At three months.

It’s been the longest three months of my life. Everyone says I’ll look back at this and it will all be a blur, but I find that hard to believe. I feel like time has slowed to a crawl and I’m stuck in a neverending routine. Feed, change, play, pray for sleep. Laundry, work, food. Repeat ad nauseum.

Worst of all, I have moments when I think motherhood isn't worth the years of struggle with infertility. In the early rush of motherlove I was relieved to feel that yes, the ends justified the means. I still do largely feel that way, but when I’m having a particularly bad day, when the babies won’t sleep, when I’m all alone with them with no help, I have moments of thinking “what have I done?” And then I feel guilty for even thinking that. Or for feeling so trapped and stuck. ‘Cause you know, there’s no negative feeling that a little guilt won’t enhance.

PPD, anyone?

I dunno. The depression comes and goes. It’s directly related to how manageable the babies are and how much sleep I get. Because of this I’m not considering taking any antidepressants, not just yet.

See, I thought it was supposed to be getting easier by this time. Sure, some things are easier. I am less stressed about my milk supply than I was. I ditched my old model Medela Pump In Style and rented a Lactina, which has cut my pumping time in half. We’re not on a fixed schedule but I do know what to expect out of the babies each day.

The big hurdles for us right now are sleeping and eating. Several weeks ago it seemed like Little Boy and Little Girl were sleeping longer and longer stretches through the night, five hours being the max. They got their first colds three weeks ago and all progress went out the window. They’ve been over their colds for weeks, but are still waking every three, or horror of horrors, every two hours to be fed. Little Boy has backslid with eating as well. He went from eating three to five (and sometimes six) ounces of breastmilk a feeding to only eating one or two. You could think that this snacking behavior is tied directly into his inability to sleep more than two or three hours, except that he’s fully capable of sleeping four or more hours in a row...during the day. Little Girl is a better eater, but not consistently, and she’s well apt to fall into the same snacking pattern. I have tried to get them to go longer between feedings at night but they just howl. When they do finally eat, it’s still just an ounce or two. The only decent meals of the day they eat are in the early evening hours, when they cluster feed.

In an attempt to get out of this godforsaken pattern I’m going to start trying to maintain more of a schedule in the daytime. When they’re having a long nap I’m loathe to wake them, as it’s the only time I’ve got to get work (or anything else) done, but I’m at my wit’s end and have got to change something.

I’m exasperated, exhausted, frustrated. There are some decent days, but a lot of rough ones in between. Early on I used to try to imagine the babies at three months old. Here I am, still struggling, dreaming now of the babies older still.

One of these days I’m going to have a happy mom post. I promise.

I hope.