These are some of the brain battles I have to reason with daily right now:
1. Now that we have brought home an extra small baby and his whole life in the NICU was defined by how many grams he gained per day, having even just one poor feeding session at home feels like a horrendous personal failing. It can feel like I'm doing it wrong, like he's going to eat poorly all day at every feeding, like I'm not cut out for the challenge. Like he's going to lose weight and waste away.
If I'm at the end of my baby shift and tired, it's much worse feeling (being tired is my number one trigger for worry) and my Big Bad Worst Fear creeps in: What if baby has to be rehospitalized?
The likelihood of that happening due to weight gain issues is soooo loooowww. We would obviously be in contact with our doctor to troubleshoot before it became a big enough issue. However, Big Bad Worst Fears don't care about statistics, they prey on a tired brain and whatever the most sore spot is in your poor little heart. For me right now, that sore spot is the entire NICU experience.
Which brings me to my next unfun fact:
2. Bringing home baby from the NICU is wonderful. But the experience of the NICU sticks around and demands attention. There is no "that's all in the past, move on, be happy". At least not for me. It's gonna take a long time to unpack all of the feelings and fears that got stored up during that time. I thought I did a pretty good job of processing stuff as it happened. Not so. Not. So.
There is also an insidious voice that says "Uhg, just be grateful, Chloe" whenever I feel like something is hard or when I feel overwhelmed. Like I should deny the reality that new parenthood is ROUGH on top of his start being so gnarly taxing on everyone. This all comes down to the false notion that only one feeling can be true at a time.
I can be grateful that he's home and also feel overwhelmed by or unsure about new parenthood.
I can be happy that we are in charge of him 24/7 now and also feel absolutely run ragged by the fact that we are in charge of him 24/7 now.
It's also okay if one of those feelings is louder than the other at any given time. Denying the feelings would be far worse than just feeling them.
3. Having an extra small newborn with a feeble immune system during COVID is horrid. The COVID era is horrid. Silly us, we didn't think that the pandemic could last THIS LONG when we first got pregnant. SO SILLY WE ARE. It's also the regular cold and flu season. So. That's cool.
Now we add on having to make decisions about quarantining ourselves with a brand new baby when all we want to do is invite our parents over to meet him and squish him and also take over for an afternoon so we can go nap. Which will happen someday, we just haven't figured out when. Or how. Or what boundaries we will maintain. I dunno, man. We'll figure it out eventually.
4. Exclusively pumping to provide food for baby because he can't breastfeed yet (and even if he could, he likely wouldn't be able to do the work well enough to eat enough without wearing himself out early) is double freakin feeding duty.
Nursing: Difficult, full time job.
Pumping: Difficult, full time job.
Timing baby's astronomically long feeds every three hours and also managing to pump every three hours (sometimes four) without accidentally overlapping the two when baby's schedule gets wonky due to said long feed (which is often): Uuuuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhggggg.
Yes, Hunter feeds baby all the time. He's really good at it, too. He's got the patience of a saint and when I'm falling apart because I'm worrying about baby eating enough, he's the one to talk me back from that cliff edge and magically get baby to eat 10 more millileters. We usually trade off bottle feeding duty as long as I'm not pumping or coming up on pumping. But during my morning shift while Hunter is sleeping...yikes. It's hard to do both. And I literally can't do both at the same time.
Pumping and bottle feeding requires time for all the pump parts washing and bottle washing between tasks. And it requires brain space to keep the right amount of milk defrosted in the fridge at all times. And it requires time to warm milk and prep bottles before feeding.
I need a maid. All new parents need a maid. Maids for everyone. But only if they come 100% familiar with our home and routines so we don't have to direct them. Obviously. I've now described a very creepy stalker maid. And I would love them for all their creepy knowledge. They also have to miraculously carry zero germs. Someone once said we should just inject bleach into our bloodstreams.....I wonder. (That was a joke. Please read that as a darkish joke.)