On New Motherhood

A good friend had a baby a little over a week ago. I visited her and her beautiful brand new girl in the hospital last week, and I emailed a bit with her over the weekend. Our visit at the hospital went fine; she looked a little frustrated with her attempts to breastfeed, but otherwise seemed calm and composed.

I remember those days in the hospital. I probably seemed really with it those first couple of days after Caetlin was born too. The thing about the hospital is that it is a haven of safety. No one will let your baby die in the hospital, at least not as a result of your ignorance. You are not left working without a net, alone, charged entirely with this beautiful fragile thing's well-being. You are surrounded by people who have seen it all and done it all a thousand times, who never panic when the baby cries because she's hungry or frustrated.

The email I received from her over the weekend brought a shock of recognition for me. I could sense the underlying desperation in the email, her disorientation in the new world of endlessly crying babies and pain and sleep deprivation. The feeling of not knowing which way was up, of being completely disconnected from anything other than recovery from childbirth and the all-consuming care of the infant. One forgets what it is like to be among other adults, to think about politics or pop culture or work or friends. One becomes a creature of the body, instead of the mind, descending into a milky physicality that is everything. The absence of the relief you thought you'd feel at her physical separation from you is part of the confusion, because it doesn't happen like that. She is not separate from you yet, despite being outside instead of in. Whether she is literally attached to you- to breast or shoulder or tummy- or not, you and she are still one in a way that is utterly unexpected and baffling.

Her email had that feeling of scatteredness about it. Maybe I am reading too much between the lines, and maybe it's just hard to write a good email on a Blackberry. But it seemed to me that she is in that place where she feels like she is underwater and doesn't know which way is the air. That place where there is pain in places that have never really hurt before, not like this. Where every small thing is magnified beyond belief, where being unable to breastfeed is the scariest thing in the world, where one must obsessively chart feedings and wet diapers and bowel movements, lest the baby fail to survive because of your inability to pay attention to these things. Where finding the right bottle is of paramount importance, because otherwise how will she eat? Thoughts that have a tinge of hysteria around the edges. Minutiae that don't matter in the slightest once you can get a little distance from them, but seem so huge and important right then. Like the baby herself, they are little yet they are everything.

I don't mean to suggest that she is wrong to feel these things so keenly. I did with Caetlin, and I expect to with Segunda, though I hope with a little less flailing. I only write these words with so much sympathy. I wish I could offer her the hand she needs to pull her up and find the air. I'm afraid that only time will allow her to kick to the surface, though, time and the ability to get to know her baby a little bit. It turns out that knowing the baby from the inside is so much different than knowing her on the outside, and that is something that none of the books or parenting websites ever conveyed to me.

My friend will manage and will muddle through for days that will turn into weeks, and then months, and one day...it won't be as hard. Something will be easier. She might still only be sleeping in 90 minute shifts, she might still be changing 14 diapers and running at least one load of laundry a day. She might still be facing the witching hour of 6 p.m., when the baby just cries and cries and cries and nothing seems to help. But something will be easier. Maybe it will be the random middle-of-the-day trip to Target that made her feel as though she rejoined the human race, only with a baby in tow this time. Maybe it will be the one miracle night she sleeps 5 hours in a row. Maybe just a walk around the neighborhood in some cool autumn air with the smell of burning leaves around the edges will do it. Maybe it will be the first feeding that doesn't hurt.

And it will continue to get easier for her. I so wish I could convey this to her. I wish I could download this truth into her heart and help her know that it will be okay. That we're all like this in the beginning. That it gets easier. She'll move on to different challenges, no question- but it will never be like it is at the very beginning, ever again.

I can't give her that understanding, though, at least not in her heart. Her head, I'm sure, intellectually understands this. For now, all I can do is try to offer what advice and support I can. Be there for her if I can do anything, even just listen. Pray for her and her family.

And I have to add that I'm sure that this is not exactly a ringing endorsement for children. The thing is, this is all you'll ever see if you don't want children. I believe strongly that the downsides to having kids are so much more easily perceived than the upsides. The downsides are completely obvious- the sleep deprivation, the lack of a social life, the inability to continue caring for oneself first. The upsides, at least of those first months and years, are harder to see until you've taken the jump off the cliff and decided to bring a new being into the world. There is something about the dependence of a newborn, the way her head turns to your voice, the way only you or her daddy can make her quiet when she's unhappy, that makes it worth it. There is something about seeing your husband's nose or eyes on the face of this tiny creature, about imagining her future and realizing that she is half you. There is something that is probably hormonally driven to an extent and can't rightly be called love, but is a fierce protective instinct. You would give your life for hers, even when she's only a few days old and cannot give but can only take.

By the time the upsides start to become more evident- the smiles, the laughter, the milestones, the emerging personality- you are already so ensnared. Unfortunately, I can't convey it to my childless friends any better than that. It's such a cliche to tell childless people they just don't know what they are missing, as if that gives us parents some kind of moral superiority. I don't agree with the superior part at all, but the first part, the can't know part- I think that's probably true. It's not like anything else. And it makes all the hellishness that my friend is going through worth it.

She- they- will be just fine. We mostly all get through it, and she's a smart and caring woman with family and friends who love her. I hope she can see through to the other side soon. I hope she can kick to the surface and get that first deep breath of air, that one that will give her strength and help her understand, in the most fundamental way, why she's going through all this.