The first night I spent with my baby boy home from the hospital was restless. I thought I knew what was to come that night and my own mother had warned me but in reality, I didn’t know.

Being 17 with a baby and no emotional help from his father took a toll on me that night as I woke up every single hour to offer my breast that my son didn’t want to latch on to. He’d cry for about 10 minutes before finally latching on. 10 long minutes and I had not had my milk supply came in so I could only offer him colostrum. They had warned me that I would feel discouraged about breastfeeding because the first few days were hard until my milk supply was established. I thought I knew, but I didn’t know.

Changing his diapers were always a battle because of the circumcision wound that wasn’t healed yet and his umbilical cord that I had to avoid putting the diaper over. I had only changed one diaper before that and that was on my friend’s 4 month daughter who didn’t have those restrictions. I couldn’t get the diaper tight enough which caused him to pee through every single time. He went through 3 different outfits that night and screamed bloody murder every time I put the vaseline gauze on the tip of his penis. He was in pain for a moment and it hurt me to watch that. Other mothers had warned me and I didn’t listen.

The next morning, I sat in the living room with my parents and I had bags underneath my eyes. I never had bags underneath my eyes. I got a total of one hour of sleep that night. I was still bleeding heavily and my stitches burned and throbbed. I was peeing almost every minute and hated that my post partum stomach still got in the way of things. My baby boy was finally sleeping soundly in his Mimi’s (my mother’s) arms and I wondered why he couldn’t sleep that well with me last night? In that moment, I lost it. I bawled my eyes out and told my parents that I was tired and hadn’t ate in over a day and in pain and overall I felt like a failure of a mother. I was so tired that it was painful. I had told them before that night that I had it on my own especially since his father didn’t want to help out but that morning I cried for help.

My dad told me that sometimes you must sacrifice some things. With my baby, I had to sacrifice my own sleep and selfishness. My mom told me that I wouldn’t love every singe moment and that it was okay. She was right, I couldn’t lie and say every moment was a blessing so far because there were ups and downs. They both told me that it was okay and that my baby and I would grow up to have the most beautiful bond ever that couldn’t be broken. That one day he wouldn’t be this little anymore and I’d miss these moments. They were right.

A week later, my mom told me to sleep in my room and that she’d watch my son for the night. That would’ve sounded like Heaven except that when I laid down in my bed for the first time since before giving birth, I felt empty. There weren’t any cries to wake me up and no diapers to change while my eyes were halfway open. I had already missed it so much that I went back down into the living room in the middle of the night and held my baby tight.

I finally understood.