random thoughts part # 9. the new baby, new mom edition.

1. If you think Google is scary when you are worried there is something wrong with you, try googling stuff when you think there is something wrong with your baby…

2. I have been constantly amazed in this adult life at how little sleep one can live with. I thought residency had already taught me this lesson. Nope, a baby is a whole new level of sleep deprivation. Continuous, relentless sleep deprivation. But at least no one is expecting you to function as a physician in this state… oh, wait... uhhh...

3. Postpartum anxiety… Yeah, that’s more like it.

4. Baby tracking apps have taken my tendency toward obsessive compulsive disorder to a new level.

5. I was never really sure before, but now I know that I would not do well as a stay-at-home mom… I would seriously drive myself completely insane.

6. I planned to use my maternity leave/FMLA time to study for my Boards. Haha. ha.. ha….

7. I was lucky and blessed enough to have a safe, (relatively) easy, natural childbirth after a normal, healthy pregnancy… But it is still shocking what a trauma the whole thing is to your body. And how horrifically painful labor is. Wow. #newrespect.

8. Admittedly, I went into the whole “parenting” gig pretty cocky… what with the 4 siblings, dozens of cousins, family medicine board certification, my general comfort around infants, etc… and then the Lord did smite me. I’ve been blessed with a beautiful baby boy who only likes to sleep 0.5-2 hours at a time around the clock, eats every 1-3 hours (each time like he is about to literally starve to death, despite growing at an astronomical rate), won himself a hefty diagnosis of sagittal craniosynostosis at his one month baby checkup, and so will subsequently need a fairly major neurosurgery at 3 months old, and who poops more than I have ever seen… Touche, God. Touche.

9. Just in case reverse psychology works on God, I just want him to know that I know NOTHING about toddlers.

10. It’s hard to explain the type of joy that I felt the first time Oliver slept over 6 hours straight… It was kind of like being a resident on call and sleeping without getting paged for 6 hours.. you make it through a few full uninterrupted sleep cycles without being woken and dream and everything, then wake up rested and immediately PANIC —— frantically checking all your pagers and phones. It was kind of like that. Except in this case, after the panic settled and I heard him breathing, there was also a situation in which I also found myself drenched in night sweat and with comically enormous, engorged, piping hot, tender boobs that were leaking milk everywhere… And yet, it was still the best sleep I’ve ever had in my life.

11. Al and I quickly went from a philosophy of “We don’t need much baby stuff. We live in a small apartment and they just lay there” to getting a playmat, a swing, a bouncy chair, and a Rock n Play, a baby K’Tan, and an Ergo just to figure out some way that the baby would sleep without requiring both arms at all times.

12. Speaking of, during the 40+ hours per day it feels like I spend breastfeeding, I have read no less than EIGHT books about how to get a baby to sleep.... Yes, that's one more than the number of weeks that the child has been alive... And all I really needed to do was buy a damned Fischer Price Pack n Play... (And/or just wait until he was more than a few weeks old...)

13. You think I am exaggerating? I’m totally serious. I will name them all:

1. Bringing up Bebe
2. The Contented Little Baby
3. The Baby Whispererer
4. The No Cry Sleep Solution
5. The Baby Book
6. Healthy Sleep Habits, Healthy Child
7. Solve your child's sleep problems
8. Sleeping with your baby: A Parent’s Guide to Cosleeping

14. Speaking of, I’m pretty sure Amazon’s “1-click Buy” button is just about as dangerous to compulsive people as online gambling.

15. Unfortunately, I am now more angst-ridden over the appropriate philosophy to get a child to sleep than I ever imagined possible.. and I am absolutely convinced that I have permanently damaged the poor child by letting him cry in his crib while I prayed he would go back to sleep.

16. Despite being so supposedly sleep-deprived, my current favorite activity is anything that involves me being awake with Oliver. It will be so hard to leave him to go back to work, it makes my heart physically hurt to think about sending him to daycare...

17. Also while spending the seeming last half century breastfeeding, I have read 3 novels, completed 8 question banks, watched 10 hours of board prep lectures, rewatched the entire Harry Potter series and Hunger Games series, listened to a half dozen mommy podcasts, and read my fair share of Internet crap... not to mention spent more than my fair share of time on social media.

18. One has a lot more time when one eliminates sleep entirely from one's life.

19. One also goes nutso.

20. You see, this is why I need a job.

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"The amount of sleep required by the average person is five minutes more."

-Wilson Mizene

"People who say they sleep like a baby usually don't have one."

-Leo J. Burke

"O sleep, O gentle sleep,

Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,

That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down

And steep my sense in forgetfulness?"

-William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part I