1. Get ready to be sleep deprived. Yes, you are sleep deprived in the last trimester due to being so dang uncomfortable. I remember waking up every hour or two to go to the bathroom. I thought it was neat how mother nature helped prepare me for sleep deprivation. But, that sleep deprivation in the last trimester is NOTHING like the sleep deprivation when little baby comes home. I didn't sleep well for three months. That's a lot of sleep deprivation and I see why prisoners of war are subjected to this type of torture. It is plain torture both physically and mentally. How moms of more than one do THIS with more than one child is beyond me... they are deserving of some sort of congressional award.
2. Because of the sleep deprivation, the mind doesn't work normally. Things that would be no big deal are suddenly major big deals. That means if your husband is snoring in while you are getting up to tend to the baby, one cannot help but look at him in disgust. I remember thinking constantly, "Must be nice...." The baby crying longer than usual, choking on milk because it goes down the wrong way, a weird poop, etc... can all be interpreted as medical emergencies. Delusional thoughts of how frail the baby is and the thoughts of how easy it would be to harm the baby happen, too. Most women don't want to talk about it, but it's true. Thoughts of how frail Lucas' neck was, etc... constantly bombarded me. It seemed to happen more the less sleep I got, and I learned to use that as a cue to get some rest. Call a friend. Seriously. The best baby gift anyone got me was coming to my home about 3-4 weeks out and keeping Lucas from 6pm-10pm while Jeff was out of town to give me time to catch up a little on sleep. It was the BEST GIFT. Kelley Work you rock! A break is all she needs. If her husband doesn't travel, offer to help her during the day during the week. Take a day off work and go to her house and either help her with all the house stuff or have her go to bed and take care of the baby. I wasn't able to ask for help because of my pride. Luckily Kelley being a mom of three was able to recognize what I needed more than another baby blanket...
3. LET YOUR HOUSEWORK GO. Seriously. Let it go. You will NOT be able to take care of the baby, yourself, and the HOUSE in the first several months. If you can let it go, it will make this experience so much better. If you can't let it go, you are going to be completely frazzled and will look back and regret it. I let it go half and half. Wish I had let it go completely.
4. All babies, for the most part, are colicky. They spit up, cry, whine, and the like. Just be calm. Breathe deeply. Pray. Rest. It gets better every single day.
5. Take pictures every day. Don't let it go by without pictures. Last count: I have over 2,000 pictures of Lucas. He's only been on the planet about 330 days. That's a lot of mammarazzi.
6. Get a good video camera. Some of my best memories are memories in motion. At count I have about 9 full video tapes of an hour each. I wish I had done more, but there's only so many times I could capture a little coo early on. When Lucas started crawling at 8 months, it got a lot more fun and interesting.
7. Don't sweat the milestones. Don't sweat the decisions that seem to divide many moms. Don't sweat the vaccines. Be informed and make a decision. No decision is correct or wrong. Seriously. I can argue that vaccines do NOT cause autism and I can argue that delaying if not in daycare is not a big deal either. If vaccines caused autism, we would have much higher rates than we do. That's my personal opinion on it. I did opt to skip all hepatitis vaccines. Research hepatitis and how it's spread and you'll understand why. Hepatitis A is spread through food mostly. Last time I checked, Lucas isn't eating McDonalds. Hepatitis B is spread through bodily fluids. All hospital staff are vaccinated against Hep B as hospital policy. Find out if you have Hep B. If you don't, your baby won't. The only other way he/she could get it as a baby is through blood, etc... I suppose if Lucas was in daycare I would go ahead and give Hep B vaccine because of cuts, scrapes, etc... that can happy and the sheer number of children there; otherwise, wait. If someone tells you to cloth diaper because it saves the environment? Last research shows that either comes out in a wash... in other words, yes it takes hundreds of years for our diapers to degrade. However, the amount of water it takes to wash the cloth diapers is wasteful as well. Probably the better choice would be to find a diaper that is environmentally friendly AND disposable. That would actually be the best choice, but high on the pocketbook and so far haven't found one that didn't leak for Lucas. I don't know about you but a leaky diaper is not something I have the time for working AND taking care of him. Moms are SO opinionated, me included. Take some advice... try it out... find your own way. Don't sweat it. We all love our babies.
8. Get ready to discover that you never knew what love was until you met your child. It goes beyond the love you have for your spouse... not that it's more, but that it's different. You suddenly understand the love that God has for you and that God had for His Son. Just today, I have to add as I type this, a technician was here to put in a new phone jack so I can move my home office downstairs later, and he told me before he left that he had been under the house praying for me. I suppose in his line of work he finds a way to incorporate his faith, which I appreciate, into his work. He told me as he prayed for me that God told Him to tell me how precious I was to Him... like the love that I have for Lucas. I have been thinking about that love lately. I'm super glad that he felt comfortable to share that with me today because in this world, a lot of people would meet that word with skepticism and negativity.
It actually made my day.
Having a child is going to change your life for the better. You will discover how to be less selfish (hopefully). You will be amazed at the amount of love your parents showed you and how much they loved you. If your parent was not in the picture you will wonder how they could even leave.
It has been amazing.
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