Postpartum Exhaustion

I get weekly emails from baby sites, and I thought this one said it best about postpartum exhaustion:

Postpartum Exhaustion
"I knew I'd be tired after the birth of my baby — but this is ridiculous. I haven't gotten any sleep in weeks, and I'm just exhausted."

Welcome to the new parent club — a club for card-carrying (and baby-carrying) human zombies whose motto is "I'm so tired!," whose favorite beverage is anything containing large amounts of caffeine and sugar (preferably taken through continuous IV drip), who give new meaning to the phrase "energy crisis" (the crisis being, they don't have any), who would choose four hours of sleep (in a row) over — well, over just about anything.

It's no wonder you're exhausted. An average day for you would exhaust even the Energizer Bunny — and yet you keep going, and going, and going (as if you have a choice!). Endlessly feeding, burping, changing, rocking, pacing, and repeating. Not enough to fill 24 hours? There's the pile of laundry that seems to grow larger and more daunting each day. The thank-you notes that haven't been written. The shopping (out of diapers — again?) and the schlepping (who knew how much stuff you'd need just to make a four-block trip to the bank?). All done on an average of about three hours sleep (if you're lucky) a night — with a body that's still recovering from childbirth. In other words, you have multiple good reasons to be exhausted.

I'm there. Especially the lucky-if-I-get-3-hours-sleep-at-night. I know "it won't be like this for long" (Darius Rucker) and somedays I wonder how I've made it 7 weeks, but you do what you have to do. If we can just keep the boy full, all is right with the world!