The Big Cry

This is a tough post for me to write.  Like most people, I hate admitting that I'm not good at something or I'm not as strong as I thought I was.  But sometimes you're given a hand that you just can't handle and you lose it.  This happened to me last week in a major way.  After I got home from the hospital with the little guy, my friend Brooke warned me about "The Big Cry."  You know, the uncontrollable meltdown that all new moms will have within the first few weeks of being home with a new baby.  She warned it would happen soon, that it's normal and that it's ok to just let it all out.  I'd been so emotional and hormonal and crying off and on for days, so I figured maybe I'd just get my "Big Cry" out in little episodes.  Yeah, not so much.

Last Tuesday the baby was fussy.  Incredibly fussy all morning long.  By noon, the fussiness had turned into full blown scream-crying.  I'd try to feed him and he'd scream.  I tried to burp him and he'd throw himself all over the place.  I'd try to swing him and he'd spit up everywhere.  I'd swaddle him and he'd panic and scream louder.  Nothing worked.  Not singing, not shusshing, not swaddling, not eating, not sucking, not tummy time, not bouncing, not inside, not outside, not swinging, not music, not burping...nothing.  NOTHING.  My diagnosis is that he had an upset tummy (based on all two weeks of mommy experience I had), but I had no idea what I could do about it.  He was rooting and acting like he was starving, but every time I fed him, he'd take a little and then start screaming again.  He couldn't catch his breath, he was so worked up he could barely eat, he would take a couple giant sips of milk, swallow and scream bloody-murder.  He was eating, but I felt like feeding him was causing him physical pain.  He would cry and I would cry.  The worse he got, the more upset I got.  Around 3:00, after hours of this, we both absolutely lost it.  Cue my "Big Cry."  

Reinforcements were called - my husband rushed home from work to help me out and I cried and cried until he got home.  Mac was crying and I was singing, snuggling, bouncing and telling him over and over again how much I loved him and how much I just wanted to make him better.  Of course a baby can't understand any of that, but he did eventually calm down and fall asleep in my arms just a few minutes before Ryan pulled into the driveway.  I felt like such a failure.  Such a wimp for calling my husband.  Such a crybaby for not being able to pull it together.  Such a loser for letting my emotions/hormones get the best of me.  Such a bad mom for not being able to calm down my poor baby.

Here we are now, a week later and I have a little more perspective on the situation.  He's had plenty of meltdowns after that one and sometimes the crying (his, not mine) has been even worse, but I've handled them much better since that day.  I don't know if it was the lack of sleep or raging hormones or just the initial panic of being all alone with a screaming baby and not knowing what to do, but it got the best of me.  Knock on wood, but I haven't had another meltdown in nearly two weeks.  Maybe that means I'm getting more used to the crying; maybe it means I'm getting better at reading his cues and knowing what he needs; or maybe it just means that I'm due for my next meltdown very soon.

Anyone else out there have the Big Cry?