My name is Joni and I'm a 29 year old SAHM living in Houston with my wonderful husband Kyle. Here is my story:
My pregnancy wasn’t too fun. Morning sickness kicked in at 5 weeks and it lasted pretty much the whole time. In addition, I had some spotting in the first trimester and gestational diabetes in the last, so I had more ultrasounds and tests than I thought possible. After a not-so-fun pregnancy, I actually lucked out with a not-so-awful delivery. I got to the hospital at 3am, got my epidural by 10am, and Margaret Michelle came out at 1pm after only 30 min of pushing on April 3,2000 (4 days early).
For the first 2 weeks of her life, I was on cloud 9. My recovery was quick and she was a dream baby. My mom said she couldn’t believe how good this baby was (my little sis was very HN). After 2 weeks, the crying started. Margaret did not have different cries for hungry, tired, etc. like the books said babies did. She had 2 cries: mad and furious. Evenings were bad, but she was always consolable with a lot of work (dancing, walking outside, putting many miles on the stroller). She had definite preferences. In order to get her to stop crying, you had to do things a certain way, and it seemed I was the only one that knew how to do it right. My mom came back to visit at 3 months and took back her “easy baby” comments.
At 3 months, I was expecting the crying to stop and for her to turn into the cheery baby that the books talked about, but instead things started getting worse. She wanted to crawl, bad! If she wasn’t on the floor trying to crawl and crying because she couldn’t, she wanted be in the middle of the action, and that involved being held upright facing forward. We thankfully discovered the Baby Bjorn and have been using it faithfully ever since.
I had suspected she was different than other babies, but it wasn’t until I spent the weekend with my cousin and her baby who was 3 weeks older than Margaret that I realized how huge the difference was. Her baby would sit and watch the goings on happily, could play in his saucer with one toy for over an hour without a peep, and if his cries were not responded to, went back to playing. I was in shock as I ran myself ragged around their house all weekend trying to find activities to entertain dd for more than 10 minutes.
Since she finally learned to crawl and situp, things are much better. We are still suffering through stranger/seperation anxiety, sleeping issues, a driven personality and a very short temper, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Sometimes I think it would have been easier had she shown her HN characteristics from the beginning. Since they developed slowly over the first 3 months, I was filled with self-doubt on what I was doing wrong. Am I holding her too much, too little? Am I being too responsive, or not enough? It wasn’t until I discovered this board and other moms struggling through the same issues that now I am at peace with what I knew internally all along. She’s an individual with a very strong and persistent personality that will probably serve her very well as an adult.
Joni and Margaret 4-3-00