My First Week as a Mother

(Phil and Ryder having a serious conversation)

First of all, he is finally here! Phil and I finally gave birth to our 8 lb 10 oz, 21.5 inch-long beautiful baby boy. Besides going ten days past due, the delivery went rather well, which made mom very happy. We feel so blessed to have this little man in our home.

I am also proud to say, I have joined the unknown world of motherhood and have successfully gotten through my first week as a mom. What a feat! I say "unknown" because after having had a baby I finally realize there is no way to describe becoming a new mom until you've experienced it yourself. I also say "a feat" because besides never experiencing such joy, I have never experienced such stress. Every time we get through one of those crucial milestones such as: nursing, circumcision, jaundice scare, nursing, appropriate weight gain, realizing they actually do breath and stay alive when you put them down to sleep, first bath, getting some sleep, healing, and did I say nursing? (nursing has SO many milestones in itself, it needed to be mentioned at least 3 times) I slowly begin to feel like this whole parenting thing is working! It's a tricky game, this whole motherhood thing, because although its a positive thing to pass such milestones something like missing a feeding or letting his head droop can throw me into a fit of tears and world of guilt.

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It's funny because I wrote the first half of this post almost a week ago (delayed by a computer malfunction), so technically it should be titled "My first Two Weeks as a Mother" but even one week later being a mom seems much less daunting now I've had a even a few more days of practice (and healing)- or maybe just a good night's sleep. There is also a good possibility I'm speaking too soon because tomorrow is my first day without help. Thankfully, I've been lucky enough so have such good help up until now, I feel up to the challenge and I'm anxious to try and get a routine down.