We are in the six week trench.
I wrote the first draft of this post a week ago at two in the morning, but couldn’t bring myself to publish it.
Because it can be hard to say the brutal, scary, ugly truth. Because these are the deep dark ugly parts of parenting that we are supposed to keep hidden.
This is my third child. I should be better at this by now. I’m supposed to have it all together. I’m supposed to be “sleeping when the baby sleeps”. I’m supposed to be “practicing self care”. I’m supposed to be “savoring every minute”. I’m supposed to have seen this part coming. I’m supposed to be cherishing the last baby.
But some days I feel like I’m drowning.
I keep thinking we’ve hit “rock bottom” in the newborn phase. Last weekend was so, so hard. I thought surely that was it. Things were going to start improving, even just a little at a time.
And for a day they did. And then they didn’t.
I’m holding on to the hope that this six week trench has been a common theme for me with my children (so if I’ve survived it before surely I can again, right?) The adrenaline of meeting this tiny human has worn off and exhaustion from WEEKS of sleep deprivation has set in. We are maybe? almost? so close to seeing a light at the end of the tunnel in the coming weeks (hopefully knock on wood) but who can know for sure. Like running a marathon and thinking the finish line is around every turn but then it’s not. But surely it’s just around the next one….
On the worst nights, being woken up within an hour after crawling into bed feels like a legitimate form of torture. You may read that as an exaggeration but I mean it quite literally. I feel like I’m being tormented. Why is the grunting only at night? Why does she fall asleep easily during the day and fight it at night? Why can we go solidly 3 hours between bottles all day but after an hour at night we are starving?
It’s so hard and makes no sense at all. And I’m so tired. Torture.
The good news is, I can still hear the logical side of my brain telling me that that is not the case–that this is normal. That this too shall pass. That most likely this is all exaggerated because of sleep deprivation.
But as I put the pacifier back in for the billionth time, logic might as well be horse shit. And even if this is just the depths of sleep deprivation, it doesn’t change the fact that I want to scream. And cry. That I want to lose my shit on my husband who is upstairs sleeping peacefully even though he is the most patient and helpful man in the entire world. He would get up if I asked him to. But I’m down in this no-sleep pit and I am scared to drag him down with me because I need him to be on his game and when he doesn’t sleep, he isn’t on his game. So I make him sleep so that at least during the day I don’t have to be alone in this.
But it doesn’t make it easy.
I can feel myself reaching my limit. And then I feel ashamed to be that close to reaching my limit. I google Postpartum Depression and I tell myself it’s just a lack of sleep because it probably is.
And then I grab my computer and write, in between swaddling and reswaddling and holding the pacifier in and watching the clock with the sinking feeling that by the time she finally falls asleep it will be time for her to eat again.
And I write. I write even though I don’t want to admit how hard this is. I write even though I’m embarrassed at how poorly I’m handling it.
I write because every day from 2 a.m. to 7 a.m. feels like drowning. And I’m tired of pretending. I need to say it out loud and acknowledge that this sucks. Sucks sucks sucks.
I just needed to say it. Because I’m too tired to keep carrying it around with me.
And because this is where I get to be real. There’s no greater relief than the moment when you’re drowning and someone finally sees you. (Except maybe being in bed. That trumps everything right now.)
So thanks for seeing me.
Note: I’m publishing this a week after writing it and things have improved. The nights seem to be going a little more smoothly and I finally caved and let my husband take a few nights so I could try to recover some critical sleep (a.k.a. sanity). I know this stage is normal for me at this part of the game, and I also know that before I know it it will pass and soon I will have forgotten how bad it was.
Knowing that soon this will be a distant memory, I had the urge to delete this post. It’s so much more fun to write positive or inspiring posts–to find the beauty even in the hard parts of parenting.
But after dinner with two dear friends last week, I was reminded that sometimes the world needs a little more “real”. The kind of real where you don’t have to look for the silver lining–you can just let it be what it is. Even if it’s hard. Especially if it’s hard.