Everybody has a birth story. So here's mine.

I had my last prenatal OB appointment on November 9, the same day my sister learned that her home, and subsequently all of her belongings, burned to the ground. They lost everything. It put a stain on the day, because I felt utterly helpless. I probably would have felt extra helpless anyway, but being a few hundred miles away and pretty much any moment away from going into labor, there really wasn't anything I felt I could do. There weren't even words, because really, how do you console someone in that situation?

In any case, the doctor asked if we would like to induce, and while my first instinct was to say no, we said yes anyway. I vacillated all day on whether that was the right decision, knowing we could call them and change our minds at any time. It didn't matter anyway, because my water broke on Saturday night, three hours before I was scheduled to be induced.

If you've ever watched television, you have seen the dramatized iteration of this event as a giant gush flooding onto the floor, the expectant mother's face a shocked O of surprise, and a mad rush to scramble to the hospital. It didn't work like that for me, and from what I hear, it's the least common way the amniotic sac breaks. There is already so much shit happening to your body during pregnancy (and sorry to get gross, but a lot of it involves fluids), that I wasn't sure. So Adam and I went for a walk. And consistently, for the entire five or ten minutes, I felt like I was wetting my pants. So when we got home, I called the OB on call, and she advised me to go to the hospital.

I didn't feel any pain at first. Nothing bad anyway. But when the contractions started, for real, I gave in to the epidural right away. It was sweet relief, and I could even sleep, but then labor stalled. So they gave me Pitocin. But nothing progressed, and the baby seemed not to be doing well, so after 15 hours of labor, the doctor deemed a c-section the way to go.

It played out exactly the way it does in every "natural mama" blog post I've read, and I've read a lot. They all warn you not to take the epidural, because one intervention leads to another, and there you are with a c section. And believe me, I was terrified. I don't know if I more terrified of vaginal birth or a c section, but when it came down to it, I was absolutely petrified as they wheeled me into the operating room. It was surreal. The anesthesiologist sat by me and chatted, and when Adam came in dressed in his scrubs and mask, he stood by me, and the doctor and nurses got to work, and in... oh, thirty minutes or so, there was my baby.

"Do you want to see your baby?" the doctor asked Adam. And Adam peeked over, the blue surgical curtain, where the baby was still half in my abdomen. The doctor waved his little corpse hand, white and dry and tiny for the camera, while you can see the weird plastic ring they use to keep my abdomen open. And in the picture (I'm sort of glad Apple came up with that motion action on their newer phones), you can see the doctor pull him out, umbilical cord still thick and yellow. Adam cut the cord. They wiped him off. They plopped him on my chest and there was my baby.

He's amazing. I've never felt so overwhelmed with love. I could stare at him all day and just bask in his facial expressions, his movements, everything he does.

And yet, there are so many things I didn't know. Was I not listening, or did no one tell me? Motherhood is fucking hard. Maria told me taking care of an infant would be boring, and I can see that. But breastfeeding is the worst. I hate it. I am told this does not make me a bad mother. Don't get me wrong--I want to breastfeed. I've been planning on it. I had zero doubt in my mind for the entirety of my pregnancy that I would breastfeed, and we'd go long and hard until at least a year, but here we are, not even to week two, and I'm ready to throw in the towel.

First off, getting a baby to latch properly is hard. He's learning. I'm learning. There's nothing easy about it. And it's only harder if he's super hungry and fussy. I panicked in the hospital when I pulled him off one day to find a giant bloody spot, where I developed a very large scab shortly thereafter. I couldn't feed from that side for a few days, and was given special ointment to promote healing, which was great. But I always forget to wash it off, and then the baby won't feed because it tastes bad (don't blame him, of course), then I feel badly for making him wait, for forgetting to clean up, for... I don't know. Everything.

I feel guilty about everything. It's true. I feel bad that I'm sitting here typing this instead of holding him. Granted, my mother and Adam's mother are both here clamoring to hold that baby as often as possible. They are here to help, and I suppose my needing a little time to record, reflect, get this out of my insides and onto a page is therapeutic, and therefore it is helping. But I feel like such a shitbag. I feel like everyone else is better at taking care of my baby than I am. I know my husband is. Adam is, thus far, a far better parent than I am. Everyone else seems to know how to soothe, and burp, and change diapers, and do all these things that I thought I'd be able to do easily, because I am his mother, goddamnit. I grew him inside my body for months on end. He knows my voice, my smell. He knows me. But I feel like I don't know him. I just feel like an emotional train wreck most of the time. A big, fat, double-chinned emotional train wreck, because while my belly is shrinking (slooooooowly), I still feel enormous.

I was asked so many times if I would breastfeed. Assured that breastfeeding burns so many calories that the weight would just melt off. But now I don't know if I can breastfeed. Because, as I mentioned, it fucking hurts. After eleven days, it hasn't gotten any easier. In the hospital, they brought me a breast pump, but we still had to start supplementing with formula. Well, maybe I should say my breastmilk is supplementing his formula, because in all honesty, I don't make enough milk to feed... I don't know. Something very small. A mouse. I don't produce enough to feed a mouse. And pumping hurts, too.

So, I feel inadequate. I don't want to formula feed my baby, but every moment I pump or nurse, I feel like that is the path we are headed down. In addition to all the hormones still flying throughout my body, the edema that never seems to go away, and the lack of sleep, I just feel worse all the time.

I mean, I knew new parents don't sleep much. But I didn't know it would be like this. AND we have Team Grandma here to help. How the fuck do people do this on their own? I don't know. I envisioned motherhood as lots of walks with a stroller, sunshine and happy baby and slimming me, and maybe running again one day. So far, I just have a giant incision across my lower belly, which droops and hangs with its decorative stretch marks.

I hear it gets better. It has to get better. There is no possible way I could conjure more love for that baby. I live, right now, for the minutes I hold him in my arms. (Of course, some moments are better than others. When he is screaming and inconsolable, well, those moments are painful as fuck.) I just want to be able to sleep--and fall back asleep after getting up in the middle of the night to take care of him. Everyone says "sleep when baby sleeps," but HOW? I have so much on my mind, so much to do. So many bills, things to read about how to swaddle and get baby to sleep, and how much poop is normal, and how long lochia lasts, and every other question to google. And my mind just races and I want to clean and organize and do whatever I can to make things... easier. And I just can't sleep when baby sleeps.

But onward we go. I'll keep working at it, even if it means working toward being okay with a formula baby. Even if it means I don't sleep until April (fuuuuuuuck.) But what I do know, is that nipple pain is real and it's no joke.