Baby lust

Last night I walked a friend’s 6-week-old around town.

The day before, I’d seen my friend at a coffee shop. I’d asked, “How are you?” She’d tried to smile. Then she sat down and put her face in her hands.

“I know it’s hard,” I’d said.

Her baby has colic and reflux. He’s wakes every two hours to nurse. My friend’s nerves are shot. She’s exhausted, and she’s questioning whether she’s a good mother.

Roughly four years ago, I was in her shoes. After weeks of sleep deprivation coupled with breastfeeding problems and an unsupportive husband, I came close to shaking my baby one night.

There were times I found myself too exhausted to do the simplest of things. I didn’t shower for days. Putting baby photos into an album seemed too taxing. I’d lost weight and my clothes were all too big, but I didn’t remotely feel like trying to shop for new outfits. There were days that I fantasized about driving my car into a tree.

But I survived.

I wanted to tell her that it would get easier, but that would have been a lie. It doesn’t really get easier. Just when you think you’ve mastered the colic, the challenge changes. The baby gets sick, for instance. Once you think you’ve mastered runny noses, you have temper tantrums. Once you think you know what do to when there’s a temper tantrum, you’re trying to figure out how to sound enthusiastic when your kid wants you to play hide and seek for three hours straight.

Yeah, it doesn’t really get easier. It just gets different.

Last night, I put on a front pack. I hadn’t worn one of those in more than three years. She helped me insert the baby into the little pouch. The baby started crying as soon as his mother handed him over.

“He’ll stop as soon as you start walking,” she said.

“I know, and don’t worry,” I said. “Everything is going to be fine.”

I’d worn my husband’s Gore-Tex jacket. I zipped it around the baby. I walked outside into the rain. As I walked out the door, I could hear her husband ask, “Are you sure you are okay?”

“I’m sure,” I said.

This wasn’t a hardship. I love to walk, even in the rain. It’s a form of meditation for me, even with a baby strapped to my chest.

As I walked down the steps off their porch, I worried that I’d bond with the little guy. I worried that I’d fall in love. I worried that I would regret my husband’s vasectomy.

He stopped crying. He cooed a little, and then he started sucking on my shirt. He made those little gurgle-like sounds that babies make. Suddenly he was no longer my friend’s baby. He was mine, and he was a she. He was my little girl, the one I barely remembered.

Yet, there wasn’t a molecule of my being that wanted to revisit babyhood. When I looked at him, I could see the tiny feet and adorable little cuddly body, but I also saw the hard work, sleepless nights, spit up, diaper explosions, and sore nipples.

I saw myself crying from desperation. I saw myself with the dark circles under my eyes, the rage simmering in my stomach. I saw the woman I never thought I’d become.

His breathing was heavy. Then it was so soft I could not hear it.

“Crap, is he okay?”

I touched his face. It was warm.

“He’s okay.”

And there it was, the ever-present fear of SIDS. I’d forgotten about that.

As I walked, I periodically touched his cheek, to make sure it was still warm. He at times moved his tiny arms and legs, soft and warm against my ribs and chest.

He was light, a lot lighter than I’d remembered my daughter feeling.

After an hour and a half of walking, however, my shoulders hurt. My right foot hurt. I was out of new mom shape. I turned to walk back toward their house.

He sighed and thrashed about.

“Come on little guy, give your poor mother a break tonight. She really needs one. Let’s make a deal. I get you home and into your bassinet and you go to sleep for a few hours. What do you say?”

He of course had nothing to say.

I tapped on the front door before walking in. My friend appeared. She looked somewhat more rested. More important, she looked happy. She and her husband had read in bed together, something they loved to do, but had not done for about 6 weeks.

She helped me extricate the little guy from the front pack. I placed him in the basinet. He fussed for 10 seconds, and then he went to sleep.

“Thank you,” she said.

“I can do it again, tomorrow, if you need it,” I said.

“Thanks,” she said.

We talked for a while, about the fear of asking for help, about the difficulty of admitting to people that one is falling apart.

“Some people won’t understand,” I said.

I knew about the ones who wouldn’t understand. They usually either did not have children or they’d had easy children. These were the people who would incessantly ask her whether her baby was sleeping through the night, as if sleeping through the night was some sort of contest a baby could win. They would tell her that her baby was so sweet, easy and angelic, and they would tell her this just as she was trying to explain why she was having such a hard time adjusting to motherhood. If she mentioned that her baby was fussy, they would say, “That baby? Come on!” They would mean well, too, but such comments would only make her feel even more inadequate.

“There are easy babies and there are hard babies,” I said. “You have a hard baby. This is really hard, and it might be really hard for a long time. You’re a good mother, though. You’ll get through this.”

That much I knew was true.

It was 10 p.m. when I got home. My daughter was awake.

“What are you still doing up?” I asked, giving my husband a Why-Can’t-You-Get-Her-to-Bed-on-Time look.

“She was really upset when you weren’t here at bedtime,” my husband admitted. “She says that you reading her a book at bedtime is her favorite time of day.”

I melted.

“Okay, sure, I’ll read you a book,” I told her.

She snuggled up against my shoulder as I read, perching her little stuffed dog near my head, so he could see the pictures, too.

“This is my favorite time with you, too,” I told her. “It’s my favorite part of the entire day.”

“Mine too Mommy,” she said.

I told her I loved her. She told me she loved me.

Later, I checked on her. I watched her sleep, and I thought, “She’s both the hardest and the best thing I’ve ever done. And I am a good mother. I really am.”

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Tagged as: parenthood, parenting, Parenting advice, post partum depression