The end of the fourth trimester

We made it. It’s the end of the fourth trimester. Oscar is three months old. Now I know not everyone’s babe is the same, and I might be jumping the gun, but things have suddenly just settled and we see the light.

There is actually a light!

Things started to settle this past week as I started to get into a flow of a routine (even if I don’t always stick to it). I’ve never really had a routine, I’m not a routine person, but, this little babe needs that. Even just one that is subtle because having some sort of order to the day is helping with my sanity. Things feel lighter and not so scary. Things are manageable. Don’t get me wrong, there are still hard moments and change is intense, but there isn’t this darkness looming over every moment of the day.

For Oscar. There are so many changes day to day since we first met him. But finally, he’s starting to nap. Like actual naps during the day. And that has been our saving grace.

Mark your wins! They will help you get through the hard days so you know there was something you did right, or felt good about in a day that can seem like a total fail or one filled with too much chaos.

The other day we had such a win with Oscar. For the first time since he was about 2 weeks old, he napped for 1.5hrs. Both times I put him down that day, he settled in my arms with little coos and no cries and fell into a deep sleep. Granted, for the next few days following that, he went back to his thirty minute naps, and cried as I rocked him, fighting the nap hard, but at least he eventually shut his eyes for a little bit .

But, the biggest win of them all was the one for Anth. Just a few days before Oscar reached his three month mark, Anth came home from tour and let our nanny go home early so that he could take over on Oscar duty. He had warned me he might do it, so while at the wedding I was shooting, I had mild anxiety checking my phone all evening from the time he arrived to the time I got home. Anthony only had been alone with Oscar for longer than an hour twice and both ended in him not speaking to me after many heated text and then us fighting when I got home (if you read my other post, then you know!).

To say I was beyond nervous was an understatement. But, things at home went well. Oscar took two bottles from his dada, had a few naps and when I finally got home, he was sound asleep in his basinet. Not only that, but Anth surprised me with the bathroom filled with candles and a hot bath waiting for me. I can’t remember the last time I took a bath, let alone one with candles and my husband in the same room for me to have an actual conversation with. So, for me, my win has been being more confidant in being a mom.

Being a mom still shocks me. I still feel like I’m a 16 year old who still needs to check in about curfew. It’s so crazy that I’m almost mid thirties with a successful business I’ve built, a home we own, I’m married and have a baby.

I have a baby.

I made a human!

It’s honestly such a life changer and it’s something I could never really have imagined the way it actually feels.

Every day I learn something new about myself as a mom. Each day Oscar opens my eyes up to something I could not plan to learn or be presented with. I’ve never been so pushed, so challenged and so rewarded (eventually).

With the end of this trimester, I now understand why I was so in the dark when newborn life became my world; you really do forget.

Already, I’m forgetting the darkness and the heart wrenching pain I felt in the everyday as I struggled with my new life, my new role and the way I felt not being sure about anything I was doing. Slowly, you learn to follow your gut, slowly you start to feel this intense love like nothing you ever knew before (or right away too - we are all different and things happen at different times and speeds) and you start to really just become the mother you were meant to be. You keep learning everyday, and I don’t think that ever changes, but suddenly being a mom isn’t so scary because suddenly it’s familiar and you truly feel like “you got this”.

All photos in this post are of me and Oscar, 2 months PP, taken by Laura rowe