Letters to Max - inconsolable

Dear Max,

You were a real handful today. Even from morning. Well some of the drama came from me, finding an ant at the bottom of the beaker we used to mix your formula, but we eventually decided on strengthening you antibodies.

That said though, you were just inconsolable between feeds and even during a feed. We didn’t really know what to do with you today. You just kept crying and crying even when it didn’t seem like you had much gas left. To make things even more exciting your momma took you for a bath, which only made your crying intensify. Now I’m sitting in the room with bated breath for the next feed, wondering if it’s going to be smooth or you’re going to be the same inconsolable mess you’ve been today, only soothed by a combination of holding pacifiers and black magic.

You’re just over 3 weeks old, and there’s this looming question of making sure you’re putting enough weight and hitting all the expected growth and development milestones. It certainly seems like you’re heavier, but is it enough and are we increasing the formula feed at a good enough clip. I do wish we had a pediatrician on call, or a midwife or some sort. Everytime you cry so intensely it just breaks my heart because you seem to be in so much discomfort and I don’t know how to help you. If only you could just say something.

But that’s precisely it. There’s still a good long time before you can say something, and some number of weeks before I’m told it gets better. Until then, this constant cycle of interruptions, feedings, detective work and just tiredness at a lack of agency with regards to you will continue and it’s just really hard to see light at the end of the tunnel. And yet it is an indelible truth that I know this is just the way it is with a new human being. I just wish the alignment would flow through the way I see you and the situation.

Accepting you is still a work in progress.