The Truth About Mommyhood

I write tonight not to complain, but to shed a little light on the truth about being a mommy. It is somewhat out of character for me to illuminate those things which society deems more “hush hush”….but illumination can help bring wisdom to the darkest night, the shadow of reality.

Before I became a mother, I heard all the clichés. “It’s the hardest thing you’ll ever do.” “It’s a lot of work.” “You’ll never sleep again.”

I remember always thinking that they didn’t know that I was a whiz with children, that it would be different for me, because it always had been. I always had a knack for connecting with them, understanding them, and making them laugh. I had been a nanny countless times, every time, with what seemed like a tremendous amount of ease and grace. These people didn’t realize that I was the child whisperer, the baby tamer, the one who could sooth the fussiness with just being clear and present and patient with them.

So of course, I naturally postulated that this lightheartedness I had with children would carry over into motherhood.

The first two weeks were hell. Okay, not the kind with devils and pitchforks and fiery inferno. More like, OH MY GOD, we’ve been thrown into this, headfirst and have NO IDEA WHAT WE’RE DOING. Screaming infant, scrambling parents. Our nerves were shot to hell! What did I mean, I didn’t know what I was doing? I had been with children for a great period of my life. Why, all of the sudden, did I feel as if I had never babysat for more than one hour, ever?

I was hurting, literally, because I was recovering from major surgery, a cesarean section. This was very unlikely for me, a natural living advocate, who really wanted a natural homebirth. (Another story for another time.)

I was in pain and was being thrown in, headfirst, to what it felt like to not sleep. Not the kind of not sleeping where you are staying up all night cramming for a college final. Not the kind where you are having so much fun you would rather not go to bed. The kind where sleep comes in little bits and bouts, all orchestrated by another being, night after night after night. A being that days ago, was just in your womb. You felt her, you were flowing, it was very zen. All of the sudden, she is out, and not in the way that would have facilitated a gentle transition to Earthly life. A bright lights, many-people-handling, shocking transition.

This trauma seemed to carry out into her life the first couple/few weeks. She was crying incessantly….tired…..scared. Having her diaper changed scared her. Lying down scared her. Being left for more than 1 minute really scared her. Going to sleep scared her…you get the idea.

So, we ambled about probably both thinking, “woah, this is what parenthood is. There is a screaming, writhing, infant and I have no idea what to do with it.” Throw on some serious sleep deprivation on top of that and you have a recipe for weirdness.

“You’re weird”, my partner told me one night.

Oh really, I thought? I guess I might seem a little weird after being pregnant for 9 1/2 months, going through major surgery, having to eat pain pills, not sleeping, and praying to God I would have enough patience to endure this new being who we barely knew.

I felt weird, that’s for sure.

It all smoothed out, thank God. Those first couple weeks were like a crazy dream, you love for what it is, but would really rather never go back for even a visit. The sleep deprivation is now not as raw. It has evolved into it’s own being. I guess one does sort of become accustomed to what it feels like to not get a solid 8 hours for one night, ever, since your child was born. And I was always a person who 8 hours didn’t really do it for. I always preferred 10. Now, that the sleep is random and at the mercy of forces beyond myself, I have just had to let go of what once was. I have learned to accept the kooky little avenues my sleep-deprived mind sometimes goes down, because it is not a solid, streamlined machine anymore. It is random. And jerky. And jagged.

Tonight I was hungry. I decided I had been on vacation long enough. The delicious, fried foods I had been eating were taking a toll. My stomach was hurting and I knew that I could not stomach one more food item even resembling calamari, crabcakes or sweet potato French fries. I needed greens, and I needed them fast.

I put the baby down for sleep. I breastfeed her to sleep, because that is really the only way she will go to sleep. She is a breastfed baby, and I am proud of it. However, that is a can of worms all it’s own, which I will get to later.

I breastfed her to sleep and was preparing my meal. Coconut milk and water simmering on the stove. I chopped up rainbow chard, carrots, dinosaur kale, leafy kale, garlic, spinach, mushrooms. I simmered it all and waited. This dish always put me right. If it didn’t, a couple more surely would, everytime. Get me back on track and feeling strong.

It was perfectly simmered. I ladeled some up and heard a faint…what is that? Is that a ….baby?

Oh God, it’s the baby. Okay, well, it’s okay. I will set down my soup and go get her. It’s okay. I am used to this. For some reason, every time I am about to put the food into my mouth, she wakes up. I’m used to this!

I went and got her and just explained to this beautiful 4 ½ month old that she was just going to have to come on out cuz “mommies have to eat too.”

This was the last thing she wanted. She had been asleep, it was night time. All she wanted was some breastmilk and some dozing back. Normally, I would put down what I was doing and provide just this. However, you never knew how long it would take. Could take 10 minutes. Could take 45.

Not this time. I NEEDED those greens. So I put her in a brand new swing I had just purchased for the sole sake of saving a little sanity.

She cried. I ate. She cried. I ate. I talked to her and explained that it might be hard for her in life if she were always fussing. Sometimes, life is asking us to accept what is in the moment. Sometimes we are swinging, sometimes we are nursing, sometimes we are sleeping. Every moment can be something different and there is no sense in fretting about the moments not being what we want. Moments are just moments….it’s okay.

I got some greens down and took her back to bed to nurse her back to sleep.

She fell asleep.

NICE. “Now, I can get the bath I have been wanting all night.” I had run the bath water as I was cooking the soup. I have to run it as hot as it will go. Anything cooler than that…well, that’s just asking for trouble. You never know when you will actually be able to step into the bathtub with an infant in the house. It could be 5 minutes, it could be more than an hour. So run that bugger as hot as you can get it.

I lit a candle and was about to step into a hot oasis when……..is that a …….baby?

It’s a baby! Okay, the baby is crying again and I need to abandon this dream vacation of a bath I had planned and go …….nurse her back to sleep.

This time, I told her that it was time to go night night.

She let out a big old burp and actually laid her head down.

It seemed she was getting the picture.

She went to sleep and stayed asleep, and is sleeping now, as I write this, AFTER MY BATH. See, when they finally fall asleep, as she is now, the mommy should also be sleeping. That’s what all the books say…”nap when they nap.” But even though all day long I kept saying, let’s go to bed at 7 tonight!, it was now 11:03 and I was still awake. Even though you experience the fitful sleeping bouts night after night and you are exhausted, when that baby finally goes down, and you get to enjoy some personal, alone time, or time with your beloved, you sort of forget how tired you were. Somehow, you get a burst of energy that propels you into the night. It is the strangest phenomenon. Like my psyche is somehow helping me hold on to that woman of fierce independence I once knew and have to brush off a lot now. Alone time is few and far between. Even when you are alone, you are thinking about your baby, as I am now. It’s an entirely different world, one that is as foreign as the day is long. One that I am ALWAYS just bumbling along, learning as I go. And I thought I was a baby whisperer! Oh how funny it can be when we assume we know what something will be like, just because we have formed an opinion based on our experience and imaginings. This motherhood thing basically has me by the teeth! I am going along for a ride and am at the mercy and humble graciousness of something I had no idea of before. Just tinkling dreams, tastings, assumptions. And now that I am in it almost five months, that is still what I know of it. Tinkling dreams, tastings, although not so much assumptions anymore. Never make assumptions….Don Miguel Ruiz. One of the four agreements. Those agreements. They really are a wonderful model to remember as we go through this remarkable journey…this dance of life. This unfolding, complex lotus of discovery.

So we bumble and we bumble. Just figuring it out as we go. It is fun and challenging all at the same time. It is your deepest dream come true and your mind wondering how on Earth can you continue. Some moments challenge you beyond your deepest, darkest night. Lessons come up that you were SO sure you had healed long, long ago. Lessons of your own childhood and parents and conditioning. They sometimes say that you become your parents. Well, we don’t all become our parents, but man, do those early experiences sure come back out of your cellular memory and blast you sometimes! Issues we had worked through of how our parents raised us, only to discover some of that stuff really sticks, beyond prayer and healing. So you are, absolutely, in every day and every way, living a spiritual practice. You are practicing and practicing and practicing. Every moment is a spiritual practice when you have a little baby. When you are tired beyond belief and your baby has been through every thing you have, swings, chairs, arms, breasts, bed, baths, walks, singing….on and on and on, and she is STILL crying…maybe she’s teething, it doesn’t matter. In those moments when you are at your wit’s end and you want to YELL but you don’t because the spiritual practice is moving beyond that yelling and finding your deep sense of peace and calm you had been cultivating through meditation and yoga for years and sometimes you get it and sometimes…..it is whispy. Sometimes you want it and you know it’s there…..

You continue to practice.

You get it better next time. You try not to beat yourself up for not being the world’s perfect mother.

You practice. You breathe. You release. You love.

And when that baby wakes up, you drop what you are doing and you go to her.

Forget about the way you were. Here, now is where you are. You are on a new frontier. You are realizing parts of yourself you never knew existed.

I thought I knew deeply what adventure was. Venturing out into the great unknown with courage as my only robe, God as my only friend. Well, THIS was true adventure. THIS was truly unknown. Deeper than I had ever imagined. Deeper love, deeper guilt, deeper everything. This was just the beginning. Just the beginning of being a Mother…….