Hey there blogeratti,
I know a lot of you are mummies, and you may just know what I'm talking about. If you break out in a cold sweat and quake at the mention of the words "newborn", "sleep deprivation", "reflux" or "colic", this one's for you. And, of course, me.
There is nothing harder, in my humble opinion, then being a new mum coping with an unsettled baby and the dreaded effects of chronic sleep deprivation. There is something soul destroying about sleeping only in hour long stretches at a time, every muscle, every cell, every pore aching with exhaustion.
Believe me, I know. My lovely little Chop was awake every hour and a half, for the first six months of his life, right through the night, and only cat napped for half hour stretches during the day.
I have never been so exhausted.
I would cry at the very thought of sleep.
Nothing helped. My exhaustion and total overwhelmed-ness led to severe PND. I was so tired, I was hallucinating.
My heart swelled with anxiety and love and desperation every time I looked at my baby boy.
And my husband tried to reach me through the fog.
Sleep deprivation, post-natal depression, they are terrible things. But was it worth it in the end?
Eventually, yeah, I'd say it was. But it was a long, long, road to here.