Thursday, April 4, 2013

parenting after a loss.

eliza was an easy baby. mil said it was due in part to me not being a nervous mom. thanks to a life long dream, great moms around me, a laid back husband, and my own ma, i just kind of fell into motherhood comfortably. with the exception of our first night home i wasn't too stressed. (breastfeeding was the only stressful source, but after 2 months that went well too)

we have all heard how the baby feeds off of your stress, but i also assumed it was just in the way we did things. sure every kid is different, but maybe raised the same we would have similar results.

so when i was pregnant with hattie i kept telling myself "you have to do it all the same! don't change a thing!" i would try and remember all the tricks we did. what made eliza happy?

then hattie came and maybe it's because it had been 3 1/2 years since we had a newborn, but i felt like a first time mom all over again.

except this time? i was the nervous kind.

totally paranoid.

anxious in the hospital, swearing that something was wrong with every little thing. her breathing, her spitting up, her gagging on spit up.

james has been great, patient and reassuring.

there have been a few times that i will look at her and she is just so still. too still. and oh my goodness is she turning blue?! 

and the panic sets in. i scoop her up much too fast, waking her up and she is totally fine.

it's one reason i haven't kept her teething necklace on her. the paranoia.

i never thought twice about it with eliza. no fear parenting there.

then my world crashed, and now i'm that mom. the one i used to roll my eyes at.

i wonder how this will change hattie. in many ways she feels like a first born...even though she's a third.

then again, she's the baby and i just want to coddle her.

who am i?

will i ever let this breath out?

1 comments:

Carisa Trejo said...

Shel, my mom said that with me she was constantly calling her doctor to see if what I was doing was normal. I didn't cry as much and slept more than my older brother and it freaked her out! I'm sure many moms have been where you are right now. But you have done a wonderful job raising Eliza so I know you will raise Hattie just fine!

Cari

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