Motherly Love

“Are you really happy now that you have your own baby, like mommy and Aunty Sally?” my niece Chloe (8) asked recently. 

“Yeah, it’s nice,” I replied, wondering to myself if I really meant it. 

It was the idea that now I have a baby, am I happy? I was pretty happy before. It’s not like having a baby of my own made all my dreams come true. Having a baby didn’t make me feel suddenly complete. But, after a rocky start, I have felt a lot happier lately. I am filled with a sense of love and happiness when just the sight of my face makes Max beam a big smile. And I can tell you now, he is the cutest baby in the whole word ever. ;-)

It wasn’t always like that though. I’ve read accounts from new parents describing the overwhelming rush of love they experienced when their baby was born. I see photos on social media with smiling parents snuggled together, a tiny baby between them. Captions describe how in love and blessed they are. Their babies are perfectly wrapped up in adorable outfits or sleeping on plush blankets. When Max was born, I was in awe of him. I remember feeling joy and love for him, especially in the quiet moments when he was asleep on my chest. But I can honestly say that most of what I felt in the first month was fear, exhaustion, confusion, and grief. 

There were occasions when I grieved for the nights when it was just Steve and me. I grieved my old childless life, complete with 8 hours of continuous sleep, the option to party if I wanted to, the ability to go wherever I wanted whenever I chose to. The memory of going to the movies with a friend. An ice cold Old Fashioned in a dimly lit bar. Weekends away with my queer friends, relishing community.

Some nights when I lay awake, wishing I could sleep before Max would be up again for a feed, I wondered, what have we done?! 

I love Max and I’d do anything for him. But I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that thoughts of regret passed through my mind from time to time in that first month. There were moments when I couldn’t wait to hand him off to someone else. I felt a huge relief when Mom or Steve would offer to hold him so that I could shut out his cries for a moment. Some days I only wanted to do the minimum to feed him, change him, and comfort him back to sleep. On those days, Steve had to do all the interaction and playing. I didn’t have the motivation for it. These thoughts and feelings were brief, and mostly a result of being pushed to my emotional and physical limits. There’s a reason sleep deprivation is a form of torture. 

I have realised recently that it’s mostly a result of my desire to do things right. When Max doesn’t eat as much as he should or isn’t napping, I feel like I’m doing something wrong. That I’m a bad mom. I imagine early on my feelings of regret were fueled by this. These days it just frustrates me and I get cranky, mostly with Steve! But thanks to the pandemic, he’s working from home and can step away from his emails to hold Max, or give him a bottle when I need a breather. I eat some food, take a quick nap, or watch Brooklyn 99 and I’m back at it, smiling away at my cutie patootie!

I was also dealing with the disappointment that my body wasn’t producing the breastmilk Max needed to be adequately fed. I blamed my body for having a breech baby, for not giving him room to flip. I blamed my body for the oligohydramnios (lack of fluid), which is one of the main reasons the doctor insisted on the cesarean. A midwife later told me that sometimes this is a sign that the placenta isn’t working how it should be. After my love and admiration for the organ during the early months of my pregnancy, I now felt disappointed and betrayed that it had failed me, us. And now I blamed my body for failing to feed my baby. That’s a lot of disappointment to process while keeping a tiny human alive and happy. There wasn’t a huge amount of time or space for bliss.

Mother's Day

It was mother’s day in England the Sunday after Max was born. Steve bought me some flowers. I had purchased gifts for my mom weeks earlier when we visited Bristol with a friend. But in my exhaustion and worry over Max’s weight loss I didn’t give them to her that day. It wasn’t until a week or so later that I brought my gifts into my mom’s bedroom one morning. We sat on her bed and I offered her the yellow tulip glass window ornament and some pistachio white chocolate, both made by Bristol artisans. 

“Thank you for taking such good care of me and Max” I said bursting into tears, “and thank you for doing all of this for me when I was a baby.” 

I have always appreciated what my mom does for me, and how loving she is. Now, as a mom myself, I have a newfound appreciation for her. 

When I was born, my mom didn’t have her parents nearby (or my dad’s parents).  She had a one and a half year old, and my dad didn’t have paternity leave. Plus, she’d only moved to the UK (from America) two years earlier, so had few friends to lean on. There was no WhatsApp to connect with far away friends and family. And no internet to ask “how long should baby nap?” or “how to know when to switch breasts?” (I just looked at my Google search history). 

“Did I ever tell you that everything got better after you were born?” She said to me. “After you were born, Sally [my elder sister] started sleeping through the night, and everything was just better.”

As we hugged and cried she told me how proud of me she is and that she thinks I’m a great mom to Max. 

Mom, Max, and me, shortly after she trimmed my fringe/bangs!

Later that day, mom took the glass ornament downstairs to show my dad. While proudly looking for a place to hang it in the conservatory, she dropped it on the ground and it broke into pieces. She was devastated. The tulip had become a symbol of our connection, our love and the touching moment we had shared. She began to cry. It’s not uncommon for my mom to drop and break things, so we tried to laugh at how typical it was. My dad has been trying to glue it back together, once the glue sticks it will be displayed, cracks and all. But perhaps Dad will hang it this time!

The Tulip

Steve and I lived at my parents house for the first two and a half months of Max’s life. Throughout that time my mom was available to help me at any time of day. When Steve was getting sick because of lack of sleep, Mom would take his place to wake up in the middle of the night to bottle feed Max while I pumped. When I was exhausted in the afternoon, Mom and Dad would offer to take Max out for a walk, hoping he might nap and I could get a moment to rest. My parents made sure Steve and I were fed every day, cooking us dinner and offering to get me drinks or snacks while I was breastfeeding. Mom gave Max his first bath and showed me how to wash him daily, how to massage him and comfort him. 

She has always been essential in my life, from birth through my teenage years, during break ups and international moves, and now in supporting my introduction to motherhood. I only hope that I can be as loving and devoted to Max as my mom has been and continues to be to me. If I can be half the mom she is, I’ll be happy.

Moving On

I didn’t admit my feelings of regret and grief to Steve until fairly recently, when we were out walking. I wanted to get it off my chest. He listened, and said he understood how hard it had been for me. I didn’t want to tell him while it was happening because he was already worried enough about me. I cried almost daily, and wasn’t as playful with Max as I could have been. I’m the parent with the giant over-achieving amygdala, remember? And I’ve never functioned well on lack of sleep! 

I was also ashamed of feeling this way. Guilty that I wasn’t madly in love and beaming with joy every day. It’s not that I didn’t love him, I just wasn’t feeling it as often as I thought I should be. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, when we were alone and Max was sleeping in my arms after a feed, I would stroke his little cheeks and smell his head. In those moments I felt a deep love and devotion to him. I still love smelling his head when I hold him close. He has a delicious soft smell. It’s slightly sweet and makes me think of a big ball of cotton wool.

I was so focused on trying to feed him enough, and trying to figure out what he was crying about this time that I wasn’t taking the time to enjoy him. To appreciate him for who he was - a totally new human being, 50% me, 50% Steve. A creation of our love for each other, and the love we receive from our parents, and our grandparents. All that love, flowing right into this new baby.

I remember exactly the very first time I told Max I love him. He was probably 3 or 4 weeks old. I was putting him down for a nap. I was standing next to his bassinet with him swaddled and resting in my arms. We were alone together. “It’s time to sleep Max,” I told him. “I love you and I’ll be here when you wake up. I’ll always be here.” I meant it so much. At that moment, I realized that it was the first time I had told him I loved him. I cried because I really felt it. I cried because I hadn’t said it to him before then. It makes me tear up to remember this moment. He didn’t understand, clearly, but it was significant to me. I love him, and I will be there for him always. That is my motherly love, my promise to him.

Admitting it to Steve was part of letting it go. And writing it here, sharing my honest experience of motherly love is another part of the process. 

What I have realised more than ever, is that love really is a verb. I may not have said it early on, and there were certainly days I wasn’t feeling it, but I was always doing it! The act of repeatedly waking up in the middle of the night to feed Max is love. Keeping him warm, comforting him when he’s upset and helping him get the sleep he needs is love. Showing him the new world he’s in and supporting him to reach developmental milestones is love. Bathing him and massaging his cute little butt is love. Reading to him and talking to him so that he can learn this language is love.

A smile from my cutie.

These days, I am filled with a huge sense of joy when I wake Max in the morning and he smiles at me. When Steve says I’m distracting him from his bottle because his eyes are following me around the room I feel proud that I mean so much to him. When he hits a developmental milestone, or I notice him strengthening his skills every day I get excited. He grabbed his foot today! His own foot, guys! (kinda a big deal!) He rolled onto one side a week ago, and not long after that he rolled over completely while Steve was watching him. Soon he’ll be rolling over all the time and then crawling!

There are still hard days, when Max doesn’t nap well and I stress about him getting overtired. Or when he has trapped wind and cries in pain and I feel helpless. I can easily get overwhelmed when he doesn’t behave how I expect, when he doesn’t get the food or sleep he supposedly needs. And I can be hard on myself, thinking I must have done something wrong. I try to remind myself that it will pass. As he grows we will move through many phases that bring new challenges. I remind myself of what my mom tells me, “for the rest of your life, it will always be your fault!” she says laughing, encouraging me to loosen up and not give in to the guilt. 

We’re now living at Steve’s parents house, but currently quarantining after our international flight. His parents are staying elsewhere for now. I am filled with excitement for Steve’s mom to meet Max. I know it has been hard for her to have been so far away from us since his birth. But she has still been a huge support to both of us. Especially with our arrival to New York - the fridge stocked with meals to reheat, a baby room ready to go with a changing mat and plenty of diapers, even an inflatable bathtub all blown up. Right from when I started dating Steve I could see how much his mom loves him. We’re both lucky to have such loving and supportive parents (I’m just focusing on the moms right now, but shout out to the dads too!). While I don’t have my own Mom close by anymore, I know I’ll be well supported by Eileen. 

Max really is the cutest thing in my world and I love him millions. I hope he always remembers.