The Right of Passage...

The first 4 to 6 weeks of 'bringing home baby' were by far the most amazing, stressful, exciting and scary thing that has ever happened to me...

When we find out we are pregnant for the first time, we run out immediately and buy pregnancy books. We read everything we can about what is to come next in our 10 months - (40 weeks-hello!!!). We talk to our friends, read every magazine, watch baby stories and completely immerse ourselves with our growing belly. We talk about how we are carrying it, how much weight we are gaining, how sick we feel, what our nursery looks like and when we have our next doctors appointment. It is at this point, we realize that our personalities are changing. We are becoming our pregnancy and find out that we are 'one of those girls' that has nothing else to talk about...but we are finally understanding that and are ready to embrace it...

Then we go through the moment of watching our baby come into the world. At that point, we have nurses and family there to help us get through the first 36 hours. We are stressed about breastfeeding, emotional and trying our hardest to do everything perfect right off the bat. We are on an adrenalin rush and excited to have visitors in the hospital, although it is exhausting. We wonder when the nurses are going to take this baby to 'their real parents' because we can't possibly believe that this little life is now our responsibility.

We are excited to leave the hospital being wheeled out by a nurse which is that surreal moment we always wondered if would really happen? We take our baby outside for the first time and at that moment our anxiety sets in. We are scared to death in the car ride coming home. Is our car seat installed correctly? Are we putting our baby in it the right way? No one checked it before we left? They just dropped us off at the front door of the hospital and here we are...We keep telling our husbands to take back roads and drive slowly. We pull up to our house for the first time realizing we are walking through the front door a new family. We take pictures and try to take a deep breath and take the moment in to remember always. It all seems like a dream. We realize that most likely our husband has been the only one to change a diaper in the hospital because we were in bed and now it is our turn. As soon as we get done changing a diaper, it's time to feed again. There is no down time it seems. In the back of our minds we are wondering when can I sit down and eat and take a nap? The answer is clear - but we haven't decided to believe it yet.

Family is around, and although we are glad and appreciative of them there ~ we come to find out that we needed some time on our own to 'become a family' together without outside help. We are overwhelmed with guests and trying to be good hosts - while still trying to exclusively feed our babies every 1 1/2 to 2 hours. We are bleeding profusely, our nipples are sore, we are unable to go to the bathroom without changing our own diapers. We are in pain, on medication, haven't slept in who knows how long and we are noticing our stomach now hangs over our pajama pants ~ hanging like dead skin. We are scared to look 'down there' because we know that we aren't going to like what we see ~ Although, we just did the most amazing - beautiful thing anyone can do - we don't feel pretty. We wonder if our husband notices how unpretty we feel? We can't emplain why, but for some reason we feel an ounce of resentment towards our loving husband. We know it is wrong, but we can't control it at this point. We just can't explain to them the amount of responsibility and commitment we feel towards having to feed this child. It is a beautiful priveledge we receive to be able to do this, yet we are a slave to our breasts...and it is an overwhelming feeling of being trapped at moments. We no longer have any 'personal space' and our lives seem so much more changed than theirs at this point. We are thankful for that, yet can't help but feel it gives us a right to be a little 'bitchy' at times.

Days and nights run together for awhile and it all becomes a blur. Emotions are high, tensions are high - yet we are thanking God every second for this beautiful experience. It just starts to sink in that we prepared intensely for pregnancy but we are now here in the thick of parenting and we don't really know what we are doing...

This is our right of passage ~