When I was young – long before having children – I remember sitting around the dinner table when one of my aunts told me that she never found out the baby’s sex for any of her five pregnancies. Some of my cousins were aghast: how could you not find out when the information was available to you??
There are so few true surprises in life, she ruminated. The moment you meet your baby is among the best, the most beautiful. “It’s a boy!!” “It’s a girl!!” Why would you want to deprive yourself of that wonderful moment?
I was sold. I knew then that I would only find out my own child’s sex on its birthday. And because I went on to marry a (wise) man who followed my lead on all decisions related to pregnancies and preferences, this is exactly what we did.
Many people were shocked when they found out we were waiting to be surprised. “I could never do it; I’m too much of a planner,” they would often tell me. But nursery design, or baby registry supplies, or name selection, or even simply being able to better picture the life growing inside of me… none of these were compelling enough reasons for me to trade for that best, most beautiful surprise moment.
On J’s birthday (7 years ago tomorrow), I go into labor and have an infant in my arms only 7 hours later. It is fast and furious, and because it’s my first, I misunderstand and think the level of pain is going to sustain for the better part of the entire day. I certainly don’t realize that it’s so intense because I am already nearing the end by the time I’m in triage. I ask for an epidural, and the medical staff challenges me, saying that by the time it takes effect, the baby will basically already be here anyway. I insist, they relent, but then they challenge me again, saying they will not provide it unless I can stop writhing in pain during the now relentlessly frequent contractions. When my doctor arrives, I ask if it’s too late for a c-section — surely something is wrong internally that is causing this level of pain, and it feels as though organs are being ripped apart from the inside my body (spoiler: it is too late, this is standard fare for child delivery, I am having things ripped apart from the inside of my body, and ohmygoshhowhasthehumanspeciessurvivedthislong). He tells me to push, and two is all it takes.
There I am, breathless, sweaty, feeling both completely out-of-body and also desperately attuned to my body as I lay in the hospital bed. Someone places the baby on my chest. I am crying and laughing, and vaguely aware that it’s still possible the doctor miscalculated and although I did indeed deliver a baby, I am also dying of something that has clearly gone terribly wrong for me to be in that much pain.
Many months after this moment, I had a revelation. I missed the surprise! I was right there, I was a very active participant in the moment, but I fully missed the surprise.
Did the doctor shout, “it’s a boy!” as he pulled the baby from me? Did the nurse say it and smile as she placed him in my arms? Did they show Dave and have him proudly relay the news? Did I simply look at the baby and draw the connection without thinking about it??
For all the money in the world, I cannot answer this question. All I remember is thinking “oh thank God it’s over, and here’s a baby” in a state of elated shock. To be honest, had an airplane flown through the room in those moments, I’m not sure I’d have noticed even that. I somehow knew he was a boy, but I 100% missed the surprise.
In the end, I do think there’s something fitting about this “miss” in my first moments as a mother. Because though that first moment with my son was nothing like this grand, romantic vision I had concocted pre-children, it absolutely was the best and most beautiful.
A was rifling through his bookshelf as we got ready for bed earlier this week. He self-selected one of the few Little Golden Books that I did not “lose” (…in the garbage…) years ago after deciding the others were unforgivably poorly written as narrative arcs go (sorry, Scuffy).
As we flipped through “My First Counting Book,” I read the poems, and he counted the objects. Two lambs. Six chicks. Eight fish. Easy rhymes, mostly aurally pleasing.
But then we got to ten, and it all came back to me. What is this poem?? What is the cadence? Where is the intonation? How does this belong in the same book as the fan favorite “Nine Geese”? These are not at all rhetorical questions. I challenge you to read this poem in a way that flows.
By line, the syllables are: 7 / 4 / 5 / 4 / 4 / 3 / 8 / 7. There are questions, and statements, and even an arbitrarily capitalized noun.
I would venture to say that I have read this poem at least 50 more times than all the others in the book because each time I speak it – and then re-speak it, and then try a new method, and even set a metronome recording up to try to force a rhythm – I cannot make it work.
If you can read this poem aloud and not sound absurdly clunky, please stop whatever you are doing and call me. This book is over 60 years old, meaning there are several generations of parents who have likely been equally dissatisfied by its ending, and we need to spread the word if there is an answer to this riddle.
Me: *quite pleased with myself for convincing my small children to clean up their toys at the end of the day such that the living room, play room, and their bedrooms are clear of debris*
Also me: *sighing in defeat as I pass by the living room basket that was supposed to be exclusively for baby-friendly toys*
C is 10.5 months old now, and I am still nursing. To be clear, I have been under-producing compared to his consumption since I returned to work, so by now we are supplementing 50% of his daily feeds with formula. But in case you haven’t already heard, there is a massive formula shortage nationwide, with 1 in 5 states tracking at 90% out-of-stock. So all these moms survived the gauntlet of having a “pandemic baby” with various waves of danger during pregnancy and Baby’s infancy, only to now face the anxiety of, you know, questioning whether Baby can physically be fed after supply chain and regulatory failings. If you’ve never heard the phrase “tough as a mother…” well, now you know.
Suffice it to say, though I considered officially weaning off nursing almost 6 weeks ago, I determined I would not further contribute to the shortage when I can still produce milk.
This very small act of solidarity with my fellow moms got me thinking about the many small but meaningful ways moms look out for each other. Here are some memorable instances in my own experience. Add to the list if you have other examples!
- A porch-dropped meal (or — real talk — baggie of assorted adult beverages and sheet face masks) when you tell your girl friends that you’re solo parenting while your spouse travels, or have a nasty illness making its way through your kids’ immune systems, or are just having a week.
- All of the priceless Mother’s Day gifts that were indeed made by your own child, but clearly crafted under the supervision and prompting of another woman in your life; someone who took her time and resources to help facilitate a magical moment for you.
- The women who smile kindly and seemingly without judgment as your sons go barreling past them at dangerous speeds, channeling their inner hedgehogs after recently viewing the Sonic movie (may or may not have happened in the last 24 hours).
- The many times that — even while “off duty” — moms are on alert for any kid’s safety. I was on a run this week and saw a woman across the street mowing the grass. A ball from a neighborhood soccer game rolled out of bounds into the street, its player close behind, as a delivery truck approached. Though the driver was alert and stopped well in advance, I saw the way she — like I — tensed up, turned her torso in the direction of the street, and visibly braced to jump into line of sight for the driver if he hadn’t started braking immediately.
- Among the most undervalued acts of solidarity: the women who walk out of the public restrooms with their hands still damp after washing, having chosen not to use the air dryer that clearly terrifies small children and otherwise results in my sons shouting in panic, cupping their hands over their ears as though someone just triggered an exceptionally localized sonic boom.
Is there a verb tense that both expresses something that was and also will continue to be?
This week has been/will continue to be tough.
We spent the long weekend up north and I focused on collecting happy images to hang onto starting next week. Here’s what I have so far:
- Lavender ice cream.
- The excitement of discovering a baby snapping turtle out in the yard.
- A sweet baby napping in his stroller, wind blowing his hair, while his brothers animatedly play Godzilla and King Ghidorah on the playground.
- Visiting our 93-year-old neighbors and having them dote on C.
- O asking if someone wants to “sit and watch the water” with him. Dave obliging.
- Telling knock knock jokes the entire walk home from dinner. Laughing harder as they devolve into nonsense: “knock knock.” “who’s there?” “rotten banana!” “rotten banana who?” “rotten banana teleporting into your stomach so you ate a rotten banana!!”
- An afternoon spent with friends at the beach, reconnecting with kids who we’ve known since they were in the Infant room with J at daycare almost 7 years ago.
- The older 3 boys’ first night together in their new bunks… deemed a success going down to sleep until Dave and I realized A had sneaked downstairs, taken a bag of pretzels and three bowls back up, and poured snacks for J and O while J read them Elephant and Piggie by the light of their reading lamp.
- The cleansing nature of frigid lake water.
- Another night with all of my children sleeping safely in their beds.
new york “never sleeps.”
but parents on vacation?
they sure as heck do.
I was attending C’s 9 month well check recently when the doctor asked me how the family was doing, throwing in the stock “4 boys… I don’t know how you do it” remark.
“I don’t know either,” I laughed, thinking longingly about my iced coffee waiting in the car.
“Do you think you’ll keep going? Or are you done?”
This question should not be vexing to my mental state. It comes up constantly, particularly when you seem to be on a steady once-every-other-year cadence of child production. For me, it’s often “will you keep going till you get a girl?” which irritates me for other reasons. But the fundamental curiosity — when are you going to stop expanding your family? — creates a quiet storm inside my head that rumbles around intermittently for the next few days that follow.
On the one hand, I answer “yes, we’re done.”
We have been in a state of endless accrual of stuff for the past 7 years. We have all the standard seasonal supplies (bikes, clothes, snow gear) to fit a boy at any stage of development up to 7 years old. We have diaper pads, baby baths, bouncers, swings, exersaucers, walkers, bottles, bibs, drying racks, sippies, plasticware, baby gates, drawer locks. With the exception of truly superfluous items or massive toy purges, we have effectively been unable to offload anything since J was born. We have a small boat of an SUV to accommodate our family size and the 4 x car seats, we have 2 boys sharing a room already, and we have a daycare bill that will equate to a significant raise in our monthly income when we get to stop paying it.
We are running a constant time deficit, and while we are more than comfortable letting standards slide with respect to things one might wish but not mandate (walk through the kitchen without coating one’s socks with a thin layer of Wheaties crumbs, for instance), we are already – with just one child in extracurricular activities – finding ourselves dividing children and tasks just to get things done.
For 7 years, we have not had a meal without cutting several people’s food into appropriately sized chunks such that they are not life-threatening choking hazards. We have not sat on our backyard patio without being spatially aware of where the youngest was and begging him to stop wandering into the street in search of the neighborhood playground. We have not left the house without a diaper bag or water bottles or snack packs or sunscreen or spare clothes. The mental management has left me so deeply resource challenged that I find myself making conscious determinations about things like “I need to be okay with a less-than-stellar performance review at work or I am going to burn out,” or “I will have to coast on the momentum of my relationships until I have time to be a good friend again,” or “I can only have fun once per week.”
And here’s the real talk: Dave and I had always talked about “3 with the option of 4,” and now we have 4 healthy, beautiful, boisterous boys. The notion of not pushing one’s luck comes to mind when considering not only another baby, but another pregnancy & VBAC delivery (at least, attempted by way of always delivering before someone would schedule you for an actual C-section) for me. And now, of course, of an age to be considered a geriatric mother!
I’m ready to move onto the next life stage. I’m ready to clear some shelf space, and worry less about a child accidentally putting himself in mortal peril by virtue of trying to eat a Lego, and for Pete’s sake put these 4 able bodied boys to work on some serious yard and home chores. I am busy. I am tired. But I am also so deeply, deeply happy.
So, yes, I say, “we’re done.” But I have yet to have that be a complete sentence. Rather, I am always compelled to offer additional context: “…but it’s still hard to say it out loud.”
There are a few reasons I believe I struggle with knowing I’m done.
The first is, simply, when you’ve created 4 wonderful children, with traits you recognize in yourself or your spouse but also some that are absolutely foreign, and you see them develop and change and become these little people that you are so privileged to know, it’s like you get the first read of the most extensive, exciting, page-turning novel and witness a story unfolding for the first time. How could you not want more of these people? It’s a slippery slope, I know, but to imagine not knowing C because we hadn’t gone for “the option of 4” is now a really sad contemplation. This train of thought falls apart quickly given the cost of pregnancy and birth to the mother (fun fact! The #1 cause of death for women ages 15 – 19 globally is childbirth!), but it still sparks a seed of greed in my brain… more of these lovely little monsters? Yes, please.
Then there’s the notion of “lasts” that would haunt me if I let them. I have become strangely emotional over bizarre “last first” milestones with C. Not just the obvious ones: the last first time he rolled over, or slept straight through the night, or moved from the bassinet into his own nursery… No, I’ve become highly attuned to the lesser known last firsts: the last first gummy smile before he cut a tooth, the last first stinky diaper after I added purees to his formerly exclusive breast milk diet, and the last first time he sat in the actual tub for his bath – and not only didn’t slip at all, but splashed so aggressively that his bath-mate, A, whined for maternal intervention.
Ultimately, and honestly, the root issue may be a result of the human’s frontal lobes being significantly newer than the limbic system. Maybe I am logically on board with being done for all the reasons above, but my animal instincts object & tell me to continue procreating. For better or worse, I do not live one of these unexamined lives that Socrates alluded to, so I am thrust into a state of contemplation when I detect this type of internal conflict.
Two comments that massively comfort me during those mental isolated thunderstorms:
- Dave said sincerely when I agonized about this one time: “you’ve physically and mentally given a lot of yourself to this for the past many years. It’s enough. It’s okay to turn the page and start the next chapter.”
- My mom told me, after I disclosed our considerations around – ahem – most effectively managing our family plan, and shared that I was concerned about doing anything “permanent” while I was still emotional about things: “then don’t do permanent. Take the temporary fix and come back to cross that bridge later.”
I guess it all comes down to this: motherhood is a paradox – especially in the weeds of the stage with young children. You are constantly busy, but simultaneously bored. You are lonely, but wish everyone would stop touching you so you could just have a moment to yourself. You are intensely terrified that you will make a mistake, but also feel more functional and capable and strong than you ever have in your life. I remember vividly the first day that I brought J home and watched him napping in his bassinet, with some version of clinical insomnia about to set in for me. I thought “what have I done?” and “this is so amazing; we should have done this sooner” in the very same breath.
It makes sense then, I suppose, that deciding that you are done can be equally paradoxical.
All this to say, we are done. But it is still hard to say it out loud.
