—in which I talk about my *new* life as a new mom. So much has happened since my last life update that I don't even know where to begin! I mean, who would have thought I'd end up giving birth exactly one month after I posted about me being pregnant? Crazy.
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Let's start at the beginning. On the afternoon of August 16th last year, I gave birth to a baby girl. My beautiful Miu Shanoa. Just shy of 33 weeks, weighing 1.9kgs. As she was born prematurely, her lungs hadn't matured completely yet, so she had to stay in the NICU for a while.
She was in the NICU for 22 days—the longest 22 days of my life. It felt like an unending cycle: constantly checking my phone for messages from our pediatrician, jumping out of bed whenever my phone rang, having to pump breastmilk every 3 hours, going to the NICU to drop off supplies and to see Miu, constantly worrying about our growing hospital bill...all while I was still recovering from my C-section. Dark times. What kept me going were stories on r/NICUParents about how everything will be okay, and soon this would all become just one big bad dream. And they were right. Everything did turn out okay, eventually. After 22 days, we were finally able to take Miu home.
Miu and I stayed at my mom's for the first 2 months. Aian and I decided this would be for the best, as we weren't sure how Miu's body would react to any potential allergens (cat dander, dust from cat litter, etc.). Besides, as a first time mom, I needed all the help I could get.
When they said it takes a village to raise a child, they were NOT kidding. I'm not going to sugarcoat it—the first few months of motherhood for me was HELL. Life with a newborn is just breastfeed, burp, rock baby to sleep, wake up after 45 mins~1 hour, change diapers, rock baby to sleep again, and then repeat. It was like that for 3 months. Constantly running on almost zero sleep. I was a zombie. The hardest part of it all was the loss of autonomy—where I go, the baby goes. If she wanted to nurse, I'd have to stop whatever I was doing to nurse. If she wanted to sleep while I was holding her, it meant I had to hold her for however long she wanted to sleep. I couldn't even shower without having my mom or aunt hold Miu for a few minutes. This was the worst. I know some people really loved the newborn stage, but I personally couldn't wait for it to be over and done with, lol.
These days Miu has become a lot more chill, so I'm able to do more stuff for myself. (I'm even able to write this post!) There are still difficult days, but nothing as bad as before. Miu's started fighting naps and bedtime, but she's also started babbling and trying to "talk" and it's just the cutest thing! Not gonna lie, I didn't think I'd actually come to enjoy motherhood, but I'm starting to like it now.
Miu is almost 6 months old now, and I can now feel that the life that I put on pause is slowly moving forward again. A friend once told me that once you become a mom, you can never get your old life back. This is a hard truth that I'm slowly coming to terms with. But I think this new life where I can one day share my everything with my little one would be much more fulfilling.
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We're also watching Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, which was one of the most anticipated series this season. The manga ranked 2nd on Takarajimasha's Kono Manga ga Sugoi! list of best manga of 2021 for male readers, just below Chainsaw Man, so I was very curious about it. The anime is very beautiful, I'm glad I waited to watch it instead of reading the manga first.
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I've been listening to wave to earth a lot the past few months, which is why I'm 10x more upset I won't be able to catch their solo concert in Manila next month. Hopefully they'll come back in the near future though. I like a lot of their songs, but this one in particular is my favorite.
Oh wow, that was a lot. I guess I missed
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