Four months with you

Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working. — Pablo Picasso

Luka turns four months old today, and I haven't written a post yet. I wonder if it's because of a lack of time or a lack of inspiration. Perhaps the lack of sleep is already taking its toll. I haven't been able to sleep a full night since you arrived, Luka.

I find out that there are growth spurts, the "witching hour", changes in their sleep stages... I am the one who looks for some explanation to understand their erratic behavior.

After having my worst night and feeling strangely sad in the morning, I decided to skip coffee to try and assess Luka's sleep without caffeine. Luka is "exclusively breastfed on demand." Sounds very fancy, doesn't it? Colloquially, it means he only nurses from my breast, whenever he wants, as often as he wants.

I was warned it would be a demanding job. One of the most common pieces of advice was to sleep whenever possible. Even now, if Luka is sleeping, I should take advantage of the opportunity to sleep too. As if I didn't have other things to do or think about: the company's tenth anniversary is approaching, and a celebration is being planned. Clients, projects, workloads, my team, my people. My exercise, my gym, my golf, my therapies, my classes, my books, my trips, my meals, my dinners, my friends, my family, my partner.

Sometimes it seems like the person giving you that advice thinks you can turn things on and off with the push of a button. It's much more complex than that.

With Luka in my arms, I write these words filled with sincerity and empathy for all the women who, in addition to raising children, choose to work, whether by choice or necessity. Women are warriors by nature.

In my reading, I discovered that prolactin levels increase thanks to the baby's suckling during breastfeeding, and that this hormone helps us rest when we breastfeed at night. The changes that occur during pregnancy and postpartum never cease to amaze me. The body is a marvelous machine.

Some women are left with internal aftereffects of pregnancy, others with external ones. The fact is that we change, we evolve, we flourish again, we are reborn. We cease to be "I" and become "we."

If there's one thing I'm sure of after these four months, it's that the pain and exhaustion fade, but the purpose remains. And today, my purpose has a name: Luka Vargas Garza.

Happy birthday, baby!