the first year

The truth is, I loved her before I even laid eyes on her. Before she appeared on the ultrasound monitor as a tiny white speck. Before we heard the intoxicating sound of her heart thump-thumping at 150 beats per minute. Before we knew she was a she. I loved her even then.

But all of that was the equivalent of a summer-camp crush compared to the to the tidal wave of love that washed over me when I finally met her. Olivia. Our daughter. The love of our lives.

She came into the world at 1:44am–a beautiful, squawking, seven-pound bundle of joy with cherry-red lips and a very full bladder: she peed on me as the doctor held her above my belly to let my husband cut the umbilical cord. The girl knows how to make an entrance. When I held her tiny newborn body against mine for the first time, it felt like my heart was a volcano erupting warm rivers of love and gratitude all over the delivery room, out into the hallways of the hospital, and through the streets of the entire city.

The first six weeks of motherhood were a dizzying whirlwind of diaper changes, round-the-clock feedings and sleepless nights. I’m not going to lie: it was utterly exhausting. How come no one talks about how much time a mom spends nursing her newborn? Sure, all of the books I read said that babies need to eat eight to 12 times per day, but I thought each feeding would be 1o minutes, tops. I’m here to set the record straight: if you plan to breastfeed at some point in your life, prepare to be a 24-hour, all-baby-can-eat milk buffet. Feedings sometimes took up to an hour, which basically equals eight hours a day (or more), which basically amounts to a full-time job.

Getting out of the house with a newborn is an adventure. It’s staggering that infants–such tiny little creatures–have so much gear. Every outing requires an intense round of mental gymnastics as you sort out what you’ll need (a car seat, a stroller, a carrier–all three?) and making sure you know how each item works before you leave. You don’t want to cause a traffic jam in the mall parking lot because you don’t know how to collapse the stroller. (Hint, though: most of this stuff is a quick Google away.)

Things got easier around the two-month mark. She started sleeping for longer stretches and she was happy to take a bottle. “I get to make dinner?!” I exclaimed the first time that my husband came home from work and fed her from a bottle in the evening. I had never embraced the task of preparing a meal with such enthusiasm. Dicing onions and heating olive oil in a frying pan helped me connect with my pre-baby self, someone that felt a little lost to me during the first few weeks of motherhood.

I love being a mom (I love being her mom), but it took time to adjust to this new role. All aspects of my life changed overnight, including my marriage (date night… what’s that?!); my social life (while 5 p.m. once kicked off “happy hour” and after-work drinks with friends, it now signals the beginning of what the experts call “the witching hour,” a three-hour period in the evenings when babies are particularly fussy); and my exercise routine (my running shoes haven’t seen the light of day since I don’t even know when).

Sometimes I still I miss the days when I had the freedom to do these things whenever I pleased. A simpler time when I didn’t spend most of the day with a nursing pillow strapped around my naked torso. But then I catch a smile on our daughter’s adorable face, or hear her sweet coos and giggles, or smell her delicious baby scent, and all of that longing disappears. I’ll be reacquainted with my sneakers soon enough. For now, I’m savouring every sleep-deprived moment with this beautiful little soul.