MOTHERHOOD, what the...?

I was out with three of my favorite girlfriends the other night celebrating A’s birthday.  We’ve known each other since our much wilder young adult days.  We share so much of each others history that it feels hard to imagine that we may not always understand where the others are coming from now.  The truth is, we share much less in common today then we did when we met, but the strong bonds of nonjudgmental friendship that have developed keep us checking in with each other from month to month.  I am the only woman in the group with children.  When I married three years ago, I acquired two step-children and (over time) it turned into the best deal I never bargained for.  Then, when I couldn’t get into luckier, I scored the baby lottery and got a two-for-one deal, twin girls!  Toward the end of the evening out with my friends, when I was yawning at the wee hour of ten, and my mind kept turning to how quickly I would be awakened for that first night-time feeding, one of my friends asked me if I was tired.  The question warped me into a “hormonal new mom” and I ranted about what true sleep deprivation feels like.  (Sorry ladies!)  

It went a little something like this…I thought I knew what feeling tired was in my first 30 years, sure I'd experienced feelings of exhaustion, but this is like wrestling a BEAST.  Not a kind of cute and cuddly one you want to take home.  One you see from a mile away and start to run for dear life from.  My mind is fried after not getting a solid night's rest for more than a year straight (that last trimester of pregnancy was a fun sleep deprived time as well).  I am exhausted, wrung out, and feel like hell most of the time.  I constantly have that feeling of, maybe I’m getting sick, but I’m not sick, I’m just sick of being tired.  My brain no longer operates in a normal, logical pattern.  I am really easily distracted and unfocused.  Being an organizational nut and a day-planner junkie, I have forgotten more things, including dates with friends, in the last year, than I will even begin to admit.  I have screwed up the same simple tasks at work an embarrassing number of times.  I just want to sleep.

One of my girlfriends who never wanted children until recently, is pregnant.  (She’ll be getting her first dose of mommy-hood and sleep deprivation sometime in September.  I’m ecstatic for her.  You know the saying misery loves company?)  When my tirade dwindled down, she looked at me with sheer panic and said, “But, you don’t regret it, right?”  She caught me completely off guard, “Regret what?” I asked her.  “Having kids?” she said.    

I am frozen by her question.  Do I regret having kids?  All that comes out of my mouth is, "I came home from work tonight to lots of baby smiles and laughter.  It's the most amazing thing that's ever happened to me, I would never, ever, wish it undone."  And I mean it.  And I know after my tirade about my body and brain cells gone a-wall without sleep, that this response sounds a little crazy.  I don't really know what else to say.  But it got me thinking.  This first year of newborn life has been so many things for me.  It has been consuming, overwhelming, and joyful.  I wanted to write them all down so that some day when my kids have kids I could say, “See, it is normal!”

Continued…