I take comfort in and cling to the thoughts others have had about this time. Well, I take comfort and feel its accompanying shadow, guilt. "It's temporary and gets better at 3 months when they have a routine and 6 months when they can sit up," I've heard. That's a relief, I think, feeling it wash over me and envisioning a return to semi-normalcy. But also, No, don't grow up too fast, little baby! I want to cuddle you forever. And then the tears spring into my eyes because I understand something about life that I never did before and also I'm a hormonal mess. When the baby screams and flails angrily, I want to call him mean names. Then I hear his little mobile tinkle "You Are My Sunshine," and my cheeks are suddenly wet. I was warned that for at least the first month, I would feel as if I was under water. I just didn't know the water would be made of my own crazy tears.
As I was looking at the rest of my life prior to becoming pregnant and in that stage of determining what I wanted to do with it, I read a book called Wild Mama. I reach into my memory for passages that ring especially true to me now, and for this reason I will always keep such books in my library. Marie Kondo just can't have that part of me. Hasn't she taken enough? Carrie Visintainer writes:
The recovery will be longer now. My abdominal muscles are severed, and it will take months - or years? - to get my core strength back. How long before I can carry the baby on my own? Before I can leave the house, toting my newborn around town and up mountains and into canyons in the sling I'd placed on a hook by the back door? What if the answer is never? (53).
I hadn't anticipated my C-section either. I'd also had a rosy anticipation for this summer that would turn out to be so different from my expectations. I still need help to do many things, to take some of the physical burden off of my healing body for the everyday care of our newborn. I can't walk the dog since she has the tendency to pull her full body against the leash and over my weight limit. I must be careful about how many times a day I do the stairs in the house let alone go hiking with a compliant baby in his carrier. We spend long stretches of days inside the comfort of our air-conditioned house because it is too hot and muggy for a newborn outside, and enclosed public spaces leave room for all sorts re-emerging horrors like pertussis and measles. I seem to bounce off the walls like a pacing racehorse as I attempt to stay on top of chores and remember what things I used to enjoy doing with my time.
I can't count how many times different nurses talked to me about the difference between the Baby Blues and postpartum depression before we left the hospital. Aside from my weakened body and sleep deprived state, I didn't feel anything all that different really. I hadn't been overly hormonal during my pregnancy, either. But after the first few days home, I felt it hit. I was back in my home turf, and yet nothing seemed to feel normal. We were living on our first floor to avoid the stairs, sleeping on our sofa and ottoman, all the accouterments of our life strewn everywhere. I couldn't join my husband and new son outside under the willow tree for more than a few minutes before my incision started to feel strained. A first hopeful walk with the stroller took me only as far as the creek one block from my house. Nursing hurt, and I had to do it all the time. I googled things like, "When does breastfeeding get easier?" and tried to remember the reasons I wanted it to work so badly. I cried to my husband about my frustrations. I cried to my mom about my shattered expectations. I cried alone to Dixie Chicks songs.
Then, like others have said, it lifted one day. As if the loving forces of the universe heard my cries, my son and I got the hang of nursing. The lactation consultant gave us permission to let the baby sleep as long as he liked at night instead of setting alarms and trying in vain to wake him to feed. We learned a few tricks to help him stop wailing after his 3am feeding. My husband performed a miracle and got him to take a morning nap instead of fussing for 3 hours. Each day we either learn a little bit more or simply get lucky. We move forward in fits and starts. The exhausting and noisy nap strike of yesterday becomes a wonderful stream of sleeps the next day.
I took my first solo drive since the birth. It was to my mom's house, and to grab a few things at the store, but I felt like a deliciously free fugitive on the run. I took the time to browse the radio stations instead of staring into the car seat mirror. I took note of the way the sun hit the barns on the back country roads. I recognized myself again. While I'm terribly afraid of my husband going back to work and the potential ensuing loneliness it will bring to long days of being the sole caretaker of my son, I also relish being entirely alone. With no other being in my vicinity, my brain sighs and drifts in ways that it simply won't with even my lovely dog next to me. I needed that drive after 18 days of always having someone next to me.
But. I thought about my son while I was gone. I wondered if he was fussy or hungry without me. I wondered if my husband was frustrated. I wondered if he was still able to get things done while watching him. I wondered if I was staying away too long. Will my brain and my heart forever be split in this way? It is not wholly unpleasant, but it is powerfully confusing.
Visintainer also writes:
Motherhood has elicited this moment of illumination. It's what has torn me down, pushed me off center, and ripped my core to shreds. But this, in turn, has forced me into a place of authenticity where I'm committed to identifying my life's top priorities. (85)
These days, with time segmented into three hour chunks, there is only room for top priorities. Eating and sleeping, making some attempt at cleanliness, walks outside, and oddly writing about this experience have taken center stage. I daydream about hiking, but neither the baby nor my body are ready for that. I stare longingly at my paints, but my brain can't enter flow when it is edgily listening for baby cries. Daytrips, outdoor concerts, creek walking, afternoons on a friend's boat - these have all been plunged into the distance until we can catch up again.
I caught a glimpse of myself in the car window holding my son as I attempted to walk him to sleep. For as much time as I have spent studying his face and little parts of his body since he was born, this was an odd picture for me to understand. Whose baby is that in my arms? Isn't that still the face of my college self? A friend of mine described the strange realization she had that her new son would be someone living with them permanently. As I check on my baby, all stretched out sleeping in his pack and play, I think, "Who are you?" He is the one I dreamed of pushing in the stroller as the leaves turn gold in fall, and the one in a little hoodie by the creek, holding my hand. He is the one I see riding a bike behind my husband and the one with big brown eyes telling me about something that worries him. He is the one who fluttered his feet against my ribs and got hiccups that bounced my insides. I know him and I don't know him. I know me and I don't know me.
Oh, it's taken so long,
I could be wrong, I could be ready.
Oh, but if I take my heart's advice,
I should assume it's still unsteady.
I am in repair.
I am in repair.
No comments:
Post a Comment