i'm kind of at a loss how it's only been 6 weeks since my last post. and again, completely surprised. so much has changed, but 6 weeks seems like a lifetime!
little ag is coming along in leaps and bounds, growing and changing before our very eyes and gaining a little more personality every day. his smiles never fail to absolutely warm my heart with joy!
in saying that, it's been a tough ol' 6 weeks for me personally. i feel like the first 6 weeks, i got through on adrenalin alone... there wasn't too much sleeping on my part, and i somehow managed to feel like i could still get all of the things done. in hindsight, this was a wee bit silly... i needed to be resting my poor weary body, it had been through the wars and needed a whole lot of go-slow time!
naturally, when the 6 week mark came and went and i hadn't bounced back to my usual pre-baby self, physically or mentally, i was a little bit crushed.
i just wanted to feel back to normal, well as normal as i was going to get, the new normal, like me before, but with a baby in tow now.
i somehow thought i would be done all of the physical healing by then, but my body had other plans. now at 12 weeks, i'm finally feeling a bit better physically, small amounts of slow exercise, walking, yoga and those all important pelvic floor exercises.
the mental stuff is an ongoing process though, that's for sure. feeling physically broken, and being completely unsure of my physical capabilities was weighing on me heavily for a while. not getting enough rest and feeling completely and utterly exhausted was too. and both plagued me with indecision, my brain too fried to make particularly rational decisions about a single thing.
the baby is sleeping, what would you like to do? blank. the baby is crying, how are you going to soothe him? blank.
being a person who was used to running at peak efficiency, i was completely lost! which in turn had me questioning who even am i anymore? who was i before? what is important to me? what makes me happy?
yep, completely lost.
i had a few really terrible days, keeping all these things in, letting worry run my days, before i fell apart and lost my shit. since then, i've realised there's no point keeping stuff in, so i talk about it... with bb, with my mum, with bb's mum, with the maternal child health nurse and with a counsellor too.
this time (and life in general) goes way too fast, with way too many precious moments you don't want to miss, to be feeling the way i was.
it's going to continue to be an ongoing balancing act, striking the compromise between soaking up all of the time with ag i possibly can, spending time doing the things that are important to me, that make me feel like myself, and getting the things done that i know should be done...
oh and let's not start on the minefield that is advice... so many conflicting opinions about every possible aspect of raising a baby, and living life in general! for now, we'll keep muddling through, picking and choosing what will work for us, and letting the rest flow off our backs. phew!
hopefully i'll be back with a few more posts in the coming weeks... i've got things i want to share, and tapping out stories and posting them here is something that is important to me so if i've got the time, i'll be back!