Four Months Already?!

You're sleeping in my lap now, something that we do regularly, and all I have to do is look down to see your sweet little face in the blue light from my laptop screen. You snort and wiggle and giggle in your sleep. Sometimes you cry too, and Mama snuggles you closer then.

I don't think I realized it when we were in the hospital, but giving birth to you was the first step in the most healing process I've ever experienced. When your grandma died, it left a huge hole in me, one that I was afraid to talk about, one that I felt awkward about, but somehow the aspect that defined me most. Losing her was the largest event in my life and for more than two decades, I measured everything by before her death and after. I missed her so much, missed her every single day, missed her so much that sometimes even as a grownup, I'd have days when I'd just double over and sob, "I want my mother" over and over and over.

She wasn't perfect (and I won't be either, not even close, which I'm sure you'll know all too well and all too soon) but she was mine and losing her was so painful. I didn't realize it for a long time, but I think I put off having you as long as I did because I was just scared. Scared that I'd die, scared that your dad would, scared that you would, that I'd make someone I loved so much only to lose them. But then, and this is one of the things I want you to know if you lose me before you have a baby of your own, I realized that not doing things because you're scared is not a valid reason. There are plenty of reasons not to have a baby - not wanting to give up the time, not wanting to share your life with someone who has no ability to share - but never, ever avoid doing something for no other reason than fear. Suddenly, irrationally, I wanted you SO badly - especially for some odd reason after reading The Beach Street Knitting Society and Yarn Club and Hens Dancing (British novels have such charmingly imperfect children...) - and then I finally got brave enough to say that aloud.



I got scared again pretty quickly and spent a lot of pregnancy strung like a taut wire between the physical joys of pregnancy and the emotional terrors of impending motherhood. But know this, if you never know anything else, from the moment you arrived, the hole inside me vanished and I loved you with my entire being, probably the first time I'd loved anyone with my entire being ever.

So, now four months have passed, and it's amazing how natural having you here is. You make me smile a million times a day and the only one smiling more around here than me is you. You're such a happy little person. Most mornings you wake up, hours from your last feeding and with a sopping wet diaper, but you wake up with a smile and this little silent open-mouthed wiggly giggle that's the most endearing thing ever. You smile and chatter and contemplate with an incredible peace, an equilibrium that brings balance to my life, instead of, as you might think, me bringing balance to yours.

That's not to say that it's been easy. When you carry as much baggage as I do, there are bound to be some challenges. Nursing's not been easy, and at times I've been bloody and in so much pain and so tired, but I've not wanted to give up. Not having a mother leaves me with no version of mother but the idealistic one I can create for myself, so I've been hard on myself, very hard according to your dad, but I only know how to push myself to get things done, so in the face of great difficulty, that's what I resort to, even if I'm expecting inhuman accomplishments. I'm still working out how I'll teach you to be tough, to demand things of yourself, without teaching you to push yourself beyond all reason, to become so isolated and afraid of failure that you can't ask for help.

And you sleep with me at night, which makes me feel like an incredible failure, afraid that I'm creating some attachment disorder or hardwiring you to be a mama's baby unable to spend one night to an eight-year-old's slumber party, let alone go off to college, but again, I don't view that from a normal perspective. Most people just deal with crying and move on, accept it as a normal part of babies learning to sleep alone, but for me, I can empathize all too well with waking up in the dark, frightened and crying for a mother that has disappeared. If you were crying for something I thought was bad for you, candy or toys or the right to ride your bike four miles by yourself, I'd say no in a heartbeat and have the courage of my convictions to sustain me through your tears. But I can't bear the thought of you thinking, for even a moment, that I'm gone, that I've left you, that I don't care or I'm not coming back. So, I nestle down with you at night, pull your sleepy little self up against my stomach and sleep a deep restful sleep that I can never achieve when you're away from me.

So that's where we are. We're learning together. And every day that you grow bigger and stronger, I grow a little bit healthier too. I feel ashamed sometimes that you're doing so much for me when I'm supposed to be the one taking care of you, but learning to let myself receive as well as give is something I've put off long enough.