Edwin’s first birthday on Saturday was a success! We had a nice evening with just his grandparents, aunts and uncles, and Edwin loved all the attention (and the few bites of chocolate cupcake).

Ever since Saturday, I’ve been re-living the events of Edwin’s birth and first few days of life in my mind. I think it was one of the hardest, if not the hardest, week of my life. I brought this tiny, helpless baby into the world, and he needed me like I’ve never been needed before. The rush of hormones from the birth made me feel even more connected to him than I did when he was inside me. He literally turned our lives upside down: day became night, night became day, and sleep for more than two hours at a time was a luxury unheard of. Edwin cried a lot that first week, partly because he’d had some complications with the birth (none lasting beyond the first week), and partly because, as first-time parents, we had no idea how to soothe him.

That week was like parenting boot camp. We did everything wrong at least once. The first night at home, I almost overheated him with full-length pajamas and a swaddling cloth. It took me days to get the hang of nursing, and in the meantime, I was spending at least ten hours a day with Edwin attached to my chest. I forgot how to take care of myself: I had to be reminded to eat, and pushed to sleep, because I knew that it was pointless; if I went to sleep, Edwin would need me within minutes. (This wasn’t strictly true, but it happened enough to make it very difficult for me to fall asleep, even though I was always drop-dead exhausted.) Nick and I were so tired of the crying and the not sleeping. We did a lot of screaming into pillows. We did not, thankfully, let the ordeal tear us apart; I always felt like we were in it together, and that was probably the only thing keeping me afloat.

The one thing I did manage to do for myself that week was write in my journal, and I’m so glad I did, because now I have a record of one of the best and worst times of my life. I went back today and looked at my journal entries from a year ago. Here are some of the thoughts I found:

The trip home was crazy. Driving away from the hospital felt surreal. Looking outside, everything seemed unfamiliar, because everything had changed so much…

We tried putting him to bed that night, and were pretty successful. I managed to swaddle him and calm him with some singing and forehead-petting. It was really hard to sleep even though he was sleeping. I kept worrying something would happen to him. I felt so scared, so responsible, so panicked. It was like I loved him so much that something bad would have to happen…

We both love Edwin to death, but we’re so frustrated by lack of sleep and lack of routine, by the complete absence of freedom in our lives. We both miss the way things used to be: going to bed when we wanted to, sleeping late, loving only each other and giving each other all our attention. I’m not saying I’d go back, or that I’m not ready for this, or that I regret having Edwin. But right now, at 1:45 AM, I’d give a lot to skip back a week and just enjoy that time more. I miss our old life. It was good and we were happy. I hope we can be happy again- or at least, since we are happy sometimes now, I hope we can get some control of our lives back…

I love E so much right now. He’s so adorable and sweet and small. I keep reminding myself to enjoy every sweet little moment, because he’ll grow every day. It’s almost breaking my heart already to think of him growing up. I guess I’m a real mother now. I tried to think last night about not being a mother, and it felt foreign to me. Not like I couldn’t remember before he came, but just that I couldn’t remember not having this as part of my identity.

Parents, how did you feel the first week of your first child’s life? Did you experience some of the same challenges and emotions as I did? Looking back on it now, do you wonder how you got through it all?