Four Months a Mother
Whew! Tomorrow will be four months with my baby girl - four months as a mother. She becomes more charming every day, and she also becomes more clear about her preferences. There is a noise she makes now when something is not going the way she would like - it’s the worst and also hilarious. We do what we can to figure out what the problem is and make it right for her, and it’s actually a bit of a relief to hear the whining “I don’t like it” cry, rather than the “something is VERY WRONG HELP” wail of early infancy.
She is also becoming more social - looking for us and smiling when she finds us. She does a thing while nursing in which she stops, looks up at me, waits for me to look back and smile at her. “I’m looking,” I say, “I’m paying attention.” She’ll then smile shyly, nuzzle her head against me, look back once more. “I’m watchin’ you.,” I reassure. She’ll smile again and return to nursing. We do this several times in a row until she is satisfied that she has been well fed and well watched.
Postpartum in the hospital was a crapshoot. Some of it was hell and some of it was nice. Watching my partner and the father of my child rock her by the window as the sun went down was nice. The Vietnamese food he brought in after a few bullshit hospital meals (one of which was a bowl of steamed unseasoned green peas, another bowl of unseasoned pinto beans, and a carton of soy milk) was very nice. Getting dropped halfway to the ground while my epidural was still in - hell. Peeing - hell. Gas pains and then my nurse missing a pain med dose by an hour and my surgical pain getting out of control and having to argue with the same nurse to get it back under control (while being treated as drug seeking and/or “hormonal”) - hell. Figuring out how to nurse my daughter and figuring out how to fall in love with her from a bed - some of both.
Postpartum at home was better, though still hard at first. And then it started to get easier. And sometimes it gets hard again. But then it’s really good.
I’m moving more these days. I’ve started familiar old Couch to 5K, and it feels nice to exert myself physically. I’m working from home, with the help of family, and that feels nice, too. She has begun to notice when I leave the room to work, though, and she would rather I didn’t. She makes sure her complaint is noted, and it is.
I’ve not exactly written coherent “journal entries” over the last four months (when?? With what hands???) but I have jotted some things down. Some of it is a bit too vulnerable (imagine that…) and some of it is boring (imagine that!), but some of it is all right. And currently, my girl is napping with her grandmother, and I had a therapy client no-show (imagine that), so here we are.
Here are some of the all right parts, in chronological order:
9/10/22 - 4 days postpartum
Today I cried because “I just love her so much.”
9/12/22 - 6 days postpartum
I look at myself in the mirror. I look less swollen today, and my belly shrunk a bit more. There are little wrinkles near the separation in my abs and what appear to be tiny stretch marks near the incision site. I didn’t have stretch marks the entire pregnancy, but I’m betting that the stretching required to get her out during surgery was enough to finally do it. They remind me of little tributaries joining up with a big river. I touch near the incision site and it doesn’t hurt much. There’s a long bruise running alongside it. It’s all right, this body-mod. It looks better now that the staples are gone. A bit Frankestine’s monster for a while there.
9/20/22 - Two weeks postpartum
The first two weeks were tough, and magical, and really hard, and super sweet, and difficult difficult lemon difficult. But something gets a little better around two weeks. You adjust somehow and start to feel more like yourself again.
10/1/22 - Nearly a month postpartum
There’s a moment after I nurse her when she holds her hand up toward the ceiling, fingers outstretched, and looks at it. I hold my palm to her small, soft palm and her eyes fix on it. Her fingers curl a bit, caressing the heel of my hand and then she turns her eyes to meet mine.
The whole universe, contained within a single breath.
10/11/22 - a month postpartum
I went on a walk this evening, thanks to my partner. I have been more sedentary than I like and some days, it starts to feel like I’m losing myself. I think my partner sees some of this in me, so he took the baby and told me to go. He smiled, “I’ve got her.”
So I went. The leaves are starting to change, and we are all aching for rain. I can hear how dry it is when the wind blows - brittle and thin.
My legs feel heavy. A bit stiff. But they’re getting used to the movement.
“I’m a mother,” I think to myself. “A mother. What is that? What does that mean? And what has changed?” Many things, certainly. But the fundamentals? Not really. I still like the same things, want the same things. I want to be good at things, find novelty and intensity, feel like I remember how to be wild somehow. I want to work on my body and mind, I want to feel sharp and powerful. I want to create and explore. All of that remains the same.
I didn’t become someone else. I think I thought I might.
We believe she’s entering a developmental leap. She’s extra fussy in the evenings and we think we’re seeing the famed “purple crying.” Knowing that she’s crying for reasons that aren’t hunger, wetness, loneliness, or exhaustion - that it’s probably just overwhelming to be developing all of this new sensory ability all at once, to feel things differently than you felt only the day before, and that it’s probably like one long, intense acid trip with no language to describe and make sense of what’s happening - well, that makes it much simpler to just sit and rock her until it passes.
It’s hard to watch my baby cry. I want to fix it and soothe her, but my anxiety in those moments to hurry up and solve the problem doesn’t do her any favors. So I witness her sad face and tortured tears, offering all I can while she works out what it is that she needs. And sometimes what she needs is, seemingly, to cry in the arms of one who loves her.
10/24/22 - Nearly 7 weeks postpartum
There’s a thing we say to one another, when things are difficult - when we’ve both been overwhelmed or sad and we come back to one another, acknowledging how hard it can be.
“I’m glad it’s you.”
And I am.
11/12/22 - nearly 10 weeks postpartum
My friends are texting about classes they want to take - woodworking and pottery throwing. I think to myself, “It’ll be a while before I can or want to do that.” Not that long, though, really, in the context of a lifetime.
I reflect a bit on being a mother to an infant, and I think to myself that I’m actually pretty good at it. Not perfect, but pretty good. Or maybe she’s just good at being a baby.
Either way, I think part of what makes it feel that way is the realization that I won’t be a mother to a baby forever. Or even for long. It isn’t my permanent identity or permanent way of relating to the identity of Mother, so it feels like I can slide into the doing of this thing now, be okay with it, really get to know it. And then it’ll be gone and I’ll miss it - look back, wondering where the time went.
My mind next goes to things that I should do to live longer. What should I eat, how should I move, how should I use my mind? In this moment, it all feels very easy. I look down at my girl dozing in my arms, her small hand gripping my finger. I think I could do anything if it were for you.
Another part of why it feels that way is my partner. God how lucky am I. This would feel impossible without him.
12/31/22 - nearly four months postpartum
Happy new year, little daughter. My wish for you is that you grow up knowing that you are loved and knowing how to go out into the world and find more love.
It has been so good getting to love you first.
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