Supermom

This weekend was spent visiting with our brand new niece, Lili Caroline, who was born on Wednesday, and is a perfect little creature with a nice, round head and the longest baby toes you have ever seen.

My conclusions:

1. Harrison was never that small, no how! I don't care if the hospital scale said that Lili actually weighed one ounce more than he did at birth. It's not possible.

2. Lili was chowing down on mom juice like nobody's bidness. No latch problems. No indecision about whether to instantly fall asleep or to shriek insanely. Just slurp slurp slurp. Apparently, it takes more than a year to get over breast-feeding rejection. Man, am I stockpiling some guilt to unleash on Harrison some day. Whoo hoo!

3. Either Lori has a secret superhero identity or I am the biggest wimp on the planet. She went to the farmer's market Saturday morning and then we visited at her parents all day Saturday, from 1 until 9. And she didn't take a nap. And she and I went for a walk. And she helped with dishes and getting lunch going and fetching cool drinks.

All this three days after pushing a human being out of her vagina--a human being with what the doctors said was a larger than average head circumference.

I'm seriously trying to figure out how this was possible, because at three days postpartum (mind you, the day after getting home from the hospital) I was in no shape physically or mentally to do anything other than (barely) tend to Harrison, sleep as much as possible, and change giant, blood-soaked pads. I certainly wasn't up for 8 hours of socializing at my parent's house or taking a goddamned walk.

Doug suggested that the difference was psychological, that maybe my perception of how delicate I was postpartum was all in my head. After stabbing him repeatedly with a dull blade, and after some reflection, I think now that maybe in some ways, he was right. With your first birth, your postpartum recovery is not only about healing physically and getting back to normal hormonally (a process which is different for every woman and every birth), but also redefining yourself as a mother. And that is a slow and often painful process.

The first few days home from the hospital are so surreal. You take the same car home from the hospital. You return to the same house. You unpack the same bag that you packed with so much anticipation at 36 weeks. But everything is different, and as all those new baby greeting cards remind us, "Your Life will never be the same."

At 64 weeks postpartum, I can honestly say that life is still weird. Things are "normal" now, but normal is constantly different. There's a routine, but it's always changing, because Harrison is constantly changing. And I've gotten used to that flux.

Where does that leave us? Maybe second and subsequent post-partum recoveries are easier, because they are limited to purely physical healing. If you're already a mother, you don't also have to deal with a complete and instant identify transformation. So if you have a relatively easy birth (i.e., quick labor, no tearing, no episiotomy, no stitches), maybe on day 3, you can plan on taking a walk with your sister in law and making a morning trip to the market.

Here's praying. . .