I started the previous post in May 2023 and never was able to finish it because that's what happens to new mothers: you hardly ever finish things you intend to. Besides taking care of an active baby boy, the pressure of work and finding daycare blocked all plans to update.
Anyway, in a nutshell, I gave birth to him in October 2022 and I immediately descended into post-natal anxiety. He was a gassy baby who struggled with GI and feeding issues, and I was a clueless fool. I was only able to get help when he was 3 months old, but counselling sessions did so much to get me out of the fog enough to finally appreciate our boy. I was okay for a few months, but almost relapsed when I started working full-time again without decent daycare. Some lucky and unlucky circumstances led us to him finally going into a lovely at-home daycare, which he enjoys so much. I'm now able to breathe again and focus on work, and again appreciate J's beautiful growth.
It's still very challenging to be parents in a country away from your family and old friends. Our support network is tiny -- if it's there at all hahaha -- and R and I are flying by the seats of our pants every day. I have breakdowns pretty much twice a week. But R tells me this is parenthood: stretching ourselves and what we can do, what we can take, a bit every day for our son. That has helped me deal with the breakdowns much better and forgive myself better.
I wanted to resurrect this blog because I needed somewhere to dump weird feelings (Twitter is bleagh now) like, "Aaaahhhhh I miss him so much!" while he's at daycare, or "I'm lost!!!" one of my big realisations recently was that motherhood is pretty much feeling like a fool for the rest of your child's life. The key is to be okay with that maybe.
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