Surviving Long Enough to Become Parents

It was 2am and our son wasn’t yet two weeks old. My husband and I had just switched off. It was finally his turn to sleep and my turn to be on baby duty. The baby was crying. I was crying.

In his dimly lit nursery, rocking in the chair, I prayed quietly, asking God to please let him go to sleep. I was in pain, still bleeding, slowly healing. Struggling to eat, chugging protein shakes and sports drinks between breastfeedings to maintain my already low supply.

I didn’t think it would feel like this. We took the classes. We watched the videos. We were attentive to what the nurses taught us in the hospital. So many people told us to “enjoy the newborn phase” because “they’re only that small for a short time.” But that never landed  with us.

We were nervous with every diaper change, every bath, every unsuccessful burping attempt. Was he getting enough milk? Why did his voice sound worn, like he was crying too much? Why did he keep losing weight? When was his last dirty diaper and what color was it? Did you take any pictures of him today? Is he sleeping too much?

We weren’t prepared for how on edge we would feel. We knew shifting into caregiver mode from carefree couple mode wasn’t going to be easy. But we didn’t realize how hard it was going to hit us, or how completely it would consume our focus.

I thought we’d leave the hospital, have a newborn photoshoot, and cozy up together on the couch watching Marvel movies for the next couple weeks. I didn’t expect my mind to turn into a two-hour stopwatch, counting down from the last time I breastfed. I didn’t know I would feel guilty for “oversleeping,” when really I had just crashed from exhaustion for an hour while my mom held the baby for us.

I didn’t anticipate the guilt I would feel at all the doctor’s appointments when we were trying to get him to gain weight those first couple weeks. The appointments where I could barely even physically sit down. It was a total shock to my nervous system. And all I wanted was to be a good mom.

No one prepared us for this survival mode stage. We heard about the “newborn trenches” of sleep deprivation. But the nervous system shock, the psychological shock, completely blindsided us. We weren’t even parenting yet. We were just surviving long enough to become parents.

Thankfully, survival mode didn’t last forever. We got the knack of caregiving. We began to better anticipate his needs. We learned what his different cries meant and started recognizing his cues. There was a tangible shift around ten weeks where we weren’t as nervous or anxious. We were still sleep deprived, but we felt more like we knew what we were doing.

We had somewhat of a routine by then. We started going outside for walks in the park, lunch with friends, and visits to my parents’ house. We started attending church again. This was what we had envisioned parenthood would look like with a baby.

I used to think the beginning of parenthood would feel like instant transformation. Like I would leave the hospital and immediately snap into supermom.

Instead, I became someone who checked breathing, tracked ounces, counted hours, and prayed through exhaustion.

And maybe that was parenthood too.

Maybe love doesn’t always feel like warmth and comfort at first. Maybe sometimes it feels like vigilance. Sometimes it looks like pacing with a crying baby until he finally falls asleep, or running an unplanned bath at 1am because it’s the only thing that might calm him.

We didn’t skip straight to the version of parenthood I had imagined. But we got there.

And now I understand that survival mode wasn’t separate from loving him.

It was the first shape that love took.

And maybe that is where a lot of parenthood actually begins.