Journey to a New Life

My only previous experience with feeding babies was that of feeding baby birds. With them, I had to feed them every 20-40 min depending on their age from sunrise to sunset. So I thought – if I can feed baby birds, feeding baby human shouldn’t be so bad? Turns out that the ‘feeding only during daylight hours’ makes a BIG difference.

So here I was, at home, feeding my little baby pretty much every hour during the day… and night. The first three nights were pretty horrid. I was still in a general state of fatigue from the whole hospital happening and not getting much sleep was quite the punch . The exhaustion and pain from the c-section combined reached a stage where I couldn’t keep myself together anymore and had a big cry-out, just from the physical intensity. I then changed my sleeping strategy as it was obviously not working out. I started lying down during the day when he would sleep and changed my approach towards sleeping. Previously I would lay down with the intention to now ‘get some sleep’. What would happen then was that I would be lying in bed and by the time I’m almost asleep Cesar would make noise to announce his next feed and I’d still be tired as no sleeping occurred. I then changed my starting point in lying down, to not be ‘to get some sleep’ – but rather ‘to get some rest’. I would just lay and apply the 4-count breathing method. By the time Cesar announced his next feed, I was immediately up and about and did not experience myself has being worn out and my body actually felt pretty good. It’s like I went to sleep inside my body while my body was still awake. This strategy worked out much better.

Sometimes when there was more than an hour between feeds, I would fall sleep after doing the 4 count breath for a while, and then I would suddenly wake up – and as I wake up and open my eyes, I am immediately here, wide awake and would experience a form of pressure and presence within my chest area – and then a minute later Cesar would wake up for feeding.

While my body was still recuperating from the c-section, I could feel myself getting headaches with every little reaction, every little thought that would come up during the day. Sunette explained that since my body’s resources were all being directed towards healing the cut, there weren’t many resources left to stand as a form of buffer for the mind, which made my body very sensitive to any mind activity which I would feel almost as the reactions happened. She also said that I did not want to experience any particular pain or headache for more than day, as this would mean that the point wasn’t sorted out. So as I spend my days in my room with Cesar and a reaction and discomfort would come up (which was usually something like “WHaaaaat – he’s hungry agaaaain??!!”)– I would apply Self Forgiveness out loud until the pain/discomfort was gone.

So the first few days to a week were very intense physically but at the same time also very cool to see how I was able to direct myself and assist and support myself through this.

Another point that was quite cool, was that with the baby almost constantly needing tending, was that my life was driven to a point of zero-choice. It was as if every moment was determined by the baby – and whether you like it or not, you have to walk every moment as it comes. The days that I centered myself quite effectively were very cool in this regard. It was quite fascinating really, that if you allow yourself to be here and make the decision to walk every moment as it comes and do what needs to be done, then there’s actually an experience of Freedom in the point of No-Choice. Because – here you are, leading a life where you have no choice whatsoever, yet you are able to fully direct who you are within every moment and you fully decide how you are going to experience yourself. So to then in every moment will yourself to be here and simply walk as things unfold – is actually quite enjoyable and some nights I really had a blast, because it’s quite entertaining to see that you can actually be quite fine and ‘normal’ in a somewhat abnormal situation and to see that you can actually go beyond your accepted limitations.

And it’s all in those little moments, where you for instance wake up from a noise and know it’s time for the next feed. Where you can either draw back within yourself, cringe and resist getting up – or – you hear the noise and you get up because it’s the common sensical thing to do. Either way – you’re going to be getting up to feed your baby, there’s no choice in that – what you do have a choice in, is how you’re going to feel about it and how you’re going to experience yourself, and this really, is the only decision that matters.