Mixed Emotions of the First Weeks

we are a little over two weeks into life with ivy ann and i am feeling all the feels.  and i always try to record the way i am feeling in the early days with a new baby because the feelings are so acute and so intense but also so fleeting.  already things that made me feel up to my eye balls seem small to me now.  but here are a few of the things i have caught running through my brain these last few days.  (i wrote this over the course of her second week and these images were taken by my dear friend christine. 

- sadness.  real sadness at the pace at which life goes by.  i will never be pregnant again.  and i have had a series of progressively worse pregnancies.  this last one nearly landing me in the hospital and with in home weekly health care visits.  they are really really hard.  but i am sad knowing that i will never feel the incredible (albeit intruding and uncomfortable) feeling of a child moving in my womb again.  even though labor was so difficult and so painful, i feel sad that it is over and that i will never experience it again.  i feel sad that i will never be pacing the floor at home, trying to discern the 'realness' of my labor contractions.  i miss the way robert and i work together during labor and delivery.  i am sad that ill never see him in that capacity again (he is truly an incredible partner during birth).  i even miss the labor itself.  as much as it hurts and exhausts me, its a sacred experience, to labor in love for the person you are bringing into the world.  its an incredible thing to push a child out of you.  it takes an incredible amount of strength and courage, and i miss the way i feel united with all mothers across the history of the world during those hardest moments of labor.  i miss the moment where i saw her for the first time.  i weirdly miss the first hours in the hospital after delivery, i miss the feeling of standing up for the first time after birth and noticing the relief i feel in the lack of pressure and weight.  i miss the sacred special moments of friends visiting at the hospital.  i even miss the sleeplessness of the first night in the hospital, the newness of it all.  

and i felt a real tangible sorrow when my mother left after almost a week. not solely because she was leaving after a visit, because of course i always miss her, but sad because my mother had come and cared for me for the last time postpartum.  even though that first week is hard and exhausting, its such an incredibly special time with my mom, watching her care for us all, sharing all the new experiences and feelings with her.  its really special.  and the knowledge that its over is sad for me. 

-gratitude.  i literally feel like im bursting.  and perhaps some of it is because i am still on cloud nine and the real life realities of having three kids has not sunk in yet.  i have hardly been alone with the three of them without help, and people are making us meals, and i can still play my 'im tired cause i just had a baby' card.  but even with all of that going on, i am certain that i am feeling gratitude for the reality of my life now.  i know that nothing i have ever done, or could ever do, would be good enough to earn, through merit, the life i have been given.  a husband who i literally am more in love with as each season passes, and THREE healthy, delightful daughters.  my cup overflows.  

-exhaustion.  ivy ann is different than either of the other girls have been.  she struggles to go down in the evenings and grunts and fusses alot.  im not sleeping very much.  but then again, that is par for the course for these early weeks, so this is something i am trying to have some good perspective about. my sister reminded me recently, after a particularly hard night, that these weeks only last a few weeks.  and this is my last baby.  and in a few weeks when she starts sleeping through the night, i will never again have a newborn who needs me at all hours of the night.  and that season of my life will be entirely over.  and you know what, ill miss it, i will mourn the end of it.  its a sacred right of passage as a mother to be the one thing that your baby needs through the night.  its a unique and precious season.  its exhausting and frustrating no doubt ( i was reading back to when eden gave me a very hard time early on in her life) but its also fleeting.  so even though i am so very tired, i am trying not to become weary of doing what is good, what is right.  and what could be more right, and good, than a mother being what her new baby needs, no matter what time of day or night.  

everything changes so quickly during these early days and weeks.  i am so very thankful that i have the profound privilege of being ivy ann's mother, whatever it may bring.