ways in which my life has changed, part 1

I now drink energy drinks. (Stroking my baby with one hand, clutching a can of Monster with the other was not an image of motherhood I had considered when pregnant but is now my reality.)

I think less about my partner and his needs and think all the time about what my baby needs.

I hardly ever leave the house. People visit me instead of me visiting them.

I don't give a shit about my job.

I take photos, regularly.

I can't read more than a couple of pages of a book at a time and only before bed. I had read fifty-five books this year before having a baby and have read two since the birth.

I think less about food. What I would cook for lunch or dinner used to be a major and enjoyable preoccupation, now I just care about getting something anything into my belly as quickly as possible so I can rush back to my baby.

Parenthood may have cured me of procrastination, a long-standing and often debilitating habit of mine. I was always leaving things to do manana manana; now I realise that leaving something until later means having to do it while dealing with a screaming baby or rushing to get it done on the way to a screaming baby. It's so much easier to do chores or deal with things as soon as I can (seemingly obvious but hard to manage life lesson finally learned.)

anxiety level: heightened

As you enter the prison where I work there is a sign that tells you the security threat level, e.g. security threat level - severe. My anxiety level isn't yet severe but feels as if it is heading that way.

The following excerpts from Katherine Heiny's article in The Guardian about her confinement during pregnancy really struck a chord with me:

The problem is not just that I am a champion worrier. It’s that I court worry – I seek it out, I invite it into my home, never remembering how hard it is to dislodge it from its comfortable chair by the fire... 
And when I got pregnant with my first child, I bought What to Expect When You’re Expecting – and the chapter titled What Can Go Wrong was the one I read first...
Retained placenta; umbilical cord prolapse; foetal arrhythmia; toxoplasmosis; preeclampsia; placental abruption; gestational diabetes; cytomegalovirus: I read about all of them, and learned the warning signs. Perhaps to other women, these complications remain obscure, shadowy threats during pregnancy, but to me they were hard, clear, immediate dangers. 

During my first trimester, I worried about everything. Expecting to miscarry at any moment I would obsessively check my underwear for blood and dreaded the scans that would surely reveal the absence of a heartbeat. Making it to the second trimester and despite the presence of a heartbeat, I worried that the easing of my sickness and tiredness meant that I wasn't really pregnant; feeling like a fraud until a tiny lil' flutter finally turned into a kick. For the next seventeen weeks my main worry was placental abruption after reading the Ariel Levy article, Thanksgiving in Mongolia.

Now I sit here with my ten week old baby boy and the anxiety has only become worse after his birth. Unable to sleep because I had to keep checking he was breathing, I bought a tiny monitor that clips to his nappy and was then unable to sleep due to worrying that the monitor did not work. There is another monitor next to his cot so I can hear if he cries when I am in the living room. I love hearing him snore, fart, snuffle, but when he is silent I have to go check on him, sick with fear at what I might find.  Afterwards, I sit down and immediately need to get up and go check on him again. I rush my dinner so I can go check on him. Halfway through watching a programme with my partner in the evening I make an excuse for needing to get something from the kitchen so that I can check on him; whilst making dinner I need to stop what I am doing every five minutes so that I can check on him.

Anxiety is exhausting.

Sometimes I stand and watch him sleep, his chest moving up and down in a reassuring pattern. But is he really breathing? Can I trust what I am seeing? I tenderly place my hand on his chest, feeling the gentle rise and fall. He throws his arms around my hand holding me close. When I am with him, holding him close, I can relax and feel a contentment I've not felt before. The rest of the time I am anxious.

halloweek

My partner and I always decorate our house for Halloween like the big kiddults we are; each year adding a few more decorations to our eclectic collection. I'm never quite sure what to say when people come 'round to the house who don't know us really well - I didn't invite a neighbour in because of what she might have thought of the decorations, especially as it was after October 31st so she might have thought it was just our normal decor and not realise that we celebrate the entire week. The plumber who we had to let into the house simply ignored them.

An old friend visited. She looked at Baby Ozzy and then around at our (un)living room. "You'll probably have to change the decorations as he gets a bit older". The Man and I stared at each other, realising what she meant: another aspect of parenthood we had not considered. But was it really necessary I wondered and looked around the room trying to see it from a child's perspective. My gaze landed on the fake severed foot next to the TV, the hand next to the record player, the stickers making the fireplace look like it was bleeding, the arm appearing from the fireplace clutching an axe, the creepy doll, the dog skeleton with light-up red eyes, on and on, the decorations screamed Child Unfriendly in a campy horror voice.

I don't know if we have another year left of our normal decorations. He will be 14 months old next Halloweek. When do children start to have nightmares?