Brooke is 100 days old today. Someone told me I was about to be out of the “100 days of darkness” period. I had no idea what they meant so I looked it up. Apparently, this is a thing.
The 100 days of darkness are characterized with terror, being overrun with hormones, sleep deprivation, relationship problems, loneliness, boredom, breastfeeding, everything being worse than you ever imagined and basically life sucking.
I hate this. I absolutely hate this. I really don’t even know where to begin with the amount of hate I have toward this.The first 100 days have been been hard, but never hard. And simply hard because it’s new. The same type of hard that you experience when you assume a new large responsibility and sort of stumbling your way through it – learning as you go.
These first 100 days have been about learning. About learning a new person -her likes and dislikes. Watching her blossom and grow. Getting to be apart of her discovering who she is and finding her voice.
The only true on-going difficulty we’ve experience in the first 100 days is breastfeeding. It has been way more difficult than I ever expected. I’ve been working with a Lactation Consultant and even go to a Mommy and Me Breastfeeding Support Group every week. We have battled lip and tongue ties, reflux, colic, and now over the course of the last month or so, I’ve learned that I am on the low end of a good supply with a low storage capacity.What this means is that Brooke has to nurse more frequently than a lot of babies. She’s almost 15 weeks and is nursing every 2’ish hours or so – even in the night. Honestly, I’m fortunate that I’m still able to nurse her. It’s hard, very hard, but I’m just happy I can still exclusively breastfeed, despite the difficult journey we are on. I never thought the fact that I’m a light sleeper would come in handy. It does here. I’m such a light sleeper that the second she starts stirring I’m awake and am able to get her on my boob before she fully wakes up. Since I’m able to dream feed her and catch her before she flips her shit, she never wakes up and I can just lay her back down when she unlatches. We bypass all of the middle of the night screaming baby business this way. While I am exhausted and haven’t slept longer than 3 1/2 hours straight in almost 4 months, I know it won’t be like this forever.
So, today Brooke is 100 days old. It’s Saint Patrick’s Day. I’ve never felt luckier.The first 100 days have been hard at times, but never dark.
Damn girl, that's a lot of fattitude 