"Omg! 2 month old baby mati dikelar?!"
"WHY? Wait, who did it?"
"the mother."
"oh, okay. I get it."
"...you GET IT?"
"normal people just don't do that."
Yes, I do. I get it. And before you jump into a tirade about how it's abnormal behaviour and is totally psychotic, take a moment to just understand the position of a new mother.
No matter how much a new baby is anticipated, the birth of one is a totally different ballgame. Everyone talks about how beautiful it is to have a baby, how amazing it is, how magical -- nobody ever talks about the darkness and confusion, the feeling of loss. Of course, for some, it's a total fairy tale but that's not the case for everyone.
Having a baby means having your life turned around in the blink of an eye. You go to the hospital one day in a lot of pain and the next day, all of a sudden, you're home with an extra person in your arms, screaming, and you have no idea what to do. If you're lucky, you get a total angel who sleeps all day and all night, feeds at specific times and doesn't make a peep. If you're not so lucky, you get what I got: A baby who sleeps all day while help is at hand and screams all night, from dusk to dawn, when you're left to deal with it on your own.
And that's exactly my experience with him. Imagine having gone through 9 months of carrying a baby, hours of labour pains, and not to mention having to deal with the pain of healing op wounds. At the same time, I'm trying to be that person who perseveres and breastfeed exclusively for six whole months only to learn that my supply is short and to have about a million people throw around their opinions about what I should feed my child to stop him from crying. Meanwhile, I'm getting zero sleep at night because he just screams and screams in the quiet of the night and all I hear other than his voice is the voice inside my head, screaming just as loudly as he was, considering giving up.
You don't know. You don't know the madness and you won't know until you have a screaming child of your own.
I snapped out of it because I had a lot of hands-on family and friends who didn't just call or text to check in but physically took him away from me at the times when I'm closest to breaking. I don't know if they were aware but they saved me. They were truly a godsend.
I'm sure some idiot will conclude that I don't love my child. That idiot would be wrong. Despite my nonchalant parenting, I'd take a bullet for my boy.
In that darkness, though, Lord knows what a person is capable of.
"WHY? Wait, who did it?"
"the mother."
"oh, okay. I get it."
"...you GET IT?"
"normal people just don't do that."
Yes, I do. I get it. And before you jump into a tirade about how it's abnormal behaviour and is totally psychotic, take a moment to just understand the position of a new mother.
No matter how much a new baby is anticipated, the birth of one is a totally different ballgame. Everyone talks about how beautiful it is to have a baby, how amazing it is, how magical -- nobody ever talks about the darkness and confusion, the feeling of loss. Of course, for some, it's a total fairy tale but that's not the case for everyone.
Having a baby means having your life turned around in the blink of an eye. You go to the hospital one day in a lot of pain and the next day, all of a sudden, you're home with an extra person in your arms, screaming, and you have no idea what to do. If you're lucky, you get a total angel who sleeps all day and all night, feeds at specific times and doesn't make a peep. If you're not so lucky, you get what I got: A baby who sleeps all day while help is at hand and screams all night, from dusk to dawn, when you're left to deal with it on your own.
And that's exactly my experience with him. Imagine having gone through 9 months of carrying a baby, hours of labour pains, and not to mention having to deal with the pain of healing op wounds. At the same time, I'm trying to be that person who perseveres and breastfeed exclusively for six whole months only to learn that my supply is short and to have about a million people throw around their opinions about what I should feed my child to stop him from crying. Meanwhile, I'm getting zero sleep at night because he just screams and screams in the quiet of the night and all I hear other than his voice is the voice inside my head, screaming just as loudly as he was, considering giving up.
You don't know. You don't know the madness and you won't know until you have a screaming child of your own.
I snapped out of it because I had a lot of hands-on family and friends who didn't just call or text to check in but physically took him away from me at the times when I'm closest to breaking. I don't know if they were aware but they saved me. They were truly a godsend.
I'm sure some idiot will conclude that I don't love my child. That idiot would be wrong. Despite my nonchalant parenting, I'd take a bullet for my boy.
In that darkness, though, Lord knows what a person is capable of.
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