فصل 08

CHAPTER 8

The Lie

I DON’T KNOW HOW TO BE A MOM

I’m the worst pregnant woman you’ve ever met in your life. No, really. I hate basically every part of pregnancy except the baby you get at the end.

I have friends who love it. Like, capital L-O-V-E, wish they could carry one hundred babies and be pregnant forever. I fully support their earth mother calling and the obvious joy they find in being a vessel for human life.

But I don’t share it.

I am thankful for my pregnancies—so stinking thankful to the bottom of my heart that God blessed me with the ability to carry three beautiful little boys to term. I do not take this for granted when I know so many women who pray for the same blessing have not received it.

But every single part of pregnancy is hard on me.

The morning sickness never once went away after the morning, nor did it end after the first trimester. I put on pregnancy weight like it was my part-time job, then felt incapable of taking it off. My back hurt, my feet hurt, and during my first pregnancy, I got a varicose vein in the most terrible place a human being can get a varicose vein—which meant I had to wear special “weight bearing” underwear with each consecutive pregnancy. Sidenote If you ever are curious about the easiest way to crush a gal’s spirit, I’d recommend searching “groin support panties” on the internet.

But I digress.

The point is, I’m pretty bad at pregnancy. On top of everything else I’ve mentioned, I also dealt with unrelenting fear.

What if I ate bologna and contracted listeria?

What if my blueberry-sized fetus developed some rare disease since the last time I’d had an ultrasound?

What if all the Carl’s Jr. chicken strips I was eating gave him high cholesterol?

What if the cord wrapped around his neck?

What if the room wasn’t ventilated enough when I painted the nursery?

What if the placenta previa didn’t clear up?

What if that vodka Red Bull I drank when I was two weeks pregnant (but didn’t yet know it) had hurt him?

Seriously, though. What if the cord wrapped around his neck??

The worries were overbearing, and I managed them with the dignity of a geriatric terrier—which is to say, I barked at anyone who got too close, and I needed a special stepstool to hoist myself in and out of bed.

When the blessed event finally occurred, I was ecstatic. First, because I was finally going to meet Jackson Cage—a child we had dreamed up and named on a cross-country road trip years before. Also, I was finally going to have my body back to myself. I was euphoric to have made it through the labor, something I honestly believed would be the toughest part of motherhood.

But at home with Jackson in all his perfect glory, I was unprepared for how inadequate I’d feel as a new mom. I loved him obsessively. I was also terrified of him. All the fears I had while he was inside of me suddenly multiplied by a hundred million. I barely slept at night because I was positive he’d stop breathing if I wasn’t there to watch him do it. Breastfeeding was hard and painful, and I never produced enough milk to feed the giant offspring Dave and I created. We had to supplement with formula, we had to learn how to manage his reflux, we had to navigate a middle-of-the-night ER visit when he got a high fever at seven weeks old—all while dealing with the soul-sucking loss of sleep. My husband has always been my best friend and my favorite human on earth, but I remember once, when Jackson was about a month and a half old, looking at Dave and sincerely believing I hated him. Like, to the pit of my soul hated him.

I like to tell young married couples about the time I hated Dave. I like to tell them because I want them to know how this feeling is totally normal and they’ll likely find themselves there now and again. Jackson was six weeks old—which, by the way, friends, is the most probable week for real unadulterated hatred—and he was still waking up in the night.

It’s important to emphasize the word still here because I think my young, ignorant, pre-child self thought we’d be back to neutral and coasting toward parental bliss by the end of month one.

Bless my precious, childlike heart.

Becoming new parents is such a fake-out. The first two weeks you’re deep in euphoria and, yes, it’s hard, but people are bringing you casseroles and your mama is still in town to help and you have this perfect little cherub whom you love so much you want to bite the chubby cheeks right off his face. And then the next couple of weeks go by and you settle into a zombie routine. Your boobs start to leak through your clothes, and you haven’t bathed in a week. Also, your hair is literally the most terrible it’s ever been, but whatever. You’re getting through it.

But by six weeks, the wheels start to fall off.

You’re thinking, Why am I so exhausted?

Why do I still look like I’m five months pregnant?

Why am I still spending all my time nursing?

And what punk invented cluster feeding? Because I will punch him right in his stupid face!

At six weeks, I was a little, um, frustrated with how much I was doing to care for our baby. In other words, I didn’t feel Dave was being that helpful and the responsibility of managing most of it by myself was overwhelming. I didn’t mention any of this to him, though. I just bottled it up nice and tight and shoved it down deep where it could never bother anybody. Everyone knows that’s the best way to handle your problems, right? Then one day we were chatting about something, and Chernobyl fell out of his mouth.

“I’m tired.”

That’s what he said.

Those were the words.

My world shifted on its axis and my eyes widened to eight times their natural size, but he didn’t notice. He was too busy talking “I am just so exhausted from waking up early this morning, blah, blah, blah, more ill-conceived words.”

You know that TV show Snapped?

It’s a docu-style series about real-life crimes where women just snap and try to take down someone on the way.

That was me.

I went full-on Sybil. I was crying, I was laughing, I was trying to figure out who would raise this baby if I strangled Dave with the plastic tubing from my breast pump. To quote one of the most famous sayings in our entire marriage, I shouted/cried, “On my wedding day I never thought I could hate you as much as I hate you right now!”

It was not my best moment. But luckily for me, Dave, and all the other humans on this planet, relationships are full of opportunities for grace.

Even when the baby started sleeping (and we started sleeping), I was a mess. I loved Jackson, but I didn’t really feel bonded to him. I was so terrified of doing something wrong that I never let myself relax. I was so focused on housework and chores and making sure his onesie stayed spotless that I never just enjoyed my time as a new mom. I think because I was so worried about failing him, I ended up failing myself.

Because I was so concerned with how we should all look as a family, I didn’t take the time to let myself feel connected. I continued this pattern with my second son, Sawyer, so that when I became a mother of two, I had a serious case of postpartum depression. I spent almost every day imagining what it would be like to run away from home. I sat in our living room, breast-feeding my week-old baby while a twenty-month-old ran around a living room littered with toys and dirty diapers I hadn’t yet thrown away, and I’d think, I should just drive away and never look back. Everyone here would be better off without me.

Because I didn’t feel I was succeeding at being a mom—the one thing I should innately know how to do—I was positive I was a failure. In retrospect I can recognize that my perception of this role was based on images I saw online and in magazines, but at the time I was too sleep-deprived to know I was chasing an impossibility. I had spent so much time worrying about not living up to some Pinterest-worthy standard that I completely lost who I actually was. Oh, those were dark days. When I look at pictures of that time, my hair might be combed and I might even be wearing some lipstick—but my eyes look haunted.

So this chapter is for the new mamas or soon-to-be mamas. Listen up! You don’t have to have it all figured out. You don’t have to know everything. The mechanics of keeping a newborn alive are fairly simple. Feed it, cuddle it, love it, change it when it’s wet, keep it warm, cuddle it again.

A new mother’s daily list of goals should boil down to

1. Take care of the baby.

2. Take care of yourself.

Boom.

The end.

Darn it, you didn’t get to the laundry today? Look at your list again Did you take care of the baby? Yes. Did you take care of yourself? Also yes. Oh, I think you’re crushing this new-mom business then. I guess the laundry can wait.

What’s that, you’re sad because you haven’t lost the baby weight? Check out your handy-dandy to-do list with exactly two items on it. Is the baby still alive? Awesome. How about you—are you still breathing in and out? Well then, it looks like you’re the greatest mom ever. Keep on trucking!

Pinterest is awesome, and decorating your nursery in perfectly coordinating colors is half the fun of having a child. Looking at Instagram? Heck, I still look at all those pregnant Instagrammers for adorable bump-appropriate wardrobe tips, and I’m not even pregnant! It makes sense to look outside ourselves when we’re unsure about something new, and we are rarely as uncertain as we are during new motherhood. But let me tell you this—because I didn’t understand it until years later . . .

The God who made the moon and the stars and the mountains and the oceans, the Creator who did all of those things, believed that you and your baby were meant to be a pair. That doesn’t mean you’re going to be a perfect fit. That doesn’t mean you won’t make mistakes. It does mean that you need not fear failure because you can’t fail a job you were created to do.

Somewhere some cynical reader is thinking about all the parents who do fail. There are plenty of mamas who make bad choices, who hurt themselves or their children. As a former foster parent, I know firsthand that there are babies suffering right now from abuse and neglect, and even if a divine plan brought them to their mamas, it might not be the best answer for them to stay there.

But I’m not speaking about those mamas. I’m talking to you. Don’t be overwhelmed with anxiety that your baby should be on a sleep schedule, eating organic foods, or sitting up by now. I’m talking to the person who is reading all of the books and all of the articles and feels overwhelmed by what’s right when there are so many possible wrongs. The very fact that you are so concerned, sweet friend, means you’re engaged and focused and dedicated to doing what’s best. That makes you the best kind of parent. The rest will take care of itself.

THINGS THAT HELPED ME . . .

1. Finding a tribe. Join a church group, go to mommy-and-me yoga, or look online for a club to join. Look for a group of women who understand what it means to be a new mom too. There is so much power in solidarity. There is so much grace when you’re talking with someone who also has baby puke on her shirt.

2. Staying away from Pinterest. For the love of all that is holy, nobody should be allowed on Pinterest after a big life event. Why? Because you feel like you’re missing out, or that your life, nursery, or post-baby body should look like what you’re finding on the internet. Pay attention to what is giving you anxiety or making you question yourself. If it’s social media, then do your heart a favor and take a break from it. I promise it will still be there when you’re getting more sleep and feeling less emotional.

3. Getting out of the house. Every. Single. Day. The best thing you can do for yourself, your sanity, and your baby is to leave the scene of the crime. Leave the place with the dishes in the sink and the overflowing Diaper Genie. Put your baby in a carrier or a stroller and go on a walk around the neighborhood. Put in some headphones and listen to Beyoncé or Adele or a podcast on business ethics. Do whatever you have to do to remind yourself that there is a life beyond your nest and that you are still part of it.

4. Talking to someone about my feelings. An effective way for us to overcome lies is to speak them aloud to a partner. Whether you choose your spouse, your friend, or a trusted family member, sharing with them that you’re struggling can give you the support you need to see all of the falsities that are popping up in your life.