Match Made in Motherhood

I thought I had prepared for the worst case scenario. I told myself that the first few months would be hell… no sleeping, not a minute to myself, and hard on my marriage. Don’t get me wrong, the beginning of motherhood was hard. There was the uncertainty of am I doing this right? Should I burp him this way? Is that spot normal? It seems comical now that I actually asked family members for advice. These days, that’s the last thing I want. I’m the first person to ask for advice, but nothing grinds my gears more than the unsolicited advice I seem to get on a daily basis.

But overall (partly because Maddox was such an easy baby), the early days were manageable. Every day was survival mode. My body went into crisis mode and survived on six hours of sleep in two-hour increments because it has to. What was the alternative? There was no time to be bored because a living, breathing, vulnerable human being was depending on you every second of the day.

It’s only when things seemingly get easier that the real challenge starts. Once you have a second to think about how hard it is. Once it sinks in that this is your life now. All day, every day is spent tending to someone else’s needs. At this stage, I was bored yet overstimulated all at the same time. Somehow, I felt both restless and exhausted at the same time. I had more flexibility than ever before in some regards. I could do chores when the mood struck me or crack open a book in the middle of the day. But, at the same time, I had no control whatsoever. When Maddox wanted to eat or be held, there was no reasoning with him to wait five minutes. I had to tend to him right then and there.

I feel so lost. I’m so unsure of myself. I wasn’t a brand new mom anymore, but I wasn’t a seasoned mom who felt secure with her decisions either. How was I supposed to fill my days? There was information out there on how to stimulate my baby’s brain with toys and books, but where was the manual on how to stimulate my brain? All I wanted to feel at the end of the day was satisfied. Like I had accomplished something that day. Yet, nine times out of ten I felt that my life was lacking in substance or socialization.

I always heard that the newborn stage is hard. That you won’t get any sleep and should be prepared for the baby to cry nonstop. But the longer I’ve been a mom, the more I’m realizing that it only gets harder when the babies get older, not easier. That was a tough pill to swallow. I used to think that the newborn stage was the hardest. Knowing that every day that Maddox got older, things would get easier gave me the strength to make it through the day. So, realizing that things would only get harder as Maddox got more mobile was a harsh reality to cope with. Of course, I’m still excited about all the new things my son can do now, but I’m also dreading how they will make each day more challenging than the last.

Despite their reputation for being difficult, newborns had a lot of perks. They’re cuddly, slept a big chunk of the day, and when you set them down, they didn’t go anywhere. For the most part, they’re pretty predictable. Maddox could already roll across a room at five months, and it wouldn’t be long before he’d be crawling. Every day he required more of my undivided attention. You can sleepwalk through the newborn stage. In the crawling and toddler stages, you had to watch them like a hawk. It was so much more fun being able to interact with my baby. There were certainly a lot of pros in the crawling stage. However, I couldn’t help but feel like all these helpful warnings about having a new baby left me totally unprepared for how to handle the challenges of an older baby. Surviving the first few months was only the beginning.

Thump, thump, thump.

Finally, the moment I’ve been counting down for has arrived. I’ll finally have a chance to talk to someone other than myself. These days, the only interaction I had with adults during the day was with my online friends. I had always been a worry wart, but pregnancy brought that anxious side out of me even more. I was constantly Googling, “When is the risk for miscarriage over?” and “Is it safe to eat feta cheese?” Always, the results from the same website would come up. When I started to poke around Baby Center a little more, I saw that I could join a group of mothers who were at the same stage of pregnancy together. That was when I became acquainted with the May 2018 Birth Board. I’m not sure how I would have survived without this group.

We went through everything together… from sharing our pregnancy announcements to expelling mucus plugs. Now we were navigating through the challenges motherhood and sharing advice about how to handle each new stage. I don’t want to brag, but I’m kind of a big deal there. When BoyMom2Be2018 said something in a thread, everyone liked it. Even though I didn’t have any real mom friends to interact with in person, it was invaluable to be able to ‘talk’ with these women to know what was normal and what I should be concerned about. I would be a mess without them.

“Daddy’s home, Maddox,” I call out to my chubby baby.

This gets his attention. He puts down the magazine he was chewing on and gives my husband a big gummy grin. Maddox was so adorable around other people. I almost wished they got to see what I put up with on a daily basis.

“He never looks at me like that,” I say to my husband, Drew, as I give him a peck on the lips.

“That’s because you never leave him long enough for him to miss you,” he responds.

I’m too tired to come up with a rebuttal or even a smart-ass comment, so I just close my eyes and nod. Just as I’m about to get up and go to the bathroom after holding it for an hour, he stops me.

“Give me a few minutes. I need to change and look at something on the computer,” Drew said smoothly.

I sigh loudly and think that I may not make it that long. I hold back because I don’t have the energy for an argument, but in my head, I was getting really worked up. I wanted to say, haven’t you just been on the computer all day? Don’t you know how much I look forward to you getting home so I can have a minute to myself? Or even, in a moment of desperation, I might have said. 'Don’t you want to see him after being away all day?' But this time, he got away with that remark.

Next time, he might not be so lucky. I pick Maddox up and put him in his Exersaucer. He loves that thing. He’d spend all day jumping in it if I let him. However, all the books, articles, and sancti-mommies warn about the hazards of “baby containers” like this. “Only for 20 minutes at a time and no more than 2 times a day”. “It will cause hip dysplasia,” and more accusatory, “Babies should be able to roam freely and need tummy time for proper development”. I feel guilty for a split second before placing the blame on my husband instead. It was his fault Maddox was in here, not mine.

Drew and I weren’t always this snippy with each other. Before he “grew up” and got an office job when I got pregnant, we were happy to be around each other all the time. He worked from home, while I did some freelance work from while while I was between temp positions. All of our friends said, “I don’t know how you’re around each other so much? I’d get sick of my husband.” But we never did. I loved passing by him in the kitchen and knowing about every little detail of his day. We’ve been married almost 3 years, but this past year - between pregnancy and having a newborn - makes it feel like a lot longer.

I made an effort to ask how his day was, but I tended to zone out while I waited for him to get to the point. Drew is in advertising. He used to be a freelance copywriter, but now he’s working full time at a big agency as an account man. When he complains about how he felt like he sold out and was ‘stifled creatively’, I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. I’d love the luxury to consider career goals like that. To me, he got the best of both worlds. He gets a steady salary while working in the field that he loves.

Whenever he makes a comment like 'give me a minute' after having hours of minutes to himself all day at work, it makes me irrationally angry. I wanted to scream, “It’s not fair!” or throw a toddler-style temper tantrum. He might be working, but to me, spending time out in the world on your own seemed like a vacation. I resent him so much because his life hardly changed at all after having our son, while my world has been turned upside down. Maddox can wake up an hour after I’ve fallen asleep, and while it’s hard leaping out of bed, it’s even harder knowing that Drew gets to sleep right through another 3 a.m. wake-up call. Of course, it was better for one of us to sleep, but I wanted him to suffer right along with me.

Before we actually had a baby, we had parenthood all figured out. I was taking on the role of a stay-at-home mom, so I’d be handling the baby during the day, but I was sure that Drew would be the kind of dad who stepped it up on the nights and weekends. We both knew how important sleep was, so we agreed during a serious conversation when I was about six months pregnant to trade off on nights, rather than get up every other time with the baby. That way, we’d both be able to recharge with a full night of sleep. He committed to two or three nights a week. If I was lucky, Drew took over baby duty one night a week. And that only started up recently once Maddox started nursing less frequently.

Sure, he helped a lot in the first few weeks when he had some time off work, making sure I didn’t doze off while nursing. But since he had gone back to work, I wasn’t getting as much help from him as I had anticipated. Our plans were all good in theory, but when the time came to implement it, we had to regroup. I quickly learned that my husband required his beauty sleep. Where I could make it through a night of interrupted sleep with the help of a short nap and some coffee, Drew would transform from the rational man I knew and love into a grouchy old lady. He would whine in this annoying voice, complain about every little thing, and generally be impossible to live with. When it came to handling sleep deprivation, it was clear that women were much more resilient than men.

So, we had to accommodate for this unforeseen roadblock. I’ll give him credit: he did make the effort to help out more during the daylight hours. He tried to even the score by giving me time to myself in the evening, and I haven’t had to wash a load of dishes since the baby was born.

He made the effort to give me the night on my birthday two months ago. My four celebratory drinks would have just been a normal weekend in the old days. For this new mom who wasn’t used to drinking anymore, drinking that much affected me more than it used to. I was in no place to breastfeed. I planned ahead to store some breastmilk for Drew to give the baby a bottle. It wasn’t easy to get him to take it. It took several tries and a lot of prodding. Eventually, hunger took over and the two of us got him to drink from the bottle. I managed to get a couple hours of sleep after that, but around 4 a.m. I couldn’t take the pain in my breasts anymore. My plan was to get up to pump for a few minutes to take some of the pressure off before going back to sleep, but as soon as I grabbed the flanges from the dryer rack, I heard Maddox whining. I could have woken up Drew and told him to give the baby another bottle, but I just took one for the team since by now my milk was fine.

That’s how a lot of things went in our house. I’d try to let Drew take over a task, but as much as I wanted a break, I’d end up taking over when I realized how much easier it would be for me to do it. I was with him all the time and knew his routine. I should take every break I could get, but I had a hard time letting go. I was constantly torn between wanting a break and wanting to be with Maddox every moment he was awake.

Most people don’t think that I even deserve the right to complain about being a stay-at-home mom. “You know, you chose to do this,” Drew will remind me. “You’re so lucky to spend every day with him,” working moms, family members, or even random strangers will comment. And I know I’m lucky, but does that mean I don’t get the right to complain every once in a while? People complain about their jobs all the time, so why wasn’t I allowed that right? Even if you enjoy doing something, it’s not easy doing it twenty-four hours a day. I love writing, but if someone woke me up in the middle of the night and forced me to jot down my thoughts, I wouldn’t enjoy it nearly it as much.

I wish more people would recognize how hard it is to be a stay-at-home-mom, instead of idealizing it. It’s not just the milk drunk grins and adorable giggles you see on Facebook. I hated the idea of another person spending more time with him every day than I do. That was a driving force in why I wanted to be a full-time parent. In these long days and even longer nights, though, I wondered if I was cut out for this. Maybe I should consider going back to work. On days like today, it seemed like a really appealing option.

It feels like an hour, but it’s only been twenty minutes before Drew comes back.

“Come to Dada,” he says, reaching to grab Maddox out of the Exercauser. “He hasn’t been in that thing all day, has he?”

“Don’t try me today,” I warn, giving him the evil eye. “He refused to nap all day and finally fell asleep on my chest, but then I realized I didn’t have my phone with me so I ended up reading the research on your new project you left on the end table. By the way, that tiny budget for their new nationwide campaign is totally unrealistic.”

“I know, tell me about it. Well, at least you got to put your brain to use today. I know how you hate feeling useless.”

“Yeah, who knew stay-at-home moms were capable of thinking about something other than their children?” I joked.

Whenever I finally do get a break, I can’t decide what I want to do. I usually end up jumping back and forth between so many things that I don’t actually get anything accomplished. Clean? I’m no neat freak, but the state of disorder was even driving me crazy. Nah, no one was here to see the mess, so what was the point in cleaning? Lay down? It’s getting a little late, and I might not be able to sleep tonight if I napped now. Eat? Yes, that was the most pressing need at the moment.

I walked over to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. I always expected to see something new and appealing inside, despite knowing what was in there. The idea of fixing something felt too daunting, so I settled for a handful of shredded cheese and a few pepperonis.

“Hey, how does pizza sound tonight?” I called out to Drew in the other room when I realized how much my snack hit the spot.

“Sure,” he replied. Finally, he gave me the answer I was looking for. Usually, I’d ask what he wanted, and he’d say he didn’t care, only to turn down every suggestion I made. I pulled the pizza crust out of the fridge, but before I could open it, curiosity got the best of me, and I went to see what Drew and Maddox were doing.

This is what usually happens: I beg for a minute away, but the second I leave, I end up watching the two of them play. I love knowing everything about Maddox’s day, and it killed me that I didn’t know what he and his dad did together when I was away. Drew was bouncing him on his knee and blowing raspberries on his cheeks. I stood there for too long admiring the sight. He might be just wearing an undershirt and basketball shorts, but when he was playing with our son and seeing how much Maddox loved him, Drew had never looked sexier. Maybe we’d actually have sex tonight. Just when I mentally prepare for when I’ll make time to shower, Drew sniffs his nose.

“Oh, I thought he had a dirty diaper, but I guess that smell is just you,” he says, leaving me highly insulted. On second thought, maybe sex wouldn’t happen tonight.

“Sorry, I was too busy taking care of your son to shower today,” I say snarkily as I walk away. I’m banging around in the kitchen searching for a pizza pan, when my husband appears over my shoulder.

“Hey honey, I’m sorry. I know you do a lot for us, and I appreciate it. Honestly, I was so used to smelling dirty diapers that I thought Maddox had dropped a deuce again.

I manage a smirk, despite my anger.

“I know, I reek. I caught a whiff of myself earlier and started to look around for what that smell was.” I don’t know if it was being busier or changing hormones, but ever since I became a mom I smelled all the time, even just after taking a shower. My natural, no aluminum deodorant wasn’t cutting it anymore. Note to self: splurge on some regular deodorant next time I’m in the store. I get caught up in the moment and kiss Drew, forgetting his unbelievably offensive comment but, we broke away after a second.

“Hey, where’s the baby?” I question as we look around for him. We walk back into the living room to find him chewing on the magazine he had earlier.

“You can’t even watch him for five minutes. Why did you let him get a hold of that?” I say, punishing him by trying to make him feel guilty. Nevermind that this was a regular occurence on my watch too.

“What would we do without you, huh buddy?” He says sweetly as he takes the magazine away and picks him up. Once he sensed that sex may be on the table tonight, he was making an extra effort. While the sweetness was appreciated, after the monotony of my everyday life, I almost wished that he would take the bait so we could get into an argument. That would at least add some excitement to my day.

“Hey, do you want me to make the pizza?” my husband offered.

“No way, this is my mini-vacation. Take him in his room while I cook.”