Ramblings on Motherhood

The baby is almost a month old now (I'm being weird and not wanting to use her name here yet). Her existence, and the fact that I'm a mother, are still so amazing to me. I thought parenthood would change me fundamentally. But I feel like I'm pretty much the same person as I've always been. I move through the familiar contours of my life, noticing everything in its place the same as always - my books lined up on the shelf, my calendar hanging on the wall, the guinea pigs rustling around in their cage same as always - yet here's this astonishing, thrilling, totally different thing, this baby, asleep on our bed in the middle of the afternoon! Can she really be ours?? I wonder how long it will take for the shock to wear off and for it to feel natural that I have a baby, for me to be able to take her outside without feeling self-conscious, or say, "my daughter" without the words sounding alien in my ears.

The past month has been full of discoveries:
- My husband is great with babies. He's actually better at soothing her and entertaining her than I am. I love watching him play with her. He is so tender and nice with her, sometimes I even feel a mild little twinge of jealousy - wishing I was as good with her as he is, or wishing he would play with me as whole-heartedly and inventively as he does with her. I think I'm incredibly lucky to have found a guy who is such a good father.
- The sleep deprivation isn't that bad. I don't even feel particularly tired during the day. It seems like as long as I can get 2-3 hours of sleep several times in the course of a 24-hour period, I'm fine.
- That said, we've had a few nights that were pretty rough, when she was just crying and crying, and I felt pretty much at my wit's end. Before I had a kid, I had no idea what vast amounts of patience parenthood would require. I am a pretty patient person, I think, and I've had a lot of experience working with animals, which requires patience since they have their own ideas about things, and you can't tell them directly what you want them to do. But soothing a relentlessly squalling baby in the wee hours of the morning demands patience on a level above what I've ever needed before. It gives me a whole new insight into what my parents went through.
- Breast-feeding has been a really interesting experience. I wasn't sure I would be able to do it, but it's gone smoothly. She makes these adorable little snorting and grunting noises when she's rooting for my breast, like a little piglet. It's tremendously satisfying to be able to feed her that way, and to be a source of comfort to her in such a fundamental way.
- I really don't want to go back to work. I've used up five weeks of my maternity leave so far, and I have eleven left. I know it's going to fly past. Every day my mind is churning, trying to think of a way I could manage not to return to work. It's more about self-respect and career path than finances. We could manage, if I stayed home with her and took the occasional freelancing job. But I'm worried about what my husband might think of my (lack of) ambition if I just stopped working. I don't want him to feel that he's carrying my weight because he's working hard every day and I'm not. I don't want him to feel funny when people ask what I do and he has to answer, "She doesn't work; she's home with the baby." From time to time I remark that I don't want to go back to work, hoping he will say, "Maybe you shouldn't," but he's not saying it.
- I'm extraordinarily inefficient these days. It seems like one task or outing, along the lines of a grocery store run or a weeding session in the garden, is about as much as I can hope to accomplish per day. It takes ages for us to get ready to go anywhere. I have to start the process of getting myself and the baby clean, dressed, and fed hours ahead of time. And there's no routine whatsoever - I can't predict how often she'll want to feed or how long she'll sleep. Maybe that's just how it is with a newborn. Somehow I imagined I'd have time during my maternity leave to do all sorts of fulfilling, creative projects during the hours of downtime I'd have each day. Ha!
- I feel so protective of her. Sometimes I just sit and gaze at her as she's nursing, memorizing her every feature. I wonder how her life will turn out, and I worry about the bad things that might happen to her, and wish that I could keep her safe from them all. She's so precious to me.