The Things You Forget

I don't think it's true that you ever forget the pain of childbirth. Even though this past experience was a million times better than my first (will hopefully get my birth story written here soon), I will still forever remember the absolute, I-don't-know-if-I can-survive-this, pit of hell, kind of pain that it was. But, even with the kind of pain natural childbirth brings, it still only lasts a day or so (give or take - for me it was a mere six hours, for the less fortunate, much, much longer), and that length of time gives one the perspective that, "well, I can do just about anything for a day, right?" Not the case for the three months that follow. Somehow, that pain is forgotten, and I believe it is forgotten because it's God's way of encouraging us to have more children, because I have to tell you, if I remembered the intimate details of living day in and day out on a mere 3-5 hours of sleep, split up into 1.5 hour increments, mind you, I am not sure I would do it a second time. Somehow I looked back at our first few months with Charlotte and it seems much more manageable in my mind than I know it was in reality. I really need to call my friend, Emily, to whom I phoned countless times those first few months with Charlotte in complete meltdown mode, and ask her to remind me exactly how many times I called her in that state each week, or possibly each day some weeks.

I know it was hard then, but you really do forget how very hard it was. I remember talking to moms who had just had their fourth or fifth child and they spoke to me about these first few months like this was their first rodeo, and it was their fourth or fifth. They had completely forgotten what it was like. How does that happen, I wondered? Now I find myself in that same place. I was just thinking to myself today trying to remember how I worked out Charlotte's daily schedule so I could think about how to start getting Cy into a routine, and I really don't have a clue how it all worked out. I have no memory of it. I thought I wouldn't be like those "other moms" who forgot it all because Charlotte and Cy are a mere 18 months apart, and who forgets stuff like that in less than two years? Uh, me, that's who.

I also thought Charlotte must have been sleeping through the night by now (Cy is a month old tomorrow, mind you), because how on earth could I have survived two more months of this? No. She wasn't. And somehow I survived. How exactly, I really have no idea. I forgot it all. So, this is the only reason we keep having babies, because of the things we forget.