One Month With My Nena, Evelyn

I’ve written this post in my mind countless times over the past four and a half weeks. Sometimes from a place of pure joy, staring into the smiling face of my Evelyn, her hair all askew and feathery after nursing, other times, from a place of exasperation…willing sweet happy thoughts and words to get me through desperation at 5:30 am after not having slept for a day straight. But such is the life with a newborn, and I wouldn’t change a thing.

It’s been just over a month since our baby girl came into this world. She attached herself to my and Charles’ soul on February 20, 2022, at 2:49 am. It was a very long 29 hours after being induced, and while I was going through it, I turned to Charles—always gracefully holding my iron claw of a fist—and said, “I’m never doing this again.” But looking back, that was the easy part; the part I’d gladly go through again should we be blessed with another tiny nugget of a person. It was what came after that was truly the challenge but we’ve already grown so much together and packed our brains full of information on feeding, nursing, infant sleep, diapering, baby skincare, child brain development than I ever thought possible in such a short span of time.

I fully intend on writing out her whole birth story, mostly for myself and posterity, but also for anyone it might help down the line (or if you just like reading birth stories like I used to and still do). But for today, I just want to introduce you to our new FOAS mascot, our nena Evelyn.

Evelyn is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, and I know I have to think that and say that because I’m her mother and I literally grew her from my own cells. It’s narcissistic, frankly, but I don’t care. A mother’s privilege. I’ve thought so many thoughts since February 20, 2:50 am. The minute she emerged, I was a changed person. I know people say that two people are born when a baby enters the world: an infant and a mother, and it’s so true. I do not mourn the person I was before…though I do mourn the sleep and ability to shower leisurely without hearing cries from the other side of the door as Charles attempts to soothe a baby who only wants boobs…without boobs.

In the early days, after one particularly difficult night that I’m fairly certain started with me bawling into my mother’s arms while Charles handed off Evelyn so we could rest a little bit (those postpartum hormones are WILD, folks…WILD), I held my daughter, feeding her for what felt like the twelfth time in the span of six hours, and watched the warmth of the rising sun spread across her sweet little face. Tiny moments like those are designed to keep you going, that’s for sure. I sat in my bed, the rest of the house asleep after putting in their own efforts all night alongside me, I wondered about something no one ever warns you about, at least not in any way I absorbed previously.

They tell you about the sleep deprivation, and the diaper blowouts, and the possible colic, and what to put on your registry, and that your life would never be the same again..for better or for worse.

But something no one seems to be able to properly vocalize when giving you “new parent advice” is how excruciating it all feels.

The love is excruciating.

The frustration of wanting to meet all their needs and not knowing if you’re doing it is excruciating.

Feeling time slipping through your fingers as you stare down at your sleeping infant, knowing how hard these days are but you’ll also never ever get them back again is excruciating.

The gratitude of everyone who loves and helps and sacrifices for you and your family with wanting nothing in return is excruciating.

All of a sudden my body isn’t large enough for my emotions or my love or my gratitude or my awareness of time. And it happened from one minute to the next. At 2:48 am on February 20, I had no idea what was waiting for me at 2:49 am. Everything changed in ways no one prepared me for or could have ever prepared me for.

My daughter makes me ache from the highest hair on my head to the tip of my longest toe. A face I will never tire of. A smell I hope to never forget.

Days now are marked not by singular hours like they used to be or even windows of “morning” and “afternoon” and “evening” but rather by feedings, wet diapers, how much time I have between nursing sessions to eat or sleep or do things. I don’t mind it in the least. Well…I may mind it a little at around 3 am when little miss refuses to sleep for hours but well, I know this will pass, as much as I don’t want to wish away the time to the next phase. “It goes so fast,” all the parents before me always say. I know it does, it already has. I try to remember that as I’m hunched over in the shape of a crawfish in the dark of night, hand shoved through the rail of a bassinet holding a pacifier in place, foot pointed (and cramping) to make sure I’m in the exact angle for Evelyn to not lock eyes on me and become overstimulated and risk her not sleeping. In those same moments, I also realize how much my own mother likely held a similar pose for me, in the dark of night, in the stillness that exists when you’re the only one awake at an ungodly hour…she always told me I’d never know how much she loved me until I had my own baby. She was right.

My little lady is stirring in her bassinet after a too-short nap, so I’m going to go tend to her, but I’m glad I was able to at least write this and share her with my FOAS. There is much more to come, whenever I can get a moment to write I want to. I have so much more to say and muse on.

Until next time, FOAS.