Ahhhh

That's a scream, not a sigh.

It has begun. My sweet little baby man Llewellyn(yah I really named him that) has arrived albeit a few weeks early, June 14th as opposed to June 30th. I don't blame him for making a break for it though, i'm sure it was no fun at all in there and he needed to get the fuck out.

I definitely had a picture in mind of what my pregnancy would be like. I was going to be one of those women who was glowing all the time and was excited for all the strange new sensations of having a little life grow inside me. My actual pregnancy was nothing at all like that.

I was truly miserable, probably the most miserable I have been in my entire life for almost 9 months. From the very beginning I was incredibly ill and had a horrible time keeping food down. This eventually caused me to lose a lot of the pregnancy weight I had gained and ultimately I only ended up gaining about 17 pounds from my pre-prego weight. On top of feeling physically ill I was emotionally devastated. Here I was accomplishing everything I had dreamed of in life and I couldn't control my sadness and stress....so that just added me feeling like a failure on top of everything else. I started to question my ability to be a mother. I was terrified of not bonding with my baby and having horrible post partum depression. These are all fears I was afraid to vocalize to myself or anyone else but i'm sure I wore them on my sleeve. Add to this having a shitty midwife who did absolutely nothing to figure out why I was having such a terrible time and offered no information on what to expect out of pregnancy, labor, birth or being a mom. I'm sure someday i'll write about my midwife and birth experience.

Ultimately when the time came I hadn't really kept food down in a couple weeks and I ended up transferring from the birth center to a hospital to give birth. At the time this was crushing and scary to me, but in retrospect probably worked out for the best and the information I was given in the hospital was invaluable and made me feel a bit more prepared to take my little man home.

As it ultimately turned out all my fears were unfounded. The first second I looked at him I fell in love. I know it sounds cliche and not everyone has that experience but I just count myself very lucky. Since the birth things have been wonderful. Of course I was initially completely overwhelmed by the idea of having something so precious and fragile totally dependent on me, but I also felt overwhelmed with inspiration and love. It really is an emotion and side of me I never knew existed. I don't think that it did exist until he was born. I haven't had a day where I don't find myself caught up in how amazing he is at some point and I wonder if that day will ever come.

Beyond all the mushy greeting card sentiment having a little baby is just awesome. He is so much fun and it totally balances out the exhaustion and stress. I find myself getting excited about all the little things i'll be able to do with him when he gets older as well as knowing how much i'll miss him being this little and helpless.

It took me about 5 hours to write this....I suppose that says a lot.