The Low Point

I've been struggling at night to keep it together. It coincides with the nights when Callie won't nurse, which is most nights. She will start and then pull off and scream. I try to get her back on but she usually just continues to scream and scream. Usually she will take a bottle at that point. I just take it so personally, like what is wrong with me that she won't feed from me? I know in my head that night is when she is colicky and that is when my milk supply is lowest and I am exhausted after being with her on my own for a good 12 hours. But when I am in the moment I just deflate.

We were at a friend's house for a party last night and of course the inevitable happened. I went to feed her in another room and she melted down. Bill gave her the bottle we brought (which I almost didn't bring) and I spent the rest of our time at the party feeling totally dejected and alone even though I was surrounded by friends. We said our goodbyes and headed for the elevator. And then of course she calmed down. It may have just been too overstimulating for her at the party. It was a bit on the loud side. I spent the drive home staring at her wondering why we can't work together on this thing. Bill tried to talk to me but I was shut down and utterly exhausted. I went to lie down and he came in and said 4 words that I never wanted to hear: "I'm worried about you." Over the course of the night I thought to myself: "You know what? I should be down and exhausted. For the entire day it is just me and her. No one else. Me." And for most of our time together we are good. I never think about doing harm to her or me. I do think about running away from all of this, but I don't think that is unusual. Would I actually do it? No way. And I thought about my first struggles with teaching. And I thought about how I would explain what it was like to people who aren't teachers, especially those who think its cake, those types that say "Must be nice to only work 9 months out of the year." And that phrase was " you are just always on." And I realized that being a mom is being way more on than being a teacher. As a teacher I have a prep period and a lunch period and I have a door that locks. I don't have that luxury as a mom. She literally needs me to ensure her survival.

I was still ruminating on all of this when I went on a stroller hike today. We met at Byxbee Park in Palo Alto. I had never been there before so we left early. Callie had been an angel all day so of course she decided to melt down right when we were going to get started. I got her mostly calmed down and we started our walk. I was talking to Amy, the organizer,about how we were doing. I didn't say much but she just knew. She asked how old Callie was and I told her 7 weeks. Suddenly she was saying things outloud that I had been rolling over in my head. "How do people do this? Why do people like this? What is wrong with me that I don't love this? How am I going to get through this because I hate it?" She told me that 7-8 weeks was her absolute low point and she didn't know how she was going to get through it. She said after that was when she came out of her fog and things got better: her daughter started doing more and getting more of a personality. She also told me not to judge my feelings about being a mom on what is going on right now. It gave me so much hope! So if I can just get through a couple more weeks maybe this will even out. Keeping fingers crossed!