The hormonal roller-coaster started our first night home from the hospital. Brandon was born early on a Saturday morning and we were home by Sunday morning. The rest of the day our home was an open-house for visiting family members.
Aaron and I were excited to show our new baby off to our families and I was totally fine. But after about 9 hours of having 10+ people over passing Brandon around, anxiety started to set in. All of a sudden the sight of other people holding my baby started to make me angry and I could feel my heart pounding. I couldn't focus on the dinner-table conversation and was now trying just to hold back tears. I felt this weird pressure in my chest like I physically NEEDED to hold my baby otherwise I might lose it. I whispered to Aaron that I needed everyone to go home and he must have detected the desperation in my voice because within a hot minute he snatched the baby from whoever was holding him and got the process of clean-up and good-byes started.
Once everybody was gone Aaron and I sat on the couch with Brandon and I started balling. I'm talking breath-gasping, ugly-face sobbing. I buried my face in Brandon's neck and within minutes his outfit was soaked with tears. Aaron asked me what was wrong but I wasn't even sure. I was upset about other people being in our house and holding Brandon, I was really sad that my pregnancy was over, I missed my big belly and feeling Brandon move around inside me, I was sad that Brandon was getting older by the minute, but mostly I just felt sad - period.
This feeling continued on and off for 2-3 weeks. I love my baby and I love being a mom, but the first 2 weeks of his life all I wanted to do was stay in the house, sit on the couch with him and cry. I didn't have the energy or the motivation to get up and go anywhere, but sitting on the couch all day made me feel lazy which added to my frustration. I cried multiple times a day for various reasons, sometimes for no reason at all. I just felt sad. Sometimes Aaron looked at me like I had two heads, but mostly he was understanding and supportive. Occasionally I was able to put on a happy face and go for a walk or cook dinner, but mostly I just felt depressed and wanted to stay inside and hide from the world. I didn't even feel up to talking on the phone or returning text messages.
Bringing home a new baby is a huge adjustment. You are sleep-deprived, you lose all sense of a daily-routine and you are physically sore. Combine this with the hormonal roller-coaster going on inside your body and its surprising they don't automatically transfer all new moms to a psych ward straight from the labor and delivery unit. The third week was when I started feeling better and by week 4 I would say I am pretty much back to normal now. I am still sleep deprived and I still have not worked out a daily routine with Brandon yet, but I stopped crying on a daily basis and I finally feel like I can enjoy watching Brandon grow now instead of being sad about it. Thank God. The emotional up and down is very exhausting and it's nice now to be able to look at my baby and feel nothing but joy =)
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