The Bad Place

I realize I've been rather maternally focused lately around here, and for those of you who are not parents and have no interest in becoming parents, I apologize for the monochromaticity. And, yes, I believe I did just make that word up, but I like it. I have an English degree, which I'm pretty sure is a license to fabricate words. I also think that the verb form of "adhesive" should be "adhese." You adhese that sticker, the back of which is coated with adhesive. If it was coated with adhersive, then you'd adhere it.

Where was I? Right. Motherhood.

I have a wonderful, dear friend who just had a baby about three weeks ago. She called me yesterday, in A Bad Place. Those of you who have had newborns in your life might know about this Place. It's dark, it's scary, it's full of despair, and it lurks around what you expect to be a time of sunlight and soft-focus, gauzy clothes and the smell of Johnson's baby shampoo. I told her all the stuff that I knew that she knew (much of which she'd actually told me a year ago, when I called her from that same Bad Place): that sleep deprivation and hormones really mess with your mind, that I had faith in her that she could do this, that having these awful feelings didn't mean anything bad about her as a mother or about her baby or their relationship. I told her that I found great comfort in my midwife pointing out--at my appointment to deal with the mastitis, when I was weeping in despair about how was I supposed to rest and apply hot compresses when I had this constantly crying creature that didn't seem to like me much but insisted on being held by me every single second of the day--that the problem is "we're no longer in the long hut." She went on to describe how, biologically speaking, we're still designed to live in communities where you could sleep while your sister-in-law nursed your babe with her own, or your mother would tend to your other kids while you cleaned the new baby, etc. This was really comforting to me, this notion that of course it felt wrong and awful, because this isn't how we're meant to do it.

And yet, we do it. I used to tell myself, on the really bad days (or, let's be honest, in the really bad hours), that somehow people do this. People with other kids do this. People with twins do this. Single moms do this. Now, there was always the danger that this could then spiral into me feeling even worse, because I just had my one little baby and was still feeling like I was about to fall into the abyss (that's me, always looking on the bright side!), but for the most part, I tried to focus on the notion that this is survivable, so therefore I will survive it.

I told my friend all of this yesterday, as she sat alone in her apartment and I wended my way through a street fair with Tankbaby strapped to me, pressing my cell up to my ear so that I could hear my friend over the capoeira music and the street violinist and the ladies hawking tutu kits. And I thought about how, a year ago, I couldn't envision this day. If you'd asked me to imagine myself a year in the future, I would have still pictured myself with lank hair and post-baby belly and a screaming newborn, just one year more exhausted. Possibly something in the background would have been on fire.

It really can suck, those first weeks, and I wish people talked about it more. Of course, I supposed we'd run the risk of our species dying out, but still. I wish more people talked about those scary weeks after the elation has worn off but before your ability to function on three hours of sleep has kicked in, when you look at the sweet face of your child and think, what have I done? When you really need your wits about you, but they're dulled from lack of sleep and shock. When you could use some serious back-up from your partner, but he's sleep-deprived too and therefore doesn't have his own full tank upon which to draw to shore you up (as I put it to my friend yesterday, "He's getting just enough more sleep than you for you to hate him, but not enough for him to be actually useful to you as a resource").

So I'm trying to change that, and I'm asking you to help. I'm not going to ask anyone to share the worst moment, because I don't think I can write my own out yet, but if you'd be willing to share (either here in the comments or on your own blog) one of those awful, horrible, no-good, very bad new parent moments, I'd love to read it and share it with my friend. If you don't have one of those moments because a) you're not a parent, or b) you are some sort of alien being who adapted seamlessly to parenthood, you can either share a story that happened to someone you know (wink, wink), or you can tell me why you do or do not like the color orange. See, something for everyone!

I'll go first. I may have mentioned one or 57,209 times, that Tankbaby has never been a good sleeper. One night, when I was desperate to go to bed and he was squalling his head off, I was sitting with him in the rocker and began to rock, harder and harder. Now, this was a baby who liked his motion, and for a while we'd had success with him sleeping in the swing, set to its fastest speed, so a good brisk rock was sometimes part of the ever-changing magic formula to get him to go to sleep. But on this night, the rocking was not soothing to either of us. I held my crying baby tighter and tighter and pushed with my feet, smacking the back of the chair into the wall over and over again until I burst out, crying right into his little face, "What the hell do you want from me?" At which point, MOTH got up from the couch, stood in front of me, and calmly but firmly said, "Give him to me. Right now." I did, and folded over myself in the chair, sobbing. I just remember feeling so hopeless, so anguished, so guilty. I knew better than this--I have a degree in early childhood development, for chrissakes--and yet I had come to this. The Bad Place.

And remember, I said that this wasn't my worst moment.

And now, the obligatory happy ending: I took a break. I learned to ask for help. MOTH learned to offer it a little earlier than when I was On The Edge Of Madness. We survived. That night, and more like it. And I spent today in the sunshine with my boy, watching as he examined every flower, as he waved hello to man, woman, child, and dog alike, and I bit my fingers to keep them from grabbing his delicious hammy thighs as he walked. And that night, and those others like it, are just a part of our story now. I can't honestly say I hardly remember them, nor that I can laugh at them...no, not yet. But I can see them for what they are: awful moments in an otherwise blessed life. And yes, I know that's cheesy. I do not care.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've gotta go gnaw on some babythighs. Possibly dipped in a cilantro-butter sauce. Nom nom nom.