Give What You've Got

I knew he was going to be a human. Intellectually, I knew it. First you do the "baow-chic-a-baow-wow," then there's nine months of pregnancy, and bam! A baby human. That is the way of nature. Ducks have ducks, platypuses have platapi, and humans have humans. But somewhere deep inside my psyche, I truly expected to give birth to a blob.

Listen. I'm not a geneticist! I'm not a biologist! I'm not a painter! Nor am I a sculptor! So when that OB carefully held up a tiny, perfect little body that wiggled and coughed and blinked, I gasped with fear. "That can't be my child, " thought I. "My child is a bulging, globular blobby thing that once resided in my belly. It rolled and flipped inside of me for fun and caused a lot of trauma to my gut, but we had a good time. A blob - that's my baby. But that thing you're holding up? That's an actual person. A living, breathing individual. Oh wow. Yeah, he's actually making crying noises now. Obviously equipped with some sort of vocal contraption. Yep, definitely not my baby, because, you know what? I actually don't know how to make vocal boxes....or brains, or hearts or livers, or femurs, or toes, but this kid apparently has all of those things. Yeah, why don't you guys go and take him over to that table? Yeah, better just go over there and I'll just be over here...having a cow. Haha...little joke there. Oh my heck, oh my heck. George! Don't freak out. What do you mean don't freak out?! A miniature person just popped out of me! Oh my word, oh my heck. Oh my replacement curse word!"

On and on went my internal dialogue as they cleaned off the baby. But sanity eventually prevailed and I became excited to see my son. I have a son! The hormones were going nuts inside of me and I was suddenly filled with excitement and anticipation to hold him. And finally they brought him over and carefully laid him on my chest...and he was terrified. Coughing up tiny bubbles, gasping for air, and eyes darting to and fro in search of relief. This baby did not return my enthusiasm at our meeting. The NICU nurses pulled him away from me a few moments later because the truth was, my baby didn't need me at that moment. He needed medical attention beyond my instincts, beyond my skills, beyond me.

I’ll admit it. It hurt. It hurt to have him taken away from me. Not that I was mad at the NICU staff for saving my baby’s life. I wasn’t mad at them. And I wasn’t mad at the baby for having some respiratory trauma. No. I was mad at myself, because somewhere inside of me, I believed it was my fault. Maybe I did something during labor. Or maybe my body did something wrong. And even if I didn’t do anything wrong to cause the problem, I sure didn’t have the skills to fix the problem. My baby didn’t need me. And that hurt.

While receiving “hoorahs” from family and friends, I was as happy as could be. I looked at pictures of Handsome giving the baby his first bath, I stared in awe at the baby's wide open eyes. He was so cute, he was so beautiful, he was so real. I couldn’t contain my pride and my excitement. But as Handsome wheeled me around the corner of the NICU so I could see by baby again, my heart pounded with anxiety.

"Here he is," the nurse smiled as she waved us in his direction, "and he's as hungry as can be. He's ready for his mama to feed him."

Right, right. I'm a mama. I'm his mama. I'm not an aunt. I'm not his mom's friend...I AM HIS mom.

They set him on my chest and I held my breath. What will he think of me?

The little boy looked around slowly. His movements were soft and gradual. He was soft and wrinkly. And then we locked eyes. We stared for a few seconds and I frantically searched for any indication that he recognized me. I spoke to him and caressed his little, perfect face. He stared back at me. And then he did something I didn't expect...he furrowed his eyebrows.

I'm not kidding! The one-hour-old baby furrowed his eyebrows at me. And it wasn't a little spasm furrow either. It was a full-on furrow as if to say, "Who the heck are you? I'm starving here! Can someone please get this girl out of my way and get me something to eat?" Then he started crying. 

At the order of the nurse, I opened my hospital gown and stuck the poor thing up into my chest and prayed for a blasted miracle, because, let's be honest, I ain't never had no food come out of there before.

"Drop your shoulder," the nurse commanded as she pushed it down, "Straighten your back and loosen your grip. You need to relax or the milk won't drop!" All this was said as I sat exposed in a room full of random nurses watching while I tried to carefully hold onto a very tiny and a very fragile person who was, apparently, my child, and who was also, apparently, supposed to eat FROM ME! Talk about an existential crisis. And then the nurse suddenly grabbed my breast.

She repositioned me (aka the bottle) until the baby "latched on." But the poor kid couldn't get anything out because, surprise! I wasn't relaxed at all.

So that was the second meeting with my child - just like the first meeting: awkward. 

The following days were very interesting. Handsome and I visited our baby in the NICU every third hour for a week. The hospital allowed us to stay in an empty room, which meant we could spend a lot of time with the baby, but the awkwardness between the baby and I remained. 

I remember staring out a window between NICU visits scrutinizing my thoughts in hopes of figuring out what the heck was going on with me.

It's not that I didn't like the baby. I liked everything about him! But that was the problem: I didn't know very much about him at all. How could I love someone I didn't know? The awkwardness was a familiar feeling and I realized that it was the feeling I get when I meet someone for the first time. You see, I'm not a very socially gifted person. I’m not like, hey! You’re cool! Let’s be friends! My aunt explained it best when she described me as a toddler: "Anytime she met someone she didn't know very well, she gave off the vibe: you are not my friend." Of course, once I get to know somebody, I have a much easier time interacting with them. But it takes me a LONG time to get to know someone. 

But you know what? It's more than getting to know them. I have to know that they think I'm worthwhile. I want them to consider me to be their friend before I consider them to be my friend. I want them to love me first.

A little complicated, I know, but that's pretty much how all of my social relationships have been formed throughout the years and it hasn't been a huge problem. Okay, elementary school was painful, and dating was a little (a lot) weird, but other than that, I've gotten through okay...until I had a baby. 

Because here's the thing about babies: They need to be loved by their mamas - immediately. Moms don't have the luxury of waiting until the baby loves them back. They don't have the luxury of evaluating if the relationship between her and the baby is going to be mutually beneficial, because, first of all, it’s not going to be mutually beneficial relationship - that’s the point of parenthood, and second of all, babies need to be loved. They just do. 

I did love my baby! I did. But I kind of didn’t. Don’t get me wrong; if anyone looked at my baby the wrong way, I turned into a psycho monster bodyguard. But I was afraid of the baby. I was afraid to love him. I mean, there he was in the NICU. Yeah, it was nothing to be worried about, but guess what! I was worried! He could die. And if not in the NICU, maybe somewhere else. Something could happen when I least suspect it. But even if he lived a full and healthy life, what if he hates me? I’m a pretty weird person. What if he’s ashamed to be associated with me? Or what if he disrespects me? What if he hurts my feelings? I can’t just love this little person I know nothing about.

Handsome saw my turmoil and gently prodded an explanation.

“I don’t know. I don’t know. I just want to be a good mom. I want to take care of him. I want to love him so much. But- ”

“But what?” Handsome urged. There was a long pause as I searched my thoughts and tried to truly understand myself.

“He doesn’t love me.”

“Of course he does.”

“No he doesn’t. He doesn’t know what love is. He doesn’t know how to love yet. But he needs to be loved. And I do know how to love, so I have to love him…but I don’t want to love him.”

Handsome touched my arm and simply asked, “Why?”

I sat there for several minutes trying to figure it out.

“Because I want him to love me first. It's terrifying to put myself out on a limb not knowing if my love will be reciprocated. Or maybe it's because I'm afraid he might die. I might lose him. I don't know.” And all of that was true, but there was something deeper that I was afraid to face.

Handsome sat patiently as I built up the strength to admit what I was feeling.

And then I whispered, “I’m intimidated by him.” Tears filled my eyes and started streaming down my cheeks and I looked up at my husband. “I’m intimidated by my baby.” I breathed in slowly and then burst into sobs.

I could barely speak. “I’m intimidated by a 7-pound miniature person that poops in a diaper!” More sobs. “Because he’s more than that. He’s amazing! He’s perfect! He’s going to do incredible things. He’s better than me. How can I be the mother of someone who deserves a perfect mom? How can I love someone who deserves greater love than what I can offer!?” 

So there it was.

I couldn’t love my baby because I felt like I wasn’t enough. My baby deserved someone better than me. And here’s the reality:

It’s true. I’m not enough. And my baby does deserve someone better than me. Quite honestly, I’m going to screw up my kid in some way due to my inadequacies.

That’s life. The baby was born and now he has to deal with life. I thought I could protect him for at least a short time before he had to experience the flaws and pains of existence, but I didn’t realize his first encounter with imperfection would be me.

So I accepted it and grieved. And by “grieved” I mean, “I had a complete melt down”: “Noooooo!!!!!! What were the fates thinking!?!?!?! My mistakes are going to affect this innocent kid for the rest of his life! Nooooooo!!! Pain! Suffering! Despair!!! AGONY!!!!”

Whoa. I forgot how crazy you get when your postpartum hormones rebalance. It was a painful thing to accept. It still is painful. But this isn't the end of the story.

Luckily, I’ve accepted another reality. A reality that is waaaaaaaaaay more important than anything else. And that reality is this: a moderately imperfect mom is a million times better than no mom at all. My baby doesn't need perfection. He needs me. 

Amidst this swirly, whirly tornado of conflicted self-evaluation – I knew the answer. I’ve always known the answer, but I didn’t really know the answer until the answer became relevant.

I needed to love my baby.

Which meant I needed to have a little come-to-Jesus with myself:

“Okay, George. It’s time to pull down your barricades and love that baby. No calculation. No preconditions. Forget yourself and love. that. baby.”

So I did. I gave him everything I had, and, frankly, it wasn’t much. I didn't initially feel that overwhelming and irrepressible affection other mothers describe upon first meeting their babies. But I did want to take care of my baby. I wanted to make sure he was clean and fed. I wanted to hold him and snuggle him, and give him kisses, not because I received any obvious benefit from those actions, but because I knew he needed that closeness. I wanted to give him assurance that he had a mother. I wanted him to be safe. I wanted him to grow and be happy. I served him as best I could. I reached out even though I knew he couldn't reach back.

And as I did I realized that maybe love isn't just about overwhelming and irrepressible affection. Maybe love is also about sacrificing and serving regardless of whether you personally gain or lose.

Once my baby was 7-months-old I finally felt like I had bonded with him. That overwhelming and irrepressible affection finally appeared. I felt bad that it took so long, but I've since learned the bond between parent and child forms uniquely in its own time. Nevertheless, I am glad to know that love is not just about that bonding affection or admiration.

Throughout his short little life I've admired my baby for his energy, spunk and determination. I've admired him for his deep curiosity and his deep, blue eyes. I've admired him for having his dad’s zeal to take risks. I've admired him for everything he is today and everything he will become.

But admiration is only observation. Love requires engagement. It requires self-sacrifice. It requires everything I am.

And “everything I am” doesn’t require me to be perfect. It just requires that I give what I’ve got. And whatever I've got, no matter how inadequate or flawed, counts as love.

Loving my baby is not about my abilities or inabilities. It's not about his traits, accomplishments, or personality. It's not about his returned love or lack thereof. It's not about how much value he brings to my life.

He could give me sweet little kisses and pretty flowers, or he could give me kicks and screams and smacks in the face. He could deeply appreciate my sacrifices, or he could rip me to pieces for my unrelenting faults. And although the choices he makes and the choices I make will forever affect the other for good or ill, they will not affect my love for him.

And that is the beauty and pain of motherhood.

I love him because he is mine.

*thanks to my sister, Catherine, for introducing this lullaby to me.
*also, thanks to everyone for forgiving the rawness of this recording. You don't have to have a great voice to sing a lullaby, right? :)
*press the orange button twice once the song has finished or it will repeat over and over again into the eternities. The lullaby is nice, but not that nice...