The First Seven Days of Life
By: Tiffany Antone
Tags: Childbirth, Family, Breastfeeding, Baby, Motherhood

Day 2

The catheter comes out in the morning, and this means I will now need to get up every time I have to pee. While this is daunting AF, it’s also nice to get my ass out of the mostly-comfortable, but not nearly soft enough, hospital bed.

We didn’t get a lot of sleep the night prior. Dash, it turns out, is a pooping and peeing champ! He spent the night voraciously suckling at my breast and surprising us all with copious diaper changes. By 4 am, my husband and I are delirious with fatigue, so when the night nurse offers to take Dash for an hour I gratefully accept.

When she comes back with him, at least I’m no longer seeing double. This is when we do the catheter removal and Dash asks for more boob time. Somehow, an hour later, the little guy finally decides to sleep in his little bed, and my husband and I get to close our eyes as well.

We sleep so well, in fact, that when the nurse comes in to give me my pain pill, she decides not to wake me up. I come to two hours later in complete agony. I have to get up and pee, and I can feel ALL THE PAIN. I call the nurse, but I can’t wait for her to come before I go to the bathroom. My husband helps me shuffle to the toilet. I whimper/cry the whole way, tears streaming down my face, horrified that my husband has to help me sit, hold me steady, and help me get back up once I’m done. I can barely get back to the bed — I want to sob in agony, but sobbing shakes my stomach, which creates more pain. I am literally repeating “Owie, owie, owie” over and over as tears stream down my face…

The nurse comes in apologetically and I swallow my pain meds before croaking “Please wake me up next time!”

My mother sits and rocks with Dash in the afternoon so that my husband and I can both sleep. Even though we are exhausted, Dash’s presence is already so much calmer and relaxed than Finn’s was that I continue to be amazed at just how magical it feels.

With Finn, everything was so scary and difficult, that the wonder always came hand-in-hand with anxiety and adversity. With Dash, the wonder is hand-in-hand with understanding. I continue to shed some of the guilt and stress and panic I have been carrying — and bracing for more of — since Finn’s birth. I feel lighter. I can’t stop talking to my husband and the nurses about how different this experience is, about how much I’m learning about Dash already, and about how that, in turn, is teaching me more about Finn.

When Finn had a need, he would cry and cry and cry, even once the solution was presented.

Me: Hungry? Here’s a boob

Finn: Nope, not gonna take it till you’re twisted up like a pretzel and crying!

Me: Well, how about a bottle?

Finn: Nope, give me that wonky boob so I can scream at it for not being enough!

Me: You need a diaper change.

Finn: F***you for touching my booty with that cold ass wipe! Now I’m going to scream-cry at you for 10 minutes afterwards just because!

Finn’s temper is still with him, along with impatience and stubbornness. But in three-year-old form, we are able to discuss these oft-times belabored bumpy moments with him, and he’s getting better at reigning them in. When he was a newborn babe, it felt like he rode his rage all the way to the horizon. As though he enjoyed making me cry with him. As though he liked my boobs better when they were salted with my tears…

Dash, on the other hand, cries when he has a need, then stops crying once his need is met. It’s revolutionary behavior for me. I’m amazed, I’m awed… the nurses smile. I smile. My husband smiles. I thank the Universe for listening to our copious prayers that this baby be less oppositional than our first.