This is my situation exactly. Four years of IVF, years of depression before that because I thought I would never expand my family. We finally had my son in August, and I am 42 years old.
It’s so hard, my dear. My back went out the day I gave birth and I could barely hold my little dude for the first month of his life. Couldn’t breastfeed so I’m pumping, and I just hate hate hate it.
My sleep was already terrible due to my bad back, and add a crying child into the mix, plus he only picks the times I’m pumping and can’t tend him to cry and well…what a cocktail for misery.
Don’t be harsh to yourself. We wanted this for years…that doesn’t magically make it easier for us. This is tough. Keep it up, take five million pictures of your babe, and look at the smiling ones whenever you’re down, and remember it’s YOU making that smile. That’s been the thing to get me through the crappy days and nights.
I can never ever get over how little time off you get! (States I assume)
It’s so so hard at this stage because they cannot communicate what’s wrong other than to shout and scream. You aren’t alone and from my understanding (and hope) it does get easier.
@Ashwin
Wow. Are you me? We tried for about 3 years and this year in January we were supposed to start IVF on the 26th when my period was due. Period never came, took a test on January 31 and it was positive. I now have a 2 months old baby.
Nobody wants to be sleep deprived. That’s a literal form of torture!
Nobody wants to be peed on or clean spit up from the crevices of a car seat.
Nobody wants to be screamed at or have their hair pulled.
It’s ok to not enjoy the hard stuff, because the hard stuff isn’t fun! But your baby is SO much more than the hard stuff, and happiness is so much more complex than a yes/no checkbox.
I think every parent, no matter how hard they had to work for their baby, doesn’t like their kid at one point or another when they are getting no sleep. Babies are hard and it’s exhausting being a parent. But it will get easier and even though right now it sucks.
Completely feel you about it being weird. Last year at this time I was a little over halfway through the first trimester. It was a miracle honestly after having a MMC and then being told I would never have kids to find out I was pregnant. Our girl is turning 6 months this week!
You don’t need to feel guilty. You’re in the trenches. 3 weeks PP is no joke, and your little guy is trying to figure out the world just like you guys are trying to figure out parenting. You’ve got this and everything will be okay. Wishing you the best of luck!
I have a 5 week old son and it is so tough. I am convinced newborns are the worst. I’ve accepted that I don’t like this phase, but I am hopeful for when he starts to show some personality, playing with toys, etc. Newborns are just angry potatoes.
My partner & I are also doing shifts and I feel like there’s an unspoken rule you do not wake up the other person during your shift unless the house is on fire.
The newborn stage is really hard. It won’t always be like this. I’m not saying you won’t have challenges ahead, but getting sleep makes it easier. In a few weeks they’ll start smiling and in a couple months, laughing, and they’ll learn to do so much more than just cry. That’s the stuff that you’ll love.
This was my same situation. 3 years of infertility and two IVF babies later, I can strongly say it will get better. It’s okay to not have joy in every moment, but please know it will feel great soon! I didn’t love every second of the newborn stage and kept thinking I needed to because I was blessed enough to have an IVF baby and some aren’t fortunate enough for it to work so I felt like I needed to be grateful every second. I now have a 2.5-year-old and a 3-month-old and every day gets better and better. Hang in there and it’s okay to feel the way you’re feeling. Newborns are hard!
I struggled with infertility for 10 years. We were about to start IVF when we got pregnant. I also struggled through the first 3 months because sleep deprivation was kicking my behind. On top of that I was recuperating from a c-section, the constant bleeding, trying to breastfeed. I couldn’t enjoy it in the beginning because of rampant anxiety as well. I also had intrusive thoughts as: maybe I shouldn’t have been a mom and that’s why I couldn’t get pregnant. This Reddit group and others made me feel better; we all struggle. In the beginning, all the baby was doing was screaming at me. When he started laughing and sleeping better, I was feeling better. The beginning is hard, very hard.
I was in the exact same situation myself only 3 weeks ago. We did IVF, and after a horrible infertility journey, I gave birth to my baby in early October. I promise from here, each week gets better. We have a colicky baby that doesn’t sleep well, and we’ve had to switch formulas and bottles and her pediatrician put her on reflux meds in order to help with the gas and reflux. Now at 6 weeks I have a baby that is sleeping a little better, and she’s way more alert and smiling! I completely understand and I’m sorry you’re going through this! You will make it through! Just know that you’re doing great!
When you have a family a “non-traditional” route, it’s really easy for us to judge our own experiences against others as less valid because we didn’t do it the “natural way.” Would you tell someone who adopted a newborn that they weren’t allowed to dislike round-the-clock feedings because they wanted a child that bad? No, of course you wouldn’t. You also wouldn’t tell someone who conceived naturally who genuinely wanted their child that they weren’t allowed to hate the newborn phase.
Speaking from experience: how you got here is irrelevant now. You’re now a parent just like the rest of us and we’re all in the same shit dealing with how hard this phase is… But that’s actually kind of a hard thing to accept that how you got here is irrelevant now.
If I were to guess, I’d say your problem is that you just spent 4 years spending all of your being on a goal and now that you’ve achieved it, you’re in the “Now what?” phase. I did it too. Did you know that it’s common to have depression after accomplishing something big like graduating college, finishing a multi-year project at work? Same goes for trying to have a baby. Not saying you’re depressed by any means, but I’m trying to point out that your brain may not have caught up that that time of your life is over.
But TLDR the fact that you wanted this baby so bad doesn’t mean you’re not allowed to hate the newborn phase. Most of us do regardless of how we got the kid.
I didn’t have to do IVF, but we did have to do some interventions. I used to cry a lot thinking it would never happen and I wanted it to so badly. It did finally happen and when he was born, I struggled the same way. The lack of sleep, the exhaustion, the crying - it was a shock to the system and sometimes I also felt so guilty for hating it. What I’ve found though, from my own experience and from reading many, many stories on here, is that this is an almost universal feeling. It feels awful to think, but it also seems that many of us have felt the same. I say this to say, don’t be hard on yourself. This is a very tough time, regardless of how much you wanted it. It’s ok to have a mix of emotions. I will say that now, 7 months in, things are sooo much better. Enjoyable. This is what I pictured when I pictured having a baby tbh. Maybe that was part of my issue as well, I pictured an older baby when I thought of how it would be. Things will improve, and you’re doing a wonderful job.
Feel ALL the feelings! Being a parent is hard. Especially to a newborn. You’re allowed to hate this part but still be entirely grateful that you got a healthy baby. It’s not all sunshine all the time. My first daughter died at 9 months old. When I had her little sister a year and a half later I felt insanely guilty any time I had a negative thought. Any time I thought things were hard I was flooded with guilt because I have known the pure devastation and extreme grief of infant loss. One day when my daughter was about 3 I was visiting my cousin and my daughter was throwing a tantrum and I confided in my cousin that I felt so guilty any time I had negative thoughts in regard to parenting. She stopped me right there and told me that let’s be honest, had my older daughter survived she’d be right there throwing tantrums sometimes too and I’d be allowed to think about how it’s hard or how I miss not going through all of this and she’d still know that I’d love her with all my heart. It’s silly but it allowed me to give myself permission to be like “other” parents and be so entirely grateful for my healthy baby but also let myself feel overwhelmed sometimes or dislike certain aspects. I’m 7 months in with a little boy right now and having had this permission from the beginning had made it easier in some ways. When I wasn’t sleeping for weeks on end I knew that I was allowed to feel tired and hate this part of being a mom while still loving my child more than anything and being so so thankful that he’s here and that this is what I wanted. Definitely those of us who have struggled to bring a healthy baby into the world or those of us who know loss like that will have a different perspective but just remind yourself that you’re allowed to feel feelings and it definitely does get easier, especially as they start sleeping more!
It’ll pass. I just had to tell my friend the same thing. She’s also got a newborn at home, he wasn’t letting them sleep, he was having trouble pooping, they couldn’t figure out his schedule and her husband felt like he wasn’t bonding with the baby. I told her the same thing that I am going to tell you. Right now you have basically a human potato. They eat, poop, cry, and sleep. It’s hard. But in a few more weeks your kid is going to start smiling at you and interacting and that will make things easier. I also did not enjoy the newborn phase, or even the young baby phase. My kid was hard to feed, would only nap for 20-30 minutes, and had colic. It’s so much more enjoyable now that he’s older and can actually interact and play. I promise, things will get better, just right now is the part where you have to grit your teeth and get through it, but it doesn’t last forever.
You are doing great! Sleep deprivation is horrible. Your husband sucks. He should not be waking you up when you are sleeping. I would totally do that to him.
You should see if he would instead hire a night doula for his shifts.
Or perhaps have a family member stay with you to help.