My eyes water, they aren’t tears, I’ve almost accepted the numbness of it, but they do that now and again in the night feed exhaustion.
How is she not tired? I think.
“All day and all night”.
That’s what I said to my husband. It feels like It’s all day and all night that she’s on me, (though I adore this for the most part), I just wanted some sympathy I guess. It’s harder than the smiling photos would have you believe.
My water bottle on the bedside table is slightly out of reach, symbolic of a lot right now.
I need more cushions, I need more hours in the night, I need to enjoy a sunrise again.
It was 8pm not long ago, then it was 11pm, then 1am. I still have no idea how someone so small can drink so much milk.
I remind myself how hard we worked to get here, to feed on demand. I tell myself it won’t always be this way because that is certain.
The more she relaxes into me, the more I tense, knowing that I’ll be peeling her off soon, like a game of operation, BUZZZ, she’s awake again.
each yawn, utter false hope.
My husband reasons, “she’s 8 weeks old”, as if I care for that malarkey when I’m this tired.
Sometimes I have to say his name 5 times before he wakes, yet one tiny grunt from her and my eyes ping open. It’s all part of the exhaustion, so innately attune.
I’ll admit, he changes the nappies in the night, it’s like a little factory, he hands her back, a newly nappied neat little package, and the milk machine starts up.
I wanted this so much, but some days breastfeeding smothers me, and I want me to myself for a moment. Not to type an email, or catch up on work, or to shovel food into my mouth at record speed. Just to be for a moment, with no one needing anything from me.
I sit here in the dark, moving my head from shoulder to shoulder because my neck hurts. I wonder if I should wake up my husband just to argue over who is more tired… an oldie but a goodie.
But I don’t.
I stay awake a little longer.
Her sweet little face crinkles and yawns, hope rises again.
Maybe this time I think.
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