Have you ever felt so overwhelmed that you just wanted to cry even though you know that you are being so unreasonable? I felt that way last night. I was mad at Abby for not sleeping, mad at my dad for offering advice every five seconds, and mad at my husband for... sleeping. Looking at him all splayed out on the bed, snoring loudly, it was like I wanted to take a pot and smack him in the head with it. Every now and then this Post Partum thing still hits me right in the bud, especially at times when Abby just wouldn't sleep and the time is like 3 AM, and my head is aching and my lids are so heavy and my arms are so sore from trying so hard to rock her to sleep, all to no avail, of course. Then I would see my husband sleeping soundly on the bed while tears are falling from my eyes and my thoughts are all about this one sentence: "Poor, poor me."

I think Postpartum Depression is mostly self-pity. I remember my sister saying that when she had hers, she wouldn't let my brother-in-law hold their baby because she thought that he was incompetent for the job. She had her worst share of it for like three weeks, and then everything got better. I have this friend though, who told me that she had it on and off for like eight months. She said that she got to the point where she loathed her husband and all her in-laws that she would dial long-distance just to shout at them and let everything out. That was bad.

My worst day of this thing was on the first week of Abby being home. I didn't get a chance to sleep until like 3 AM, and when I woke up at 6 AM my breasts were leaking and I was swimming on a bed of milk, and I was so engorged and uncomfortable that I just cried for like two hours straight. Having this terrible perineal pain from my tear with delivering Abby certainly didn't help. I remember getting up and seeing my husband rushing to go to work. I was crying so hard and holding my wet shirt, saying something like "I can't take this anymore." My husband saw the enormous leaking boobs and I think it scared the hell out of him. He didn't show it, though, he just hugged me as best as he could ( I couldn't allow anything to touch my chest, it was too painful ) and he told me that everything was going to be okay. He kept saying that he would buy me nursing pads before he went home. Yes, I didn't have any nursing pads at that time; a week before when my breasts were fine and as dandy as can be how could I be thinking of such things?

So I went in the shower to get rid of all the milk that was making my present life hell. I remember standing there with the warm water beating down my back, still bawling, when my husband walked into the bathroom and flushed the toilet. I know. Men, eh? I screamed when the scalding hot water hit my back and I yelled at R, crying harder this time. He kept apologizing, saying he didn't know, and sat on the closed seat of the toilet (apparently he was waiting for me to finish so he could take a shower himself before he went to work). I didn't care that he was running late, I stayed in the shower and cried and cried, starting to wonder why suddenly it was so chilly. I started shivering badly and I thought that my pain was so bad that it was starting to give me the chills when finally I saw the door to the bathroom open. That did it; I threw the shower curtain open and smacked my husband on the arm, and screamed at him for leaving the door open. He said he didn't know that the cold air from the outside would affect me. Did I need to remind him that this is Canada and it's like minus 30 all the time?

I finally shut the water off and tried to towel myself dry, all the while avoiding my breasts. If you haven't experienced being engorged, I don't know if you'd understand this, but if anything as so much grazed your nipples it would be like absolute torture. I finally gave up and stepped out of the shower, shivering, dripping wet, still bawling, helplessly trying to dry myself. My husband took the towel from me and started toweling me dry, all the while saying that everything would be fine overtime. I didn't believe him at the time. I cried and cried and begged him to screw work and just stay home with me and Abby. He thought about it for like five seconds but he still went to work. Thank God my father was there with us when he left, or else I'd have died.

Thinking about it now, remembering the way R stooped on the floor to towel my legs dry while I bawled my eyes out, it must have been an ugly picture but it just reminds me how much my husband loves me. I keep reminding myself of this image last night when I was so mad at him, and it didn't work because I was too bitter, but hey, at least I'm realizing it now

Thankfully Abby fell asleep at like a half past three and woke up at a half past five. She wouldn't fall asleep again after that and I kept talking to her, pleading with her to give mommy a break, saying that mommy needed some more sleep. Ramon woke up and heard me begging our daughter and (finally!) offered to take her from me. All my anger flew out the window as soon as my butt hit the sheets
 

My daughter's appearance is changing everyday. You would barely recognize her from the time she was born. She was fair-skinned on her birthday, now she's so tan (like her dad). R wanted her to take after my color but no such luck. She also took after her dad's nose (thank God for that). What she took after me are her eyes, and mouth, and chin. That's what everybody's saying, but overall, she looks more like Ramon.

So we went to a Lactation Consultant last Wednesday because I've been having shooting pains on my breasts the last couple of weeks. It was nothing serious after all, the consultant said that there may be some bruising under the areola and that's all there is to it. Anyway, they weighed Abby over there and it turns out that she gained almost four pounds since she was born. The consultant said that that is very good. So I guess the feeding, even though painful at times, is well worth it. It's weird, I have this love-hate relationship with breast feeding. I hate how painful it gets sometimes, but the second I look at my daughter feeding? It's absolute love. One night I tried pumping and saving the milk so R could feed her while I catch up on sleep. It turned out that I didn't sleep anyway; I just watched my husband feed her with a bottle and instantly I loathed the thing. It was like I wanted to grab Abby and put her on my breast instead. Since then I haven't fed my daughter with a bottle, even though it's still my milk. We only do that now when I have to go out and leave her for a couple of hours; then my dad or my mom could feed her.

And just like all mommies, I think my daughter is amazing. She gained back her birth weight when she was only four days old; and everybody was amazed because they said that usually it takes two weeks for that to happen. She could also lift her head up on her first week, also she started following me with her eyes when she was five days old or so. And they say that newborns are practically blind!

Abby turned one month old yesterday. Her latest craze is turning and lying on her side, and laughing out loud. She has the cutest giggle. This morning, after burping her and putting her down, she looked at me with her big black eyes and gave me this adorable half-smile that turned into a full-fledged grin. It just melted my heart. Totally. I thank the Lord everyday for giving her to us.

Here's a photo of my daughter when she was 3 weeks old. See, she's all tan now!

So I finally caved in and bought another year of membership from WdC. I wasn't really psyched about it, but just like Scarlett 's blog today, it was all or nothing. My membership expired two weeks ago and if I decided not to buy another year, all my stories, poems, articles, pffttt, all go out the window. Our main desktop PC was destroyed like a month ago and along with it, all the backup I had on my stuff. Sad.

In the past I always bought my memberships with GPs, but now that my GP bank's obsolete, I had to do the next best thing- pay with real money. It took like two days for me to decide whether to let all my poems go or let 65 bucks out of my account. The latter won.

You know what I just decided? That it's really hard to type with only one hand. I'm holding a very cranky Abigail on the other arm, and it looks like she's finally falling asleep. The first few weeks was great in regards with how she slept and behaved. She dozed off instantly after every feed, and barely cried when she was awake. Now, things are getting harder. She's getting bigger, and heavier, and crankier, and louder, and hungrier. I've barely slept in the last 24 hours, and sometimes I feel like a zombie. That's how I portray myself now. A zombie with sore boobs.

 

In my last entry at my old blog, "Invalid Item" , I talked about being bored with pregnancy and I complained about the baby not coming out in time. It turned out that I became six days overdue. On 3 AM at January 30, though, a contraction finally came. 10 hours later, Abigail Lynne Natividad was born.