6 Weeks

Maddi's last three weeks are gone. Never to be experienced again, which is sad, and also slightly a relief (considering how stressful the transition can be!).

Just after she turned 3 weeks, the congestion turned into an all-out cold. This was sad (hearing a newborn breathe through a congested nose would make even the most stoic man feel sympathy), but there was a consolation: more sleep!

It seems Madelyn is ready to turn my ideas of newborn behavior on its head, because it was at this point that she began sleeping in much longer stretches! She would go to sleep around 9:30 or so and sleep until 2:30 or 3:00, nurse again and sleep until 8:00 or even later. What sickly child sleeps better? Our oldest two have always slept very little when they are the least bit under the weather. Thankful yet again for the gentle way that things have gone for me so far.

The early bedtime lasted about a week, but just after she turned the Big 1 Month, she began getting fussy in the afternoons, which quickly evovled into fussy afternoons and evenings, and then (watch my anxiety increase here) into fussy afternoons, evenings and early mornings. For an entire week and a half, most days she would be fussy from 4pm until midnight, or one, or two in the morning.

Just like I knew I would, my fears about losing sleep, and remembering Emma, and my depression then, came back and it was hard for me to feel in control, to be calm, and to stare at the moment unafraid.

Thankfully, I noticed that I was having digestive problems, and found that in the last week and a half I'd been introducing more dairy and wasn't digesting well, which of course made me wonder about Maddi. I nixed the dairy (raw milk had the worst effect! sadness!) on the Sunday after she turned five weeks, and by Wednesday her fussiness was gone, and she went to bed at 8pm! Not only that, but the newborn acne that had suddenly appeared around the same time as her fussiness, disappeared as well.

We had a few good nights - what am I saying?! LOVELY nights - of afternoon and early evening naps and 8pm bedtimes, 3am feedings, and 7am wakings. Yes! Lovely is the word.

Now we're at the 6 week growth spurt, which really isn't all too bad. She's waking every 3-4 hours (just last night) and eating almost every 2-3 during the day, which is more than usual but looks quite normal for a newborn when I write it down. I still feel rested, so "growth spurt" doesn't quite send the chills down my spine like it did with my other two.

I went for her check up on Friday, and she's up to 11 lbs, 7 oz. (only 5 oz in 3 weeks), but she's grown to 23 inches. It's hard to imagine what it must be like to grow 1 and 1/2 inches in 3 weeks. I would go from 5' 3" to 5' 5 1/2"! But that's what Maddi did, and the reason her sleepers are stretched to the max when I zip her in. Time to upgrade, I suppose.

It's a funny phenomenon that every mother on the planet watches her children grow - even if she goes on to have 10 of them - and wonders in amazement that they, well, grow. It's expected, it's anticipated, it's inevitable. But it feels abnormal. It's a miracle. The same kind of miracle that causes one cell to divide into two, and to continue dividing until you meet Madelyn Ruth. It's supernatural. It shouldn't happen here!

It's also wrong. It feels wrong in the way that death feels wrong. Why should people leave us? Why should they go? They're meant to be here, with me, beside me, all the rest of our eternal days. But they don't.

Babies growing is so very close to death, because from the moment they are born, they begin the process of leaving you. Pregnancy is the very closest and most intimate a woman will be with her baby. After that, it is a race to independence, a race to escape.

The first day I dropped off my children at the Mother's Day Out program at a church, I was upset. I knew I would be, since most mothers are, but I wanted to know why. Why am I crying? I'd decided I felt good about the decision, happy to give them this solution to a difficult situation, and satisfied to compromise on my ideals. It was Good.

Then why was I so sad? Really, why was I mourning?

I called a dear friend, whose children were having children, and she talked with me. The week before, she dropped off one of her grandchildren for his first day of daycare, and she cried as well. She explained that it is a kind of loss. To watch your children grow and mature, it means they must walk away from you, and it is very sad to be left.

I understand better why I hold onto my ideals so dearly. It is because they are IDEAL. They are normal. It is God's will for us to never leave each other, but to fellowship forever. It is a very good thing for mothers to be with their children, rather than to send them prematurely with someone else. Why rush the loss?

I feel it every day that Maddi grows. I rejoice in it (oh how cute her grins and babble are!), but it is so sad to think that she will leave me. That she will not need me, or be as close to me.

I'm so glad that Time is not forever (ha! what a statement to unload). I'm so glad I only have to endure the change, the leaving, the dying, the growing for now, to be perfected and to learn to love Jesus. It's a wonderful hope to have!