(otherwise known as WHERE DID ALL MY FRIENDS GO?)
days and nights are now totally changed.
the marriage is changed.
the routine house car food tv watching spare time reading
and wow - the focus of your life... your whole life
all changed
your brain is being changed for you too. you dont have ownership of your own mind any more.
in fact you dont have ownership of anything that you thought you had before. your heart and mind and body, your arms and tears and love and thinking..
it all belongs to the baby. he owns it. and the change is when you start to give into that and be glad for it and be willing to give it with love. to realize.. i'm a mommy. i'm HIS mommy. because what i think and do and eat and say - that impacts his life WAY more than it even does mine.
but this was all internal and close to home. thats what i thought would change. what i expected to change. all my stuff and all the house and family stuff, the things within arms reach.
what i didnt realize was how much all of my external relationships would change as well
im trying to figure this one out.
why does this event change relationships that other major events in my life didnt?
i think ive figured some of it out:
having a baby is intense!
being a mom is intense!
breastfeeding is intense
definitely not in a bad way - let me explain: breastfeeding takes up a lot of your day so if you breastfeed its on your mind a lot and how its going etc.
and more of an impact than the other routine baby stuff
- breastfeeding is very emotional.
it was made that way. we are given deep hormonal emotional changes when we breastfeed. thats how we were created to bond with our babies. it was built in.
so this is a lot of stuff going on a lot of changes and these are deep deep things that need to be supported and shared with us by our husbands and families and friends. but most people arent going through this same thing so its hard for them to get it. the husband goes through it with you and your friends kind of do.. especially if they have kids too. but it seems that only another current new mommy "gets" what the new mommy is going through. and new mommys really need people to be able to relate. to relate to I HAD A BABY! and I AM OWNED BY THIS CHILD! and I AM SO OVERWHELMED WITH WHAT IS GOING ON! even if its just the fact that this love is intense and these feelings are intense and the way that youre life is just forced to conform to this new role ITS INTENSE!!
and its hard for people without kids to relate to that kind of INTENSE
because its...
intense.
and people who do have kids, but their kids are older, well they're now accustomed to the deep impact and they're used to having their life in this new altered state.
unlike me, who is standing here still a bit stunned at this last year and feeling like "What Just Happened?!" yes because my life doesnt resemble what it once was (back when we were married and childless which we now refer to as "still single"). and it doesnt look like anything i had planned. so its just hard to know where to go from here when you dont know where on the map to look since you really dont know where you are or who to ask for directions or where youre even trying to go in the first place.
