Megan Stielstra's Blog

Caleb was born one month ago yesterday, which is definite proof that my condo sits on top of a space-time continuum.

One month? ONE?

Such a short period of time to have experienced so much: Joy. Exhaustion. Exhaustion. Frustration. Purpose. Guilt. Lovelovelove.

Such a short period of time to have lost my mind so thoroughly.

Such a short period of time for my life to have changed so completely, and not in any abstract, “Now I’m a parent and what does that mean philosophically” sort of way, but the very concrete minute-by-minute script of my day, my night, my week, my always.

I hope that later, when I look back on this month, I’ll laugh. I’ll have shed some of this New Mom unknowingness. I’ll have learned—from experience, not because other moms have said so—that this is all normal. “HAHAHA,” I’ll say. “That first month! What a riot!” ‘cause, granted, some of this stuff is fucking hilarious. Like this morning I had Caleb in bed with me, and he puked on the sheets, so I’m trying to strip the bed and he’s crying ‘cause he wants breakfast –I think? Or maybe he’s crying because he suddenly two days ago went from pooping nine hundred times an hour to only once a day in great mind-blowing quantities and does this mean he’s constipated? In which case how do I help him? I looked it up on the internet—warm bath, massage his tummy, pump his legs like a bicycle—and then call the pediatrician. I’ve got my crying son in my arms, the phone precariously balanced between ear and shoulder, the nurse is talking (“he’s not constipated,” she tells me.” Baby poop changes”) and about the time I notice I have puke in my hair the dog comes into the bedroom and starts to puke, also (is this sympathy puking?) at which point I hang up the phone, sit down on the floor and cry. But also laugh. ‘Cause it’s funny, I get that, but there’ve been other things that aren’t so funny, like we’re having a hard time with the breast feeding, Caleb and I, and there is nothing more demoralizing then not being able to feed your child. We’re working with a lactation consultant and are figuring ourselves out, slowly, slowly, but still: the mental job I’ve been doing to myself over this is the equivalent of taking an electric drill through the shoulder blade.

Something else that took me by surprise was the crying. Not Caleb’s—mine. There’s all these hormones, and no sleep, and I’ve lost it pretty much on a daily basis. I’ve cried in my living room, my bedroom, my car, my kitchen, Amanda’s kitchen, Jeff’s kitchen, the grocery store, the dog park, and the pediatrician’s lobby. I was filling out paperwork on our first visit, and there was this list of questions regarding the mother’s post-partum health, number five of which was HAVE YOU BEEN CRYING EXCESSIVELY, and I read that and immediately start crying excessively. In the lobby. With its colored walls and playroom and happy toddlers toddling around, and there I am crying my eyes out with Caleb sleeping at my feet in his infant car seat. The receptionist—and there should be a five-star hotel suite in Heaven for this woman—came over with a box of Kleenex, leaned over and whispered, “Look at the woman to your right in the blue coat.” I turned, and there was a woman, also with an infant car seat at her feet, crying HER eyes out. “Totally normal,” the receptionist whispered. “You’re all totally normal.”

Hearing that just about saved my life.