Almost 40 days gone

almost 4am.

they’re all asleep - my husband, my child and my baby. and, of course, the dog. the dog is always asleep if anyone else is. special talent that i envy a bit right now.

5 weeks in, and this is the first time i am completely alone - no one to care for - and awake after almost 5 hours sleep straight through. this baby, J, is not the same as his older sister was.

he is still fussy from a gassy body, poor little guy. crying or screaming one minute and as soon as the pain or discomfort passes, smiling a glorious little smile. at me, at someone else, at that red thing over there, at the corner of the room. he is beautiful.

but, after 5 hours straight sleep my body has decided to be awake, it seems. so much rest and now quiet to think whatever thoughts i didn’t have time for all day. a long day of what must have been a growth spurt because little J was hungry every 2 hours. at the least. he seemed hungry as soon as he finished feeding, ready to go again. but with the tummy troubles we keep him to minimum of breastfeeding every 2 hours. so he was walked and rocked. he was bounced in arms and hammock and bouncy chair. he got some tea (fennel, caraway, anise all aimed a alleviating his woes). the babysitter came early and i got some sleep - a vital 1.5 hours without one ear listening for his cries.

so with 5 hours at a pop, my body seems to think it is morning.

5 weeks, going on 6. almost 40 days. i think it is no coincidence that colic is said to peak at 6 weeks and mothers in more traditional cultures rest for 40 days. 6 x 7 = 42 days. that’s about right. if the gassiness and fussiness peaks around 40 days, that is the right amount of time to give the new mother so much support. a gassy baby does not lay in one place for long without crying. he needs to be held, swayed, tended to, comforted. he doesn’t care about the dishes or the growing piles of milk-stained poop-stained shirts of his or his mama’s. he cares about getting that fart out. he cares about that one elusive burp. as he should.

but it leaves little time or energy for much else.

40 days. with a new baby. not the same as last time. still intense, but not life destroying, the arrival of this new life. so many things are different this time (and others enough the same to let me re-visit the first one with fresh eyes). he doesn’t need to be rocked within an inch of his life to fall (and stay) asleep at night, or for naps many days. he sleeps more - and soon knew when night was enough that i wasn’t faltering for sleep. feeding every two then three hours for at least 2 cycles. i could stay sane and start to trust that things weren’t going to fall apart like they did the first time.

this whole month has been a series of “better than last time”s, that have made one more thread of fear and tension (nestled deep in my muscle memory) fall away. i’d been holding my breath, in a sense, for 4 years. i cried when he was born, because it was finally over, the labor but also the worry that he might not make it. that we weren’t meant to have a second child and he could be taken away somehow at the last minute. but i’ve also almost cried every time we reach another milestone that was horrible with baby A and isn’t with baby J.

and i realize now how much a part of the cycle of horrible we were, too. sure, she was sensitive and colicky, she was too alert for her age and really hard to get to stay sleeping. but we were also a problem, too quick to try finding some new solution, too nervous. i started taking an herbal anti-depressant at the first sign of irritation this time and it is working. i set my goals much more humbly - to physically breast feed for one week and feed him breast milk for one month. we had more help this time, from family. we had more help hired in, as well. we are working to stay calmer and most importantly to not succumb to terror as soon as something slips, not to wind up panicked that our first experiences will repeat.

while baby A’s body and system might have played a role in how hard her first year was, i think we now realize that we have to take credit for at least 30% of that. as does the context around us - the people, the help, the weather (spring instead of a long snowy winter), the neighborhood (where we can see people and life and go shopping in 5 minutes and feel connected to the world again). that is the last 30%.

so here we are, at roughly 40 days. we’ve made it and it will continue to get better. it will still be hard some days, many days, but we’ve made it. i made it. even so far as to sit here and write a blog entry. welcome back, me. now, me, go back to sleep!