All about the fires of hell, AKA the first few weeks of first-time parenthood

If Thayer and I decide to have another baby someday (If, people. If.) I'd do well to re-read this post again then. It would be awesome to not spend several weeks in the state of constant horror that I did this first time around.

If you're reading this and you've had babies, I don't know, maybe you can relate. Or maybe you were one of those naturals who was confident from the get-go and totally prepared for the utter transformation of your life overnight. Perhaps you were all, "Hey, life, you look nothing like I remember, but I am totally down with that!" That was not me. That was not me at all. I had hoped it would be me—that I would be insta-mom, so doped up on love and the miracle of life that everything would just fall into place and I would feel at peace with my baby and the universe and...

No. Hahahahaha. No.

If you're reading this and you're expecting a baby, maybe you'll remember this if, once your baby has arrived, you feel like the fires of hell are burning around you. When the days and nights bleed together while you stumble around in a sleep-deprived haze, wearing nothing but underwear because the clothes in your drawers are relics in your vague, distant consciousness. Think of this post if you are unable to summon the willpower to eat lunch or remember when you last brushed your teeth. (We went three days. When our toothbrushes suddenly managed to shine like a lighthouse lamp through our blind fog, it was like seeing old friends. "Heyyyy, guys.")

The first day and night and following day at home, I thought my baby would never stop crying. I was starving her, turns out, with a low milk supply I was promised would increase because "all women can breastfeed." Sadly, said promise would never be fully realized, and said credo is, in fact, a fallacy.

For the lolz.

Once we started actually feeding her, things took a big step up. But not a big enough step to convince me I would ever again recognize my life or even know who I was. I was now a mom. Every second of every day, every week, every year for the rest of my life. Nothing would ever again be for me. I would never see my friends again, never go out to dinner; forget going to a movie, I'd never even watch a movie in my own house. I'd be lucky to fit in an episode of Love It or List It on HGTV.

(JUST KIDDING. We saw every single episode of that damn show. On the rare occasion we had the presence of mind to turn on the TV, there were Hilary and David, being all obnoxious with their unbearable banter, yet after using all our brain capacity just to press "ON," we had none left to change the channel. Curse you, clever Canadian show!)

I was sure every moment of my existence would go to panicking over the life of my little baby, and there would never be any sleeping, ever. My own self was nothing but a memory, a little trinket, a souvenir from the past I might pull out of my pocket now and then, to look at and think, "Remember her? Remember that woman who did things and had friends she saw regularly and had things to say?"

You may know me as I generally know myself: as a calm, easygoing person who usually just goes with the flow. But sometimes I jump into something I like to call my "infinity spiral." This is where I believe that whatever terrible thing is happening at the moment will be happening forever. And panic ensues. It ensues like a boss.

So I flung myself down the infinity spiral and then struggled with tremendous guilt over missing my old life. For what kind of selfish, awful person misses their old life when they've just begun a new one with a tiny, precious, beautiful baby? A terrible mother, that's what.

Thus, for a solid two weeks, I was good and terrified I was doing every possible thing wrong. There were moments, even days, of hope and joy, but then the fear would return and I would feel like a failure and the doomsday horns would again play their sad song of foreverrrrrr.

Then my mom and my sister and my mother- and father-in-law showed up, and the fog started to lift. A little at first. Then a little more. And then a lot. Having helpers gave us time to have little moments to ourselves again. Little breathers, just for us, to remember that we were humans with personalities and lives. To remember who we were.

And all the while, we didn't even notice we were getting better at managing our new life. And all the while, we didn't even notice Helen was getting better at being a baby. We started getting a little more sleep, we started learning more about her, we started not freaking out about her every cry, or the fact that one day looked exactly like the day before and the day before that, because the days actually started to look different from one another. Things were changing.

Now we are six weeks into this thing, and the fog has lifted. The hellfires have since smoldered and died.

As the smoke cleared, I started to see Helen with new, tear-free eyes. And I have fallen crazily, ridiculously, head-over-heels in love with her. I can't get enough of holding her thick little body, steadily pudging more every day. Her face is the most perfect thing I have seen, and I am already fearing when she decides she no longer wants me kissing it 7,000 times a day. I find even her cry-face adorable, and I have no trouble admitting I get ecstatic over her bowel movements. Sometimes, when she stares at me until her little eyelids drift closed and she falls asleep, my throat gets tight and I have to squint to maintain my composure.

(True, I have always been [overly?] emotional, but I swear, this face could make Voldemort melt.)

In the beginning, when people would tell me to "cherish this time, because it goes so fast!" my internal reaction was twofold. 1) Sweet Jesus, I hope so, and 2) WHO CHERISHES THIS TIME? WHO?!

But the memory of those first hellish few weeks is fading. It's already so far gone it feels wrapped in gauze—I can almost see the memory inside, but I just can't feel it.

And I find myself cherishing. I am cherishing all the time, I am cherishing up the wazoo. 

The point is, my daughter, Helen—she's absolutely wonderful. And now that I've passed through those first few weeks that my good friend Amy so brilliantly called "cruel, cruel hazing," I'm only at the beginning of learning exactly how wonderful she is.