Post Partum Overwhelmed

I gave my husband and myself quite a scare this past weekend. First off, let me explain just how stressful the weekend was, because that's some important context. Brett's ENTIRE family was in town. They celebrate Christmas together every year a weekend before the actual holiday. They live all over the county -- North Carolina, California, and Oklahoma. In an attempt to make things easy on us, they decided to converge in Kansas City this year. I know they meant well, but having 23 out-of-town relatives around when my baby wasn't even two weeks old ended up being very overwhelming. They all stayed at a nearby hotel, which helped.

We ended up hosting them all for dinner on Friday night. This was all a last-minute thing because no one had made any plans for how these people would eat/be entertained. We had the food catered, but it was still a lot of work. The worst part is that James is a really good sleeper when people are holding him. Of course, everyone wanted a chance to hold him, so he slept the entire time from 6:30 pm to 10:00 pm, then he wasn't really tired that night.

On Saturday, there was a family picture scheduled (because nothing's as fun as having your picture taken when you are 12 days postpartum). This turned into a stressor because James wanted to be fed as soon as I got out of the shower, so my hair dried before I had a chance to style it, then I didn't have time to get it wet and start all over again, which resulted in some flat, weird-looking hair. That evening, we went to my brother and sister-in-law's house for dinner and gifts. Yet again, James slept the whole time only to be wide awake when bedtime rolled around.

After all this, I ended up having a really bad day Sunday. I was sleepy from two nights of bad baby sleep. I was overwhelmed from not getting to "sleep when the baby sleeps." This resulted in a crying spell that lasted just about the entire day. Brett was sweet and watched James for an hour and a half so I could have some time to run errands. I ended up texting my mom (I knew I'd cry if I talked to her on the phone) and asked her to come up early. She was planning to come Wednesday evening, but after my teary, frantic plea for help, she's coming this afternoon.

I was worried (and so was Brett, I think) that Sunday was the beginning of postpartum depression, but I haven't cried since then. I simply think the weekend was too much too soon.