Sassy and Pregnant

This is a totally unresearched, straight from my memory recap. Normally I’d go back through my posts to see what’s what, but I’m on my phone and that would take forever.

January: Scott returned from a six month deployment overseas.

February: We went to see Les Miserables on Broadway. Found out we were moving to Denver.

March: First of many rough spots in our marriage this year. Unrelated, we also found out I was pregnant.

April: Cross country move from Connecticut to Colorado. My mom and stepdad both received cancer diagnoses in the same week.

May-October: Passed by in one long, lonely, stressful, antenatal-depression-riddled blur. There were a few good parts, like getting to meet some tumblrs, but honestly, these were not my finest or proudest months. Also I turned 30 in June and that didn’t help. But we saw Idina Menzel in If/Then in October, and seeing her perform has been a dream of mine for a long time, so that was awesome.

November: Got to see my dad, stepmom, and sister over Thanksgiving. Finally gave birth. Had a falling out with my mom that, despite her obvious desire to just ignore, I am not over.

December: Scott received the job offer to go back to work in Connecticut. Moved back across the country. Christmas with family in Illinois en route. Figuring out motherhood.

With the exception of the birth of my daughter, which will probably always be my proudest accomplishment, and getting to watch her grow, 2015 was not my favorite year to look back on. I appreciate the opportunities to grow and learn, though. I’m a stronger person for having gone through it all.

How do you do this?

No, seriously.

How do you actually do this?

Not the “keep the kid alive” part. Aside from this damn case of thrush that won’t fucking go away, I’ve basically got that down.

I’m talking about the “take a shower” part. The “feed yourself on a regular basis” part. The “stop forgetting to pay the bills” part. The “leave the house occasionally” part.

The “have a life” part.

I know that our circumstances are special (aren’t they always?) in that we didn’t have a normal, relaxing postpartum period. Much of Binka’s* first month was spent preparing for and executing a cross country move. So we aren’t currently enjoying the benefits of any kind of routine. But despite that, I feel like at one month postpartum, my peers have/had it a lot more figured out than we do.

Scott and I are struggling. We’re both really stressed out about lots of things and taking it out on one another. The road trip messed with my milk supply because I was too tired to be diligent about a pumping schedule, so that’s not helpful.

I guess I was just hoping it would be easier by now. I wanted to start the whole fitness thing again on January 1, because I love New Year’s resolutions. Judge me all you want. But I can barely manage life as it is now, let alone a healthy eating and exercise plan.

I feel like I don’t do anything besides feed the baby, pump milk for the baby, and try to sleep and do the bare minimum adulting that is required each day. A shower is a luxury. Eating a hot meal is almost unheard of. Binka has discovered what “boredom” is and requires constant entertainment, or else we are treated to The Song of her people, which is tantamount to banshee screaming. She also decided she likes to graze on milk throughout the day instead of eating every two hours like she did before. Between that and doing my best to pump every three hours, I have no shot at getting anything else done. Scott is willing to help but I have trouble asking for it and don’t have a clue what I need anyway.

I am not living my best life right now. Oprah would be so disappointed. I’m not looking for sympathy, but if you have suggestions of how to make life run more smoothly I’d love to hear them.

*Binka is my chosen blog nickname for the baby. I’ve inexplicably started calling her that** in real life, which is weird because it’s nowhere near close to her name. It just came out of my mouth one day and now it’s one thing I call her.

We don’t have furniture or internet yet, but we do have fireplace logs!