"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".

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.

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.

Tough stuff

Let me start by saying I love my husband. Let me next say I adore my daughter. I am very VERY happy to be a wife, a mother, a woman living this particular life. All of that said, this is some tough stuff.

Hubbs and I did a LOT of talking about how we wanted to raise this tiny person. We talked about sharing, being equal, continuing to communicate openly. The last two weeks have been hard. I feel like every time I find us in a "stage" I think there has never been such a tough one. That is of course, a lie. The first six weeks were the hardest. That learning curve is second to none. However, this most recent one has been harder than any of the others since week six.

Tiny girl is mobile, talking and teething. This means many things. She hasnt been sleeping very well. She gets overwrought and then sleeps in 90min chunks nursing hungrily and frequently. She wakes at 430 ready for the day. She is mobile. She is now strong enough to pull herself up to standing in the co-sleeper. This means she could easily swan-dive out, head first onto the floor. This means my mommy senses are piqued to shoot me from sleep at a moment's squeak. I rocketed awake to find her standing teetering on the edge just the other night. Needless to say, there are a few modifications in the works. For the immediate time being (the last two nights) she is sleeping in between us in the king size bed. Its not bad. I'm sleeping better knowing she is safe. (Cue the co-sleeping safety fear mongers). Anyway, sleep, yeah, she wakes up screaming mad and crawling. We have taken to interpreting the angry, inconsolable screaming as pain and have been treating with occasional motrin. It makes me feel guilty, like I should be able to soothe her some other way but fuck if I can figure it out so, motrin it is!

In the mean time, the Hubs and I are doing our best to keep from falling apart. We are trying to keep the house together (we are slobs and *shriek!* we have a mouse). We are trying to get through our own ickies (G a cold and me an infected toe (gross? You friggen bet)). We are working nearly full time 48 and 36hrs respectively. We are trying to carve out time to get me through nursing school. We are trying to be available to spend time with our friends more often. We are also trying to continue to cultivate and nurture our relationship as two adults who love each other independent of the incredible little soul we created together. This is the hard part.

I get tired and naggy. I get overwhelmed and short tempered. I feel like the last two weeks I have spent more time nagging him about helping me find some non mommy time, dishes, laundry, a leaky toilet, saving money, eating healthy and "participating" more. Gahh! When I look at this list I feel horrible. I know this is not even a comprehensive list!! I'm insane!! Poor G!! I feel like I dont have any extra energy and so I say the utilitarian stuff in a way that lacks any hint of garnish or sweetness. It sucks. I know he is tired and thus, he struggles to find the extra energy to find new ways to help me ir new ways to engage with the family. We get tired and we get stingy with our energy and that makes some poor, tired, crabby people. Instead, we really should pour what little we have in the tank into the other person. We ALWAYS feel best when we are taking care of each other. We are more fulfilled, more in love, happier and connected to one another. We just need to remember, when we feel poorest we need to give it ALL to one another.

I wish I could say I know it will get better in time but I cant. Its not that simple. It may get easier to work on with time, but probably not. But the key is the work. You have to work and not just on your partner's self esteem or last nerve. You need to work on loving each other, giving to eachother, offering up all the rest of your energy to them. If you have the right partner they will give you all they have too abd you will be full of love and not just exhaustion.....there will still be exhaustion but its sweeter somehow. So, there you have it. I'll check back in a week and let you know how it goes but for now, I am going to take my feverish, teething, bucket of drool abd chub down to my loving husband and giggle together as we feed her dinner and watch her make faces. This is the life of a mother, a wife, a woman doing her best to get it right.

Being "The One"

I nannied for years. I was paid to care for the children of others for nearly ten years. I had many different families in those years. Some I thought I loved. I took care of some of them through the best and worst, from weeks old to school age. No matter the family or the kiddo one thing is 100% ubiquitous. When a child wants mom there are no real substitutions. You can be the best babysitter/aunt/best friend in the world and it.does.not.matter. Mom is mom. Accept no substitutions.

I now have a daughter of my own and I have to tell you, I love being "Mom". I love finally being "the one". Tonight we put R down to bed and she awoke two hours later screaming and upset. We both had flu shots yesterday and I suspect she is teething so I gave her some baby motrin. She fell asleep in my arms and as I tucked her in under her fleecy blanket I sighed relishing the simple moments where just being mom is the soothing element she needs. I know they are fleeting and because of that, I make a point to be actively thankful for the chance to be enough just by "being"and knowing where the motrin is.

Wanting more for us all

Nursing school...Midwifery...Another baby...Thing X for the Hubbs...I want more. I have been thinking a lot about the future and realizing that life is never going to get less complicated. The time is now.


Flash forward six weeks...I have a seven month old, a full time job an a letter welcoming me to nursing school. I am doing this. The Hubs and I are working out schedules to get me study times and I am on fire. I am so excited. I have been destined to become a midwife my whole life. My first birth, at ten years old, awoke a calling in me. At times I have doubted what I was hearing. For a long time I thought my Mom's calling was what I was hearing drowning out my own. I tried the Maritime Academy, pre-med, paramedicine, now back to nursing. As I think it through I realize how specific my calling is. I could not be happy as a floor nurse or an emergency nurse. I am here to help moms and babies and families. Midwifery is like breathing. It is something I have tested my ability to avoid but have found elemental to life instead of optional. I am ok with that. I look forward to treading in the steps of my mother, the women who held my face as I labored with Ramona, the women who sit quietly in dark huts in the jungle and those who ride through the city streets in the middle of the night to "attend" to families. I cannot wait to be of service to women and families. I cannot wait to bear witness to the beauty and the heartbreak, the humbling power of families growing. Birth....it is not just a new baby but a new MOTHER and a new family. Birth leaves an imprint on everyone in the room, every time. I want a thousand imprints.... I want to be a fully awake and realized person. I want to show my daughter what following a twisted path to a dream looks like. I want to have more money for my work and more time for my family. I want to be able to offer G time and financial support to go after his dreams too. I want more, more for us all. So, for now I will work hard, study hard and love with all my might. It seems like the best way to start.

Reality

At my doctor's office today for an infected toe. "Oh my gosh! You look great! How's mommy life?!". "Great! She is amazing, G is amazing, aside from three months of thrush its a dream come true, really.". "Mah!, thrush is no big deal. Once you stop nursing it will go away.". I love my doctor but that was such a dude thing to say. Even the nurse rolled her eyes when he left and said "You can tell he never nursed!"