Tuesday, November 20, 2012

"Tell me about your mother(hood)'

I have a friend who has been thinking about babies and whether or not she would like to have one.  Her major concern is that she would not love it "the way everyone talks about loving their kids".  She fears she would be indifferent to the new person whom she turned her life inside out for.  She fears she would fail at the loving part.  At first I was inclined to scoff and say "thats ridiculous! Of course you will love it. Even before tiny was born I would have died for her!". But then I turned off my judgy brain and really thought about what she was saying.

My friend is quiet and shy and sensitive. Her own mother is the same way. Nobody lavishes affection on anyone and relationships are simple and unadorned. Even at her wedding, her mother did not fuss and fawn over her. Society would have us believe that her mother loves her less if she us not reenacting a hallmark commercial at her daughter's wedding, that somehow she is cold and unloving or less of a mother. If you dont constantly gush over your kid you are a stones throw from either neglect or mental delay by today's standards. It is crazy. My friend was really saying "I'm not a gooey, gushy person. What if I dont gush and marvel at my child 24/7? What if I get frustrated or tired? What if my husband and I have differing opinions on how to parent? What if my already very important relationships take a hit? What if I dont want to or am incapable of "losing myself in motherhood?". As far as society is concerned women should give birth, after a blissful pregnancy where vomiting all day and peeing all night are cute little annoyances instead of confidence shaking recurrences that fray your already hormonally challenged mental stability. You should only gain a bit of weight in belly and breast, look adorable in everything including your taco sauce stained last pair of pants that dont chafe your marbled belly. You should either formula feed or breastfeed effortlessly. By six weeks you should look mostly back to prepreg body except for awesome boobs and you should be dying to jump in the sack! You should be well rested enough to maintain the house while you are off work. You should not be crying, sweating, leaking milk and wondering if anyone got the license of the bus that just ran you over. You should not be awake in the middle of the night crying over cracked painful nipples, trying to nurse your baby while your partner slumbers gently and deeply beside you. You should not be planning ways to inflict max pain upon him when he wakes after six hours of sleep to your 90min, and then says something stupid like "what honey? Gah, I am so tired I cant even think straight". But most of all you should think everything your kid does is "The Best". Every fart, every booger, every sleepy eye rub has never been done better or cuter than your very own. You should feel no pain, no exhaustion, no hunger, thirst and certainly never fear, anxiety, resentment towards this magical creature. THAT would make you a monster!! So, I see where she is coming from. She loves her job. She and her huz have a fun life. They can afford nice things and travel. They live on their own clock and calendar. Wouldn't kids just complicate EVERYTHING? Yes, yes they do. At least in my experience. The first six months of my daughter's life were sone of the most intense months of my life for better and worse. I was happy, sad, broke, filthy, overwhelmed, convinced I would never want sex again, angry at my husband in ways I'd never felt before, tired (sweet jesus was I tired!), flabby, insecure, in pain, sweaty, stinky and melancholy for no reason whatsoever. That may seem like a long bummer list. You may be expecting me to say something like "but my daughter shits guinness cupcakes and milkshakes! She is magical and anesthetizing and worth every second of it!". I would only say part of that. She IS worth every second of bummer. Not because everything is ooey, gooey, wonderful all of the time but because it seems worthy. It is ordinary magic. The way I love her is not fancy or decadent. It does not anesthetize all pain. It does give me more joy and curiosity and wonder. Not wonder covered in glitter or joy that comes with a soundtrack. This contentment I feel is like a clean countertop or fresh sheets on your bed. It is only "perfect" for a moment but that moment is delicious. My life is not gloriously blissed out. My life is a series of tiny moments of perfect, simple, basic goodness. They punctuate the sleeplessness, they round off the sharp edges of conflict and guilt. They provide breathing room when the diapers and the laundry and the teething threaten to take over. They are the tiny fingers on my face, the shriek of glee when I come home, the curious person learning to pull herself up or crawl or put kix in her mouth by herself. They are nothing special at all really but they mean everything to me.

So, I told my friend that I understood where she was coming from. I understood the fear in the back of your mind asking "are you suuuuure?". I told her how I spent nearly the entire first trimester crying about how I had ruined our lives and then weeks 4-12 postpartum feeling the same way all too often. I told her the truth. Mothering someone is hard. But I told her its never hard because I dont love her and its never hard because I dont want to be her mom. Its the balancing act that takes constant attention and work. Communication, dedication to the other things in life that are less rewarding but very important, like the mortgage. "Its not all wine and roses"I said, "but it is the best peanut-butter and jelly sandwich I have ever had".

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Some Days

And then there are days that start out hanging out at post with your favorite work partner so happy to chat and catch up that you dont nap but you dont care...you spend the day doing mostly nothing but the occasional drunk to the hospital run. You watch the Kona Ironman on TV and are just about done for the day when the tones blast forth from the radio and you are behind the wheel speeding of to a "god-damned late call". You arrive to find her in bed post-ictal? Maybe...PE? Maybe...Your partner breaks the bed putting oxygen on her and she is slowly waking up and talking to you. . You tell her "dont worry, we are going to take such good care of you. You just hang in there and let me know if anything changes". She smiles and nods she says "thank you", then she dies. The rest is a blur of living-room floor and neon green lines on the monitor, sweaty purple gloves drawing up drugs and pushing, pushing, PUSHING on her chest. The cardiologist is a tall woman who nods and says "yes, yes...I think the same thing". Pushing, pushing, pushing drugs, purple gloves, more drugs. Time of death.... Sometimes that is how your day ends and it hurts your heart. You care. She was someone's family, someone's love...she was your first code.

Friday, November 2, 2012

When you know your days are numbered

I am acutely aware that we have passed over the halfway mark of Ramona nursing as her primary nutrition source. I know that in a few short months I will have reduced her night feedings to one and then none. I will get more sleep but I will miss this secret, quiet, snuggle time. She nuzzles up and finds my breast without even opening her eyes. She sighs contentedly as she falls asleep full, comforted, happy. I feel an ultimate exchange of love and the remnants of our former closeness. It reminds me that she is of my body and the journey we shared to get her here and the weeks that followed where there was barely a separation between us.

She is growing so quickly, like a runaway train down a mountain. Time has never moved so quickly. I have never wanted to pause and just savor all of the sweetness and the struggle so badly. I love her so much it hurts. It is painful to know that if I do a good job, every day she takes a step away from me. If I support her and nurture and love her well she becomes stronger, more confidant and more independent with every passing day. Worst of all, she may never understand the true depth of my love for her. There is a secret love. It is secret only because it is not visible to the untrained eye. The training requires 9 months of stretching skin and aching bones followed by hours of labor and months of jagged sleep soaked in a potent cocktail of exhaustion, love, self doubt and utter amazement. There is no pedestrian path to this love. You must go all in to achieve it. It is difficult and wonderful all at once, and once you get there you realize that in exchange for the bliss you must break a tiny bit of your own heart every day to keep someone else thriving. I know my days are numbered so as she snores milky, drunk snores I will touch her face and smell her head and try my hardest to burn this feeling into my brain knowing how precious and fleeting it is. A perfect rainbow or the last perfect day of fall.