I think I'm having a mental breakdown. This is so fucking hard. You have your good days and then you just have your miserable, piece of shit days where you honestly feel like everything is going wrong and you just want to run away. This is just so tough. Her waking up constantly through the night. Her refusing to nap more than 30 minutes at a time. Her throwing tantrums when I try to breastfeed her. Having to pump 8 times a day. Having to clean pumping equipment 8 times a day.  Trying to teach her good habits and nothing working. Her fussiness about every damn thing. Her constant crying. Having to do squats all day just to not have her cry. All this while severely sleep and energy deprived. Having to repeat this every. single. day. Feeling like the worst mother in the world. I am so tired. There is no positive thinking here. There is no "this will get better." This is just, I am tired and I feel really alone and isolated.

I need help but I hate asking for it. Especially from kind friends and acquaintances of mine. I hate feeling vulnerable and weak. I don't want people seeing me this low. I hate feeling like I'm a crappy mother that can't even take care of her own child. I don't want to feel like I "owe" anyone anything. I don't want to feel obligated to be grateful to others for doing this for me. But I do need help. Maybe I'll go home...

---

We were afraid that by waking her up from her deep sleep, she wouldn't fall back asleep. Lately her wake up schedules have been 2:30AM, 4AM and 5:30AM and every 5 minutes after that until 6AM, and then finally again for her official wakeup at 7AM. Let's just say it has been frigging exhausting.

She fell asleep around 10:30PM last night and put her down when we got home from fireworks. Mike and I made a plan where he gets all the wake-ups before 5:30AM and I get everything after 5:30AM. But something magical happened. SHE SLEPT ALL THE WAY TIL 6AM. Mike woke up naturally (btw we thought waking up naturally was something that went extinct once our baby was born) and woke me up somewhat frantically not knowing what to do. Was our baby okay? Was she breathing?  Did this just happen? Did God bless us with some sleep?

The night before, we read this sleep website and apparently the #1 reason for babies waking up early (early meaning between 4AM and 6AM) was due to sun light creeping in. We bought temporary black out blinds from Ikea and hung them loosely and thought that was enough to do the trick but apparently if you can see your hand in front of your face, it wasn't dark enough. So I told Mike to seal the windows with duct tape to make sure absolutely no sun would trickle in and it seemed to do the trick. Every day is such a wildcard, but let's see what tomorrow brings. One step towards sanity.

I'm happy to be returning to my blog after a long hiatus. I'm even happier to announce that I am a mother now, and going through the real-life struggles of so many couples who have come before me.

My return to blogging are three-fold:

1. When you're a mom, the days go by so fast and they all tend to blur. With "mommy brain" (aka sleep deprivation), you tend to forget a lot of things. With my baby girl, I want to document all of it - the good and the bad and the ordinary. I want to look back and remember all the special little moments.
2. When you're a mom, you lose a bit of sanity. You spend 24/7 with this baby and you go through a lot on your own and sometimes you feel like you have no one to talk to. Sure, friends come to visit and see how you're doing, but there's so many times you can complain about how sleep deprived you are before it just sounds monotonous. Here, I can do all the bitching I want and I don't have to bore anyone who doesn't want to listen.
3. I'd like to share my experiences and advice to whoever wants to hear it. I want any future mothers out there to know that this thing called "parenting" is hard, and they are not alone in this experience.

Looking forward to a New Year with a new family and new traditions and of course, a new bagel.

Before we look forward, I look back on this year and I think about all of God's work on my life. A new house, a stable job, a fiancé and a year of crazy adventures - it's all I could ever ask for.

I look at this year as a year of transition of myself from my younger twenties to my older twenties. More self aware, more self confident, less focused on what others think, and more in control of the time I have to spend with the people I truly love. I learned a lot this year trying to piece together this new adult life of mine, but one of the most important things was to learn how to find happiness in everything.

So, with a positive outlook on the future, I welcome the New Year with full embrace. Bring it on 2017 ;). Happy Bagel 2017 my loves.

http://youtu.be/fE6bHKXCFPQ