we can rebuild her

I have a fairly distinct memory of a couple of instances, before the Jellybean's advent in my life, of dismissive, smug comments from mothers: Oh, you'll understand when you have children. As though the experience of mothering was so beyond verbal expression and ordinary human empathy--well, after the hazing, and after we teach you the special handshake, then you'll be one of us and no longer subject to the rolled eye and lifted upper lip.

I swore that I would never be that mother. There's a deep chasm of difference between talking about my introduction to mothering--how it overcame any expectation I could reasonably bring to it, how it deeply changed me--and simply telling someone who hasn't been through it that she doesn't, can't get it. And anyway, I haven't the slightest idea--not being a shining translucent being of enlightenment--how much of my own experience measures up to any other mother's.

I have made an effort, on some occasions, to talk to women who are newly approaching mothering about things that I wish other mothers had talked to me about. I wish someone had prepared me for how fundamentally my sense of myself would be challenged, deconstructed, even denied. I wish I had heard more about why that first year, and especially the first months, can bring you right to the edge of your identity--and then speed you rapidly past that edge, to where you're standing, puzzled, in mid-air: like Wiley Coyote, moments before the plunge and poof of dust.

Melissa and Dooce recently recorded some key thoughts on the full-spectrum perspective on mothering as an occupation. Dooce's post especially brought me back, in frontal force, that first year of mothering.

I don't have anything really profound to convey about the experience, except to acknowledge that it more or less broke me down to the sub-cellular level; and then, somehow, at the end of it all I was entirely reconstructed: still precisely myself, and entirely different--a mother. Just this morning I asked Howie if he felt the same way about Jellybean's first year--that it had somehow fundamentally altered him. 'Funny you should mention it--no. Not at all.' Well, about two weeks after she was born, he started heading out to his office and wrote himself a Ph.D. thesis, 9-5, Monday-Friday. It's not a total puzzler to see how he developed, in short order, a sense of Jellybean's continuity in his absence--something that my once-a-week, 2 hour escape to Starbucks and then the supermarket didn't adequately convey to me.

Breastfeeding--much as I was and am committed to it, and irrespective of my satisfaction in sticking with it--was, for me, inextricably tied up with the 'baptism of fire' experience of early mothering. Ten times every twenty-four hours, lasting somewhere between 20 and 40 minutes--there's nothing else that any normal adult does for so long, so frequently, every damn day, weeks after week. But I doubt that nursing was the sole factor. Central to the mind-altering effect of 'initiation,' I think, is how every human need or desire--activities so taken for granted and ingrained in my sense of my humanity and self-preservation--were effectively stripped away. Nature calls? Yeah--well, nature is also calling for the filling of a mewling infant's stomach. Haven't showered in a couple of days? Or, for that matter, brushed teeth? gotten dressed? Let's see if you can fit it in between feedings, soothing fussiness, diaper changes, and laundering baby clothes (there really is no such thing as a leakproof diaper--please trust me on this).

When the Jellybean was about 6 weeks old, Howie had a job interview; it was my first time caring for the baby fully on my own, without even nighttime tag-team. I remember dropping Howie off at the airport, and then driving through the March Rochester snow, stopping on the way home at a favorite Chinese restaurant for takeout. I was starving, but didn't dare stay to eat at the restaurant, alone and away from all my baby gear. The Jellybean slept most of the trip--to and from the airport, to the restaurant, halfway home--and then awoke, ravenously hungry herself and letting me know about it in her highly imitable way. (what, you really believe every newborn's cry is unique? it is to laugh!) I wrestled her BabyBucket out of the car and up the two flights of narrow stairs to our attic studio, towing my treasured paper bag of takeout.

Barely in the door, I peeled off my coat, flopped at the table, gathered her out of her bucket, and yanked the boob out to feed her. After securely attaching her to myself, I used my free hand to open the paper bag of takeout, opened the cardboard carton of shrimp fried rice, and tucked into it with a fork. After about twenty seconds witnessing this from the orchestra pit, the Jellybean detached herself, looked me straight in the eye, and let loose a howling, indignant yell.

That moment was, for me, emblematic of what had become of me since her birth. Forget the fact that I was fueling the very body that was manufacturing her own food at that moment--the utter irrelevance of my most basic needs hit me square between the eyes. Put down the fork, mama. This is about me.

Yeah, over time, this aspect of mothering becomes much less intense--so much so, that although intellectually I was still carrying it with me, I didn't really remember on a gut level how Utterly Harrowing that first year sometimes felt. These days, the Jellybean runs tiny little errands around the house--the other day I had her drying dishes for me as I cleaned the kitchen, and it wasn't even pretending that she was helping me--she actually was assisting almost on the level of an adult. But in moments over the course of every day, the early training shows up: ever since her arrival, a good chunk of my life is just not about me.

Comments

[science chick]

Yes, it certainly is amazing how that first time truly alone with the little one is burned into my brain like a blinding laser.

Coming home from work as usual at 6:00pm....except that for the past 5 weeks work now includes pumping milk every 3 hours and wrestling through the myriad of childcare uncertainties that my dear little infant and I had to brave at the ripe age of 7 weeks so Mommy could return to the lab and finish her Ph.D. Park the car, trudge up the stairs with the carseat/diaper bag and wailing tiny person waiting to be fed. Something is different....oh, yeah, spouse is away. No, wait, that isn't all....sounds like rushing water. No, can't stop to worry about it....must nurse, must nurse, must nurse. Mammary out, sit and rock.....what IS that sound???? 30 minutes later, breast once again secured in the monstrous 34JJ nursing bra (you read right, that's "JJ"). What IS THAT WATER SOUND?!

A little detective work revealed that a pipe had burst and the entire basement and study were sitting in 3 inches of water. After calling the Fire Department, I only hoped my breast wouldn't have to be whipped out while they were working.

[kelly]

You know, I thought it would be different the second time around...11 years between my two kids...but it's the same. It's the same and different because there's more ME to be displaced, I'm more solidly me than I was a decade ago and I have a stronger sense of hwat I want to be doing with my time and while I love mothering, love it with a stomach-flipping abandon, I also want to be able to flip a switch a few times a day and let us enter a vacuum where I needn't be so needed. And some sleep without baby attached to my breasts would be a bonus.

[Julia S]

Oh my god, yes yes YES.

Breastfeeding also hurt like a m*therf*ck*r for the first two months. It was all so awful, like being tortured, and yet so wonderful, like getting the thing you desired most in the world, at the same time.

I was a jumpy mess for the first year. Now I get happier every day.

Now I want another baby.

[Mindy]

Ohhh, I thought of you this morning in bed... HEY *snap snap* Not that way!

Remember how I've recently gone from "don't offer, don't refuse" to refusing sometimes if Daphne wants to nurse during the night? Well...

I was snuggling with her as she was waking up, and she looked thoughtful for a moment, and then turned to me looking very sad, and asked...

"Mommy, why you say "no mama?'"

[Julia]

Jilbur,

How is it that I haven't managed to add you to my favorites list yet?!

I wanted to let you know I responded to your comment in Jo's blog.

You rock, and now I'll have to find some time to plow through your blog.

[pam]

Breastfeeding HURT like hell, as if my skin were being ripped away. I'd sit there with tears running down my face until, o bliss, I would finally get the baby attached the right way. When I turned the corner after a month and it stopped hurting, the angels sang.