So the deal was to blog about a FIRST...and one of her suggestions was the first time you looked at your newborn child's face. This one really stuck out for me, because I've often marveled at how my experience of this differs from every other mom I've heard the story from. I don't feel right making a new blog post without a layout, so I scrapped this one which had been in the back of my mind for weeks anyway, and seems to go with the theme I chose.
I'll warn you in advance, this is long-ish and a bit cathartic. If you still wanna stay, thanks again for listening :)
Other mothers said it's like magic. The moment you see your first child, everything just clicks into place. The mothering instinct switches on, and everything you once thought you were disappears into the shadow of the little miracle before you. And I had wanted a baby so much. I had looked forward to everything about pregnancy, even the unpleasant parts. My abundancy of free time had kept me a childish gamer geek and a TV addict...I looked forward to the distraction of a baby to shape me into the grownup I needed to be.
And then it happened...the melting away of the tension as I had my spinal...the strange sensation of the scalpel...the sarcastic (or so I thought) expression of my husband's voice asking if newborns were supposed to be "that big"...the muffled but unmistakeable crying sounds, and the release of a great weight from within...Don's voice again whispering "it's a boy! we have a son!", then not wanting to release him from his arms as he placed Antonio on my chest, still on the operating table...and there he was. And what did I feel? His heaviness, and the shaking of my body as it reacted to the major surgery. I saw him, already bigger than I'd planned for...and I waited. I waited for the magic. But I remained exactly the same as I always had been. There was no epiphany, no harmonious inner discovery...the only realization that hit home there and then was how astonishingly unchanged I felt, and how inadequate as I was that I could hope to parent this ten-pound stranger that somehow I had carried inside me for almost 9 months, yet felt I was really only meeting for the very first time. Drugged as I was, I even recall anxiety of whether or not he'd be happy with who he'd wound up with as a mother. I had just mastered the art of caring for him on the inside, but now that he was out...I had no clue.
Yet I felt that because of this supposed "motherhood epiphany" that I'd be expected to know everything. Because that's what mothers do. The whole first month I was afraid to ask for help, and reveal that I was incompetent. Every time people asked me about my son I gave the answers I thought they were looking for, though I was really thinking "How should I know? I've only known him a few days more than you have." Each night, each week, each month was a milestone for one extra moment I hadn't accidentally broken him.
Motherhood has been an experience of learning and growth for me, with me never really believing I was that good at it. I tend to envision myself more like my son's fun big sister, and with my youthful personality and appearance, I often believe others also see that.
If anything, my epiphany came a couple weeks ago, 2 nights before I was scheduled to fly out to BC to pick Antonio up after a 2-week stay with his grandparents. He had never been away for this long before, but I'd been happy he would get the chance to spend summer with his extended family, and aside from the valuable life experience it would be for him, it would also be a much-needed break from the parenting business for my husband and I. Or so I thought. Surely, Antonio and I would have driven each other crazy within the first week of summer holiday being home together all day long, history has proven that. But not having him at all...that was strange. I broke down in tears while I was alone at work, missing my son. For someone who has always appreciated the value of time alone, I had never felt so lonely. And finally I knew, without a doubt, that I really was a mom and not just some girl with a kid to look after. The life experience proved to be for us both. Antonio gained independence, and I learned that I was a mom all along.
That was a first.
