, etc. And it's not like that. It just isn't. It's *hard* and we scream at our children and resent them and want to be free and want something for *ourselves*. Be gentle with yourself. You aren't failing.

[Raia]

Am I the only one that feels the second year is so much harder than the first? I think my son was a relatively easy baby, or at least, I could always count on his needs being either to sleep, to eat, to cuddle, or to walk around looking at new things. Now? At 18 months? Half the time I have no idea what he's trying to so hard to tell me and usually if I do figure it out, it's something that he simply cannot do or have because it's dangerous, and we both get so frustrated. Being a mom to a toddler has been so much harder than being a mom to a baby. And my son sleeps all night, so that isn't the problem. I am trying to enjoy the now -- he is quite funny and terribly cute, so that helps immensely, but I really miss the itty bitty baby stage.

[Bella]

Moxie, I LOVE the analogy. Totally works for me. I have twins and that's my excuse for feeling like it wasn't really until they were past 2 that I came up for more than gasping breaths. And to be perfectly honest, I don't think I was actually ENJOYING motherhood until they hit 3.

It's kind of sad when I look at that statement written as simply as that, but it's true.

@Drowning: It usually DOES get better. Sleep deprivation, like others have said, is the WORST. It is the most brutal form of torture (quite literally) and will wreck your emotional stability and suck the joy out of life. I hope you get some much-deserved sleep. In the meantime, you've reached out to this group, maybe you can take one more step and reach out for some professional help and/or help from friends and family. We ALL need it at some time. What your feeling is totally normal, but it CAN be better if you get some help. You aren't failing (unless we ALL are...). I really hope it gets better soon for you.

[GM]

Therapy, and then when my baby started to sleep through the night.

Then several years later I had my second child, and I realized that it was not just that I was adjusting to motherhood, but that I had a REALLY, REALLY, DIFFICULT BABY!

Parenting my second child is so radically different from my first I sometime wonder if they are they same species.

When I first came to this realization when my second was a newborn, I resented my first for a while. "You didn't have to be difficult. I didn't have to be that depressed" Parenting her as an infant felt a little like being in an abusive relationship.

As they get older I found that working part time is what keeps me happy. I need a little adult time, and time to actually accomplish a task, to help me feel good. Admitting that took months of therapy. I really wanted to be a full time stay at home mom, but it just wasn't working.

[JennG]

This is well timed for me today. I actually have a 4 year old and I'm no longer mourning the "me time" so much - our family's restructured okay and it's a joy at home.

It's at work that I'm struggling. I used to be the most on top of everything, and now I'm not. I feel like I don't entirely have the skill of how to keep working even when I've messed up, not once, but a few times. I really like the wave analogy; I will have to see if I ride it or if it's just not going to work out.

I do wonder if anyone has insight into why right now in history parenting seems to be such a tidal wave. Is it that we watched too much TV as kids and thought it would be easier?

[mom2boys]

@drowning - I was still an absolute mess at one year. Baby didn't sleep well, didn't talk, barely walked and I was IT 90% of the time. It gets better. I am still IT but the demands are less draining for some reason. Maybe because he is mobil? Your son will sleep more. He will wean one day and your new normal will be something you can tolerate and may even enjoy. I am much happier with a toddler than I ever was with T as a baby. My baby cried all.the.time and never slept. My toddler is funny and smart and yes he tantrums and sometimes it is still HARD and I still don't get enough sleep but it is ever so much more enjoyable!!!

[Cloud]

@Raia- I think it depends on what kind of baby you have. My first daughter was a very difficult baby- hard to settle, high energy, low sleep needs. My second daughter is the quintessential "easy baby". I am sure she'll still be a handful at 18 months- that is just a hard time! If my first had been like my second, I could see thinking that the second year was harder.

I'm not sure if that made any sense. I hope it did!

Anyway, I found 2 to be a WONDERFUL age. Until we hit 2.5, but let's not talk about that.

It might help you to go read Isabel's post about the 18-21 month developmental leap, over at Child of Mind: http://www.isabelagranic.com/bed-timing/2009/04/1821-months-the-mother-of-all-developmental-transitions.html

It is not you. It is the age.

[Cloud]

Oh, and @Drowning- yes, it will get better. Even the most difficult child eventually sleeps.

My first was a difficult sleeper, and was up literally 5x a night for awhile. Finally, at about 10 months, we tried nightweaning. We actually just managed to get her down to one wake up per night, but that was enough to save my sanity.

If you're interested in trying it, you can search Moxie's archives for ideas- that is where I found the method we used. I also posted about it at the time:
http://wandsci.blogspot.com/2008/01/nightweaning.html

FWIW- she dropped the last feeding about a year later. That involved bringing her into our bed with us, which lasted for maybe 4-6 months. She started sleeping through the night in her own bed sometime not long after her second birthday.

If you're not up for nightweaning, maybe you can brainstorm some ideas with your partner for how to get you some sleep? As Bella said above, sleep deprivation is literally torture and will make everything else seem worse. You aren't a "bad mother" or "weak" because you need to find a way to get more sleep.

[hush]

See, I was going to attempt to say so many of the things you all have already said here oh so much more eloquently than I could have. I think that must mean what you're reading here is the true reality of how it usually is with motherhood. (Though I believe there are some people who don't experience any volatility at all when they become moms. I'm surprised they haven't commented yet about feeling left out of this thread.) Anyway, it is good to not feel so alone, no? I wish more mamas IRL would feel like they can be vulnerable & keep it real about how hard this is.

@Drowning - You most definitely are not alone.

@the milliner - "I felt angry, useless, disorganized and discouraged." Me, too. I actually get really sad inside when I come across decor blogs showing all of these lovely, organized living spaces because I know transforming our home into such a place right now with 2 under 3 is a total pipe dream. Oh, and I get super duper double sad/mad? when the person living there has kids the same age as mine. Odd, but that is what I fixate on sometimes.

@anotherredhead - "The wise woman in me knows that like all things, this too shall pass. I just get moored in the present sometimes and forget that everything with babies and children are phases and stages." Totally. You know that expression 'Youth is wasted on The Young'? Sometimes I think there must be a corollary, 'Babies are wasted on the New Parents.'

@Jessica - "Truly, is not the demand for immediate post-partum MILF-dom like some sort of 21st century corset? Whither spanx..." YES!!!!!!!! Funny, but true. Though I confess to owning a pair of Spanx (they do work wonders), and to having those awful mommy cards as someone else mentioned. And if I were on FB, I'm sure my photo would be one of my kids instead of me! These cringe-worthy things are all symptomatic for me of my post-kids identity crisis.

@Anon - "All my friends with two have told me that you just adjust and what was hard becomes easy (like taking just ONE kid to the store isn't such a big deal) and then there's the new 'hard.'" YES! I'm 2 months in to the "New Hard" (I like how you put that). It's like someone suddenly took away the little orange floaties I was wearing on my arms to learn how to swim. But at the same time I kind of expected they would.

[mom2boys]

@hush - 'Babies are wasted on the New Parents.' lol that was totally the case with me!