Baby Blues

When you think that you'll be a mother, you'll either feel excited or nervous. As of me, the first weeks of my postpartum has not been the greatest time. Despite the excitement of having a newborn, worries on my own capability of becoming a parent strike me. I have thousands of mixed feelings which I wish could have been avoided. If only I had enough preparation of being a mother and if only things were easy for me.

I felt so exhausted after delivery. The trauma of giving birth was so great during the first two days that every time I closed my eyes, I could see myself in the labour room and seeing myself in pain. Luckily the nightmare soon faded away. Then there were the discomforts with the stitches which left me having difficulties in walking and moving around. At the same time, the baby was there, needed my attention. When nobody was around I should pick him up myself, adjusting my position for a good latch so then to nurse him. But I had to do that so damn slowly, as I had to bear with the numbness around the down there. By the time I had settled the position, the baby already cried so loud that he made me so panic. The baby cried, and he was hungry and angry. So there was no proper latch on, ended up with him biting the nipple. He's so strong, he'd push my breast and pull the nipple. Sakit. This situation happen again and again, that I ended up feeling down. When the baby's demand was high, I had to bear with the exhaustion of nursing 4 hours marathon. Both nipples had cracked and I had to cry during the feeding because it hurted so much. My feet became numb, backache stroke and there were only few minutes to sleep because the baby would wake up every half an hour to nurse. Suddenly I experienced irritability, sadness, restlessness. If there's a chance, I'd cry, and I did cry a lot. I feel so terrible- am I a good mother?

As for today, the baby is three weeks old and the baby blues has faded away. Alhamdulillah. However my worries are still there since I'm still a learning first time mom. But I need to be strong, stronger than my little one. I have to istighfar and remind myself a lot that Allah blesses me a child to take care of.