Almost a Year

As Eian’s first birthday approaches, I have to reflect on the journey we’ve all taken over the last year.  I remember this time last year, the waiting.  It reminded me of waiting for my first semester of college, knowing that things were ending and not sure I was ready for the beginning of a new chapter.  Even if it’s not the politically-correct thing to say, I actually dreaded Eian’s birth.  I felt like everything I loved would be taken away – no more time for movies or reading or sewing.  I figured every moment would be spent in his company.  And I was sure he’d scream all the time.  In a way, I’m glad for all this negativity because it helped prepare me for the hell of colic, but in other ways, my imagining of new parenthood was far from accurate.

The first month was like a dream, maybe partly because of the sleep deprivation.  I remember cycles of feeding and sleeping, lingering pain from his birth, and just how surreal it felt to hold a tiny human that was half me.  I didn’t bond with him right away.  At first, I looked at him simply as an endurance test and tried to take it a day at a time.  At first, in those weeks, I loved him because I had to.  I worried constantly about whether he had enough to eat or if the jaundice was gone.  And then there was the hormonal stuff.  I am an extremely even-keeled person, but I would burst into tears over the mysterious workings of the diaper genie.  I remember soaking my aching body in the bathtub and thinking of what it would be like just to slip beneath the surface of the water.  Of course, I banished the thought immediately, but I was stunned that it had ever entered my mind.  I am so grateful to my mom and Magnus for getting me through that time.

Then, after a couple of months, things began to change.  Eian still screamed all the time, and he was still a lot of work.  But something shifted, and I became more myself than I had been before his birth.  It seems trite to say that life actually began then, but in some ways, it really did.  I started writing again.  I took pictures of him and wrote in his baby book.  I went to movies with my sister and read books and magazines.  Life went on, and it went on in a more meaningful, better way.

How did having children change your outlook on life?