A letter to my best friend and soon-to-be mama

Dear best friend,

You are pregnant! The whole world is excited!! I don't think anyone on this earth deserves to be a parent more than you. Since we were little, you have always had the most compassionate personality. With everything you have been through to bring you to this day, you have conquered it all so gracefully. When it felt like everything was against you, you still smiled and pushed through. My love for you has 26 years of your unconditional friendship behind it and I cannot thank you enough for that. For all of these reasons and so many more, you are going to be an amazing mother. 

Now I know I started this blog writing about some of my aggravations with pregnancy and parenthood. But this letter to you is from one mumma's heart to another. 

First, through these last couple of months, resist the want to punch anyone in the face that tells you "Sleep now because you won't be after baby is born." You won't sleep normally through the last few months of pregnancy, or after he is born, or ever again. And after a couple years you'll get used to it and it will be ok. It'll actually be great. The reason you aren't sleeping is because this little guy you created needs you. He needs your help, your love and your comfort. He will eventually sleep through the night but you still won't. Remember that book our moms used to read to us as kids, I'll Love You Forever? Yeah well you will be that mom that even after he falls asleep, will crawl into his room, hold him just for a couple extra minutes. Why would you do that? Want to sneak into a sleeping child's room, risking the chance that you'll wake him? Because you're sleep deprived and can't think straight. And because you created this little human and it is the best feeling in the world and every chance you can get to give him love, you will.

Another thing, don't be disappointed when labor goes nothing like you had planned. I really wish someone told me this. I ridiculously, but whole heartedly, thought I could actually have control of all of that. And well it killed me that not even the smallest things worked out the way I had wanted. But now two and a half years later I can write this letter to you and say don't waste your time planning any of it. Whenever and however that beautiful newborn gets put into your arms, smile and let everything else go. 

A baby changes your marriage. It does. No one told me this either. You're no longer just husband and wife. You're mama and daddy. This may seem like a pretty obvious thing, but it's a bigger concept than, well, a new parent can wrap her head around. You and your family of two are no stranger to hard work as a couple. You have both defied so many odds that this could be something you both just laugh at. But when sleepless nights get the best of you, or your parenting skills of a little defiant toddler seem to be drastically different, or any part of this journey into parenthood makes you two scared,  it is important to remember you're not in it alone. And it's important to keep reminding yourself that too because sometimes we all forget. 

The heartache from anything you have ever felt in your life with be nothing compared to your child's first big booboo. Oh god. It still hurts. It will hurt you more than him. But you're both get through it. Him sooner than you. 

There is no such thing as a perfect mama. You're going to make mistakes, a lot of them. You're going to sometimes have no clue why your baby is crying and have no way to help him. This is ok, mostly because he probably doesn't know why he is crying either. And when he gets older, you're going to make mistakes too. There are days where you will have 100% energy to be a super mom and take on his crazy little imaginative world and fill him up with even more important emotional tools for life. You will take him places and teach him things. You will show him the many different worlds outside your home. And these days will be beautiful.. but exhausting. And there will be days where you don't have that energy. Where the tv will be on all day and all he has eaten is animal crackers. You've accomplished nothing except maybe showering, and he has watched the same episode of sesame street for past three hours. You need these days. Even though your guilt may overcome you about not being a "good" parent, remember, you need these days. Life is about balance. So is parenting. No day is perfect. We wake up not knowing what it will bring. The same is with being a parent. Part of being a great parent is finding the balance in between all of the days. 

One last thing. This has been my proudest one to conquer (mostly because all of the above that I have written, in one way or another I'm still dealing with).  Don't worry about your body, now or after. Because you're gorgeous. You always have been and always will be. Every boy wanted to be your boyfriend when we were younger and now the two best boys in the world ((well one to be coming into the world soon)) have you!! Even if you never get back to "pre-baby body" it doesn't matter. The one thing I have let go of is that goal of being back to pre-baby. And I couldn't feel better about myself. Dude, I made another human being, I can keep on these few extra 25 pounds. I've earned that! 

So here is my letter to you. Of crazy, emotional, mama things. I think this letter was more for myself than you, but I am so excited to watch you on this journey. The love you have in your heart is no match for what is about to come. Some days it will fill so much it hurts. And some days it will just hurt. These are all good things. I love you so much and cannot wait to be this very lucky baby boy. 

"Like ten minutes. I'd just like him to appear."

-designer Rachel Zoe, on what her ideal delivery would be.

When I watched this episode of her reality show, I laughed hysterically! I would actually consider having another child soon if this is how delivery went. I'd consider even have five more!! Instead I'll take my still healing uterus and keep it dormant for another, lets say, three years. Then maybe I'll start to think about another one.

Another misconception that many people let me believe was that I could plan my delivery. November 12th, 2010 was the day we found out we'd be plus one nine months later. Both my husband and I cried staring at the five ((yes, five)) pregnancy tests lying on the counter. One of the best days of my life. From that day on, I planned exactly how I wanted to have the baby. I know I am not a very tolerant person when it comes to pain. I am one of those people who will cry for three days about a stubbed toe. So I knew I would have an epidural. Which was fine because I was determined for that to be the only drug to go in me when I was delivering. Even though I was not the happiest person throughout my pregnancy, I was so very excited about giving birth. I would day dream about being home, or at work, and starting to feel contractions. Then after my water would break, I would excitedly call my husband at work and say "ITS TIME!!" He would run down to his locker where my hospital bag had been so patiently waiting for this moment since May, and then head twelve blocks uptown to wait for me at the Labor and Delivery entrance at Mt Sinai Manhattan Hospital. We would hug and kiss and head inside where we would then go into a room and wait for the doctor to say "Its time to push." I would scream at the top of my lungs, swearing at my husband for the pain I was in. And then BAM! We would hear that little cry of life just emerged from inside me. My husband would kiss me and then go to cut the umbilical cord and then they would hand me my beautiful baby boy.

Well lets just say not one of those things happened. Instead for the last four weeks of OB appointments the doctor would say the same thing.. one centimeter dialated. The week before I was due I tried every natural way to induce pregnancy: hot sauce, accupressure, sex, herbal teas, everything!! Then July 23rd came and went. The next week I walked an average of 3 miles a day. ((I would like to remind the readers that this was also during that 100-113 degree heat wave here in NYC.)) Nothing was working. Our Little Lang was not budging. So came the last OB appointment where we had to set a date when I would be induced. At this point I knew my hopes and dreams of the "ITS TIME" phone call were shot. So the night of July 31st, we took the subway to 96th Street and walked two blocks uptown to the hospital. I was induced at 1 AM on August 1st. I had held off on the epidural due to the fact that I wanted to have control of something. I figured all the other drugs they had given me we're already ruining my "au-natural" plan, so I would take the pain. Well after my OB had to manually break my water ((I will spare the details of this horrific thing which still scar me and my husband to date)), she told me it was time for the epi. I asked her if there was any way I could do without it. She said no and sent the other doctors in to give me the comically large needle to the back. By 6 PM I had not dialated fully enough but Little Lang decided he was going to push thru anyways, causing him to get stuck and to go into stress. Another doctor came in and said they would be sending me to the OR and I would be having a C Section. There was no time for me to come to grips with the fact that I would not be seeing my son get born, that I wouldnt be able to push this life I had made out on my own, that my husband would be able to cut the cords and then hand me our beautiful baby boy. As they wheeled me out of the delivery room towards the OR, I looked at my husband and said "I'm going to be sick." The nurse handed me a bedpan and I proceeded to puke out all of the water and soup I had eaten in the last 18 hours.

I couldn't believe it. It was time. But not the time I had prepared for for the last nine months. Forty-five minutes after arriving in the OR, I heard that adorable little cry but couldnt see anything. The surgens cut the cord and handed him off to more doctors to clean and examine him. Then I heard words that would make me cry harder than those sleepless nights months before combined. "His glucose level is low. We need your husband to feed him some formula." What? Formula? NO! I had all of these hopes and dreams of putting him to my chest and finally feeling that bond that mothers always rave about. As I watched him feed our son a two ounce bottle of formula, I cried. Everything I had planned, everything I had daydreamed about. None of it happened. It was another 12 hours before I actually was able to try to breastfeed and when he didn't latch, my heart felt like a bullet had shot thru it.

Now with my son turning a month old tomorrow, I have officially given up breastfeeding. I tried to get him to latch, but it didnt work. I pumped for a while, bottle feeding him both breast milk and formula. Then when I had to take a few days off from pumping because of bleeding, my breast milk slowly depleated to nothing. I have cried over this so much. I dreamed of introducing my son into the world the most natural way possible and giving him life's nutrients all natural too. But dreams have been shattered. Even though his pediatrician has reassured me that he is completely healthy and will not go blind or grow a third arm due to formula feeding, I am still having a hard time coming to terms with it. It's something that makes me think, when he's crying and I dont know what's wrong, "maybe if we had that bond thru breastfeeding, I could figure out why he's so upset."

I guess this is one thing that is going to have to just settle with me overtime. However, no matter how he came into this world and what he eats, I am so thankful to have this big beautiful baby boy in my life.