Baby Got Back

According to Nick, my backside is returning to its former shape. Since I haven't really been able to see it, I'll have to take his word for it (when I was pregnant I was too large to look over my shoulder, and now that the baby is born, I don't have time to brush my teeth, never mind examine my figure).

To be honest, I was never that worried about my potential weight gain during pregnancy. I figured my body would do what it needed to do, and I wasn't going to try to mess with it. As it turns out, because of my gestational diabetes, which required me to monitor my diet very closely, I probably ate better during my pregnancy than at any other time of my life, outside of early childhood. Limiting carbohydrates meant I had to resist mightily the cravings I had for chocolate cupcakes, though luckily small servings of ice cream were actually acceptable due to the protein content. So I ate a lot of chicken, fish, vegetables and fruit, and rarely ate bread, rice, or cereal. As a result, I gained about 30 pounds during my pregnancy; I lost 20 of those pounds in the first two weeks post-partum. I'm convinced that most of that "weight" was primarily just the retention of fluids, because I sweated buckets at night those first two weeks. Oh, what a time it was: back labor and massive tearing left me completely sore and hobbling around, I woke up covered in sweat every morning, and nursing left me blistered and bloody.

But it's truly amazing what our bodies can do. Each day gets easier, both in terms of how I feel physically, and in how I am able to care for Sadie. I remember the relief I felt the first time I got into bed, when Sadie was 2 weeks old or so, and didn't feel total dread and anxiety about how I'd get through the night. I've learned to nurse Sadie while laying on my side in bed, which makes getting some real rest easier, and emotionally have come to accept that my life will slow down as I transition to caring for a newborn. Though at times I'm still overwhelmed with the reality of caring for Sadie, and how intense it can be at times, I think I'm adjusting pretty well.

And, as Nick pointed out, my butt is getting smaller.

Say What?

I think being pregnant and giving birth have decreased both my memory and my hearing ability. Or else having my mom stay with us for a week has caused me to pick up some of her habits. Or else certain traits that I associate with my mom in particular are actually traits that befall women in our family once they spend nine months bathed in pregnancy hormones. I can't tell if I am simply mimicking my mom's speech patterns, or if part of my brain has been forever suppressed and won't ever re-emerge under the weight of me thinking and worrying about my child. Here is a sample of a typical conversation with my mother:

Mom: "Can you hand me the um….[long pause]….the um…."
Me: "The what mom?"
Mom: "The uh….the phone."

And this is a sample of what my conversations with Nick have been like ever since we had the baby:

Me: "Babe, when you go out can you pick up some….um…."
Nick: Waiting patiently for me to finish….
Me: "Some uh…what's it called…some yogurt?"

Besides forgetting very basic vocabulary words, I've also had to ask Nick to repeat himself a lot more often than I ever did before the baby, something my mom also does (to an alarming degree). And, paradoxically, I find myself turning down our music, just like my mom always did when I was a teenager. I think I'm just so tired that any noise over a murmur sets me on edge. Yet I can't hear anyone when they speak at a normal volume.
Is this motherhood?