People warned me against this but it happened anyways. Just as the fog of the baby blues has begun to lift, a different type of sadness has crept up on me. I'm starting to feel a real sense of sadness about the loneliness and isolation that accompanies new motherhood. Don't get me wrong, I love my new life with April. We have a great time together, she is getting more and more alert so we read together, listen to music together and go for walks together. But an infant can only offer so much. She is great for cuddles and lots of love but not so good at conversation. I miss adult interaction. My husband works 10 hour days so by the time he comes home he wants to shower, eat and go to bed. We don't get much time to really interact.
I was never really a social butterfly. I invest a lot in my friendships so I couldn't really find the time for more than just a couple good friends. I have some good friends with children but their children are older and they are on to different things than new mom type stuff. My other friends just don't seem to understand the exhaustion and frustration that are sometimes a major part of my day-to-day life.
I've tried going out into the world in such of new mommy friends but it's hard to find someone with similar interested. I like to wear my baby, cloth diaper and EC, breastfeed, co-sleep and all those other things that seem to be linked to that "hippie" mom perception. And that turns some people off and to be honest I feel sad hanging out with moms who formula feed, leave their babies in car seats or strollers and let their children "cry-it-out". I went to a couple new mom groups but the moms there were older than me, some were there with their second or third child and I just didn't make any connections.
Now I'm starting to feel the affects of this ongoing isolation. I used to savor my alone time; a bath, a chance to read a book or just fold the laundry in peace. But now that same alone time is just making the loneliness worse. The only thing that keeps me from becoming depressed is that my parents live close and offer some of that adult interaction that I crave. My mom has been awesome and April loves to spend time with her but I need friends to talk to you about things that I don't want to talk to my parents about.
Does this get better? How did other moms out there handle this feeling? How old were your children when you felt the isolation disappear?
Your honesty is a breath of fresh air. I definitely had the baby blues when my little one was born (much to my surprise) and also felt very isolated. I don't have any friends with little kids and found myself asking myself every day "what the heck am I going to do today?" I missed having a schedule and I missed social interaction (even though I'm also not a huge social butterfly). I don't have any great advice except that with time you'll hopefully find a new routine that will involve more adult interaction and with time you will hopefully find more mom-friends who you hit it off with. And maybe try to spark up a conversation with a momma who seems to be the polar opposite of you...you may just find that you have more in common than you realized.
ReplyDelete