Tomorrow the baby will be 7 weeks old.
She is beginning to smile, and starting to get on a schedule (we need to get her to sleep within 2 hours of her waking though.) This kind of outlines some good advice http://www.troublesometots.com/are-you-keeping-baby-awake-too-long/
My hemoglobin levels are too low. It sucks because anemia feels like depression to me, and I don't want to have post partum depression. Part of why I don't want that label is because it makes me feel like I made a big mistake or did motherhood wrong somehow. Getting diagnosed with PPD just... would happen to me. I mean, typical. The girl who got the fox to deal with anxiety in grad school must end up with a mood disorder post partum. Of course. Of course the snarky one who never particularly liked babies was not transformed into the ultimate earth mother as soon as her little human emerges.
I think I remember a glow, a fascination in the first few days. I remember feeling like it all wasn't real, and having to convince myself that I really did deliver my baby, that I was no longer pregnant and didn't have to dread labor anymore. But as the weeks wore on, and breastfeeding was difficult- the most difficult thing I'd ever done, I remarked at one point- our dyadic existence was increasingly grim. The baby got heavier than my anemic arms could carry.
