Recently I completed a questionnaire about motherhood for a woman who wants to write a book on what its really like to be a mom. She never wrote back so I can only assume she's not interested in my contribution. Following are her questions and my answers.
How would you describe what it is like to be a mother?Different. I had never thought I would be - had a whole arsenal of reasons why - and why its good to adopt. Even told my husband when I married him. I told him when he asked me, I told him along with all my other 'challenges' - like domestic chores - in the drive thru to the Love Chapel - giving him the chance to back out - he wants a kid. He wanted me more.
Last March we made the decision to have Robert Kai. In just a few minutes. It as no accident. We're adults. We knew what would happen if we didn't take a minute to 'prepare' - for I had stopped taking my birth control pills - even though I had made sure not to get pregnant before by using two forms of birth control - his and mine!
Some of my reasons for not wanting a baby were the same for not really planning on marrying for awhile. If ever. I wanted adventure - you know to climb every mountain and all that. I wanted to find out what I want to be when I grow up - besides an office worker, or Nutrition Consultant, Program Director. No matter what the title, the name of the hat - it never quite fit. So I wanted to fulfill some goals - first I needed to find them! I wanted to do something with my writing. Before I married my husband, I would move with one suitcase of my clothes, another filled with my writing.
I also wanted to grow as a person to learn more about myself, to strengthen my strengths and to be creative about my weaknesses. I guess I went through my mid-life crisis early on.
I also knew about the physical things a mom goes thru to become a mom.
Pop quiz: what sexually transmitted condition can cause fatigue, swelling,, nausea, skin rashes, weight gain, mood swings, pain and even death? A condition that millions pursue each year? Even at this very moment? And lets face it - sleep? Forget it - for many years. My affair with Morpheus, would have to go on the back burner.
Robert Kai's conception - though not an accident - we went into it with full knowledge - was, like my marriage - spontaneous. Had my husband asked me in any other way - as others have- I would have likely turned him down. However he asked me to go to Vegas with him and marry him there- and I thought of my adventures and I thought of my goals and I thought of how I wanted to grow as a person. And I said yes. For the first time since the first time a man had proposed @ 18 years old. He was thirty. Klauss Moeller. On one of the islands of Cape Verde.
I thought, why can't I have adventures with him? We both wanted to see the world - we've already seen a lot - in this country and elsewhere - and why couldn't we help each other achieve goals - why couldn't we grow together? From a place of stability?
There was also underlying all my excuses for having a baby - the fear that I would be the one percent that would die in childbirth. Why this fear I'm not sure.
I realized having a child would just be another adventure. Just in time to - you see - for fun, in El Paso - a place my husband has to go on TDY's we went to a psychic fair. The last one I'd gone to, I was young - about 17 years younger and wore a mini skirt and acted very extroverted - and well cheerleader like - and she bought into it hook line and sinker. So I was ready to be skeptical again - but have fun.
This time though, the woman we picked was eerily accurate. Rather than you will go on a long trip and other generalities she knew specifics about our past and present - including that my husband had died as a child and how it happened - he'd drowned and been resuscitated. She also knew what we we'd each been thinking as far as things we wanted to do in the future - which we hadn't discussed with anyone - not even each other yet. Anyway I share this because she told me that my baby, whom she said was either something called an Indigo or Crystal, had been waiting for me to be his mom for a long, long time.
At almost 37 he would have been waiting in vain had I waited much longer. Anyway, on the night of his conception we knew what could happen - I can even say that I felt I knew what would definitely happen and I was - at peace with it - even imagined what mysteries were taking place inside. In the story I already tell the baby - we booked passage for him into the world that night and we looked forward with anticipation to his arrival.
Motherhood was just what I expected from the very first trimester. Its been true in my life how powerful thoughts are. I had great pain - not backaches or swollen ankles - but migraines - normal for me - but with no medication. I also developed carpal tunnel. In the second or third trimester, the midwife said she could write me a prescription for a narcotic - however, my baby was already important to me and I didn't want to do anything to impair his development. In my third tri I finally felt good again, less frequent migraines, less carpal tunnel...then I found I had pre-eclampsia - and just when I felt good enough to go out - I was put under house arrest for this condition and chained to the bed! My husband luckily helped considerably.
The birth took a few days, I checked in on Friday, November 24th and Robert Kai arrived on Sunday at 4:41 - and as the psychic had predicted (implanted?) I almost had to have an ER C-Section when he reacted to the Pitocin. I hadn't put much stock into what she said about the C-section as my pregnancy had been normal up to them - 'sides the migraines and stuff.
I realized that I no longer had a fear of dying in childbirth - my fear now was of my baby dying. How priorities change.
My husband couldn't stop smiling and called everyone he knew and me I was still in shock that I'd booked Robert Kai passage in the first place! I was so glad I did - the journey was so worth it. He was happy to see the world and would lift his head to look at it from my shoulder as often as he could. Even now - he's had colic and its shown me that I have a lot of patience. I was a bit fearful at first and took him to the DR - usually I can calm him down easily. I've read that babies with colic get over stimulated - they want so much to drink in this new world that they get a bit overwhelmed. They tend to grow into sensitive, intense adults. That would fit my sister to a tee. My mom says that I rarely cried and would instead shed a few tears and make little noises to get attention and make it known what I wanted.
So anyway, I am learning about myself. I don't get mad or depressed - however when I have a migraine I get a bit shell shocked and pass him off to Daniel as soon as he gets home! I find I have energy I never thought I had. Whenever there is job advertisement for an energetic employee I pass it right over. Yet, my husband who was gung ho about helping me out in the middle of the night - found he was falling asleep at work. Yet I was somehow able to do it. To walk with him, dance with him and sing with him during the day and night even though I was aching for my old lover, Morpheus.
He's almost over colic now, however he has a new challenge. Although he's been early with milestones so far - like getting so mad at changing the first two weeks that he was tensing up his muscles and turning over - and lifting his head from the first day in PICU. Very strong. Good at following objects from the beginning and verbalizing sounds - baby talk - not words - La and Ruh! and what sounds like ma but I don't think he means me personally!
Yet he can't seem to get the hang of thumb sucking. He's given up on pacifiers and wants like mad to suck his thumb. Like me, with things likes sense of direction, he's great at it when he doesn't think too much about it - like at his circumcision a few weeks ago or one of the first times I gave him his bath he was sucking his thumb like gangbusters. Most times though, despite intense concentration (or if he's like me - because of!) he tries and tries and can't get it. I watch him watching his thumb cross eyed and trying so hard!
He's able to stick out his tongue when I do - he's waives back sometimes when I waive (awkwardly)- but he can't get his thumb to his mouth right - indeed sometimes he gets it everywhere but - he's eyes, his nose....I can see him trying he has his hands in his lap and sticks his thumb out and brings it upward - at first he just makes frustrated noises - then soon this transitions into full fledged cryng - forgetting I think after awhile just why he's crying - so I try to distract him before he gets there - and if it doesn't work - I walk around with him in his favourite new position - laying him on my chest on his back so the back of his head rests on my shoulder - and I sing his favourite songs - carefully avoiding the ones that piss him off. He certainly knows him mind!
I want to teach him sign, Mandarin (my husband is Chinese) or maybe Japanese and to read like I did before he's two. My mom is so proud of that - yet she leaves out that I couldn't tie my shoes 'till I was in third grade. I want to play games that are fun - not force feed learning though. I've already told him that I'll always love him no matter what...when he's really colicky and nothing in my back of tricks works - I dance with him and tell him that I'm here and I'm listening and I always will be. No matter how much he whines and cries, screams and fusses I will always be there. Only I make into a silly rhyme. Mostly though, I read to him - his books - and whatever I'm reading. Course catalogs, Rilke, novels.
So what is it like? - like a revelation. Who would have thought that I was that nurturing - yes I've always wanted to help people - I took Massage Therapy and graduated with a high GPA - though I want to help people more mentally and spiritually - maybe something like a life coach - I really liked the weight loss field - partnering with others to guide them towards their goals. However not like motherly nurturing.
I mean who would have thought that I could uncover wells of patience and energy? I've always been so tired. I've never been one of those women who heard a ticking clock and wanted to pick up every baby. I'm still not a baby person - I can't wait 'till he's bigger - less delicate - subject to germs and such. 'Till he's more my peer - when he's 4-6 or so! I don't cook - Daniel does that - not a domestic goddess by far....Daniel I share that burden. I like things clean - don't care as much 'bout clutter - though its easier to think - Daniel is the opposite so it works out well. Not Super Mom though - don't even drive - born in NY - always lived - till now in places with great public transportation! No soccer mom here.
Yet I find myself being silly, strong, comforting -a paranoid mess calling the nurses line many nights @ 2 A.M. - mom.
The first two weeks I cried a lot thinking of that amazing fact. From that one day I walked into PICU and someone said - "This is Robert's mom." I was like omg I'm a mom! It feels like a miracle. Of course I cried a lot - they thought since the midwife hadn't believed me when my water broke on Saturday and I got an infection that he might - they had him on an IV - on his head - as like me his little veins would burst - and one night he had a breathing tube - they bottle fed him because his blood sugar was a little low. It turned out when the results came back days later he was fine - all his test like his Apgars were perfect too - he aced them all - I cried when we took him home because of all he went thru that I couldn't protect him from. I cried hearing lullabies from Shaina Noll. Me - who was always able to control my emotions. Yeah, there's the hormone thing - but there is also this mother - child thing. This miracle that brings a little being into the world - creates him and delivers a miracle.
Okay, I've rambled quite enough on this question.
What would you say is/are the best part/s of being a mother and having children?The thing that has always been the best part of my life - creation. I created a little being - god I felt so mammalian being pregnant - I was growing life - like other animals. I felt more grounded, less ethereal - as one old friend once described me - ethereal, not of this earth, he'd said. True, I'm a daydreamer, always feeling more trapped in the physical. Now I embrace it. I feed the baby and feel connected to mothers back thru the eons of mothers. Not just humans, but other animals.
What are the most challenging aspects of being a mother? Not being in control. There was no control being pregnant with what happens to your body. Or during childbirth. No control now - over emotions - over housework - over getting to places on time. Timeliness was a challenge I'd creatively overcome long ago - since I don't like rushing - I would start earlier - leave way early to get to places on time. I had to wait to write this till my husband could sit and feed the baby - we still supplement with a bottle - with my milk or formula - he's crying now - he's looking right at me over Daniel's shoulder - and it pulls at my heartstrings. I'm tied to him - he is already getting separation anxiety - he'll fall asleep on me - and wake if I put him down. Crying. So control is the most challenging thing. My sister is Buddhist however and reminds me that we need to let go of expectations. True - like breastfeeding - painful for me - but so good for him - I expected it to be wonderful as others described - if I were tied to that I'd get depressed if I just accept things as just what is that I'm happy. If I let go of the idea of the control and just be in the moment and well again accept things as just what is....
What do you wish people had told you about mothering before you became a mother?Everything. Why do people want to adopt babies? So much could go wrong. Hard to know what is important - the hospital gave me a list of things to call the Dr for right away - and I would and it turned out to be just fine - fever? Take off some clothes - green poop? Iron. Cough? Take him in the bathroom and sit him in steam. He is gaining steadily now but between his second Dr visit and his late circumcision he only gained an ounce - rather than the 7 he should of - he made up for it the next week when we brought him in for a weigh in - meanwhile I worried about failure to thrive and made my first pact with God - who would've thought this live on the edge moment to moment girl would worry - I prolly didn't worry enough then - too much now! Oh and how breastfeeding isn't easy for everyone.
We have no family here and neither of us have any female friends really - certainly none here in NM. So besides no showers - for wedding and baby - our situation is so different from others I see complaining about the first few months in other blogs. They complain that parents, in-laws, other relatives and friends are always there and telling them what they should and shouldn't be doing. We're totally on our own. If family were here a lot - I could take long showers again...try to publish enough of my stories, essays, poems etc so I could apply for NEA's grant. Or the Writer's of the Future Contest, Eat, clean and type without a baby attached - and er pee without him nearby! And they could give me advice on every day thing. But we seem to be doing okay. I've added this paragraph since initially writing it - and since then we've fallen into a routine. We co-sleep now and I feed him lying down and he sleeps from like 11-12am to like 10 or 11 and then when we get up - as long as I hold him - I can clean and do chores. Feeding him lying down calms him faster. Me too - BF is painful. Then we read, play, do baby sit ups and games and each day seems to go a lot faster as he gets less and less fussy. He's turning out to be like me as a baby - a great sleeper.
What advice would you give a woman who is about to become a mother?Think about your reasons first. And wait. My mom always told us not to marry before 30 because too often when we marry before we do sofor the wrong reasons and from what I've observed - that's true. I think its the same with motherhood. Age tempers us. Although I never wanted to have a baby, I've spent all these years deciding how I would want to raise a child, how to instill values - what values to instill - and I decided the one rule in my house is respect. With that everything else falls into place. Respect yourself - don't think bad thoughts - they're powerful. Your belongings, your body, your mind. Don't do anything to cause yourself harm. Respect others - don't put others down or cause them harm. Respect your house, and your environment. Again, with Respect - everything else falls into place.
Describe a memorable, heart-warming event between you and one of your children? (What happened? How did it make you feel about being a mother?).
Bringing him home after days in NICU. After seeing him hooked up like that. A IV going into his head. And knowing he was okay. He was mine. And I am his. It made me realize the strength of my Love and how I much I want this. Being a mom is about sacrifice and about wanting to protect your child and love them endlessly.
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