I can talk about this with relative ease now because I’m past it. I’m rounding the corner and sliding into home as we speak and the beginning of Week 13 begins. But just a few short weeks ago, I had some serious questions about my right to be a parent. I don’t discuss this on my blog because I want pity or because I want to bring people down, but I mention it because it’s a low, dark, scary place to be and no one should ever feel like they are alone in this place.
People often ask you in early pregnancy if you are feeling sick and it’s actually quite comfortable to discuss nausea with others because good, old morning sickness is well-known and expected. They are a little more hesitant to ask you if you’re depressed; that puts people a little more on edge. But my family noticed “I was not myself lately” and when I called my mom or sister in tears on a weekly, sometimes daily basis, I really just needed someone to tell me I was normal and that this too shall pass. And sure enough, it did.
The hard part was that while I could try to explain to David and my family why I was not myself, why I snapped easier, why I fell apart easier, why I would spontaneously burst into tears if the dishwasher needed emptying again, the one person I could not explain this to was my closest buddy, my right-hand man, my most treasured playmate, Finny.
For Finny, life on a daily basis is new, amazing and wonderful and filled left and right with exclamation points. “I wanna go the park! I wanna go to the pool! I wanna play choo-choos! I wanna milkshake!” But how could I go to the park and the pool? How could I play with choo-choos and blocks? How could I even throw a smile or a song his way when all I wanted to do was lay in bed with my eyes closed? And then of course, how was I going to keep up with two little ones in a few months when I couldn’t even keep up with one? I didn’t deserve to be a parent. I wanted to pack my bags and run for the hills.
But then, the miracle of life kicked in. The kumquat in my belly grew into a fig and that fig became a lime and now that lime is the size of a medium-sized shrimp. He can urinate and kick and he has teeth budding under his gums and fingerprints on his fingers and his eye muscles can clench and his mouth can suck, and well, I guess the truth is, unbeknownst to me, I was doing a lot of work in there. Growing a human being will take a lot out of a gal, and growing a tiny human being while also raising a tiny human being might just knock you off your feet.
But the other truth is this, just when I thought I could not muster the strength to sit at the sandbox, Finny would start singing “Barbara Ann” at the top of his lungs with a few extra “Ba-ba-ba’s.” Just when I thought I had no energy to kick the ball around the yard, Finny would put on my sunglasses and start dancing to “Billy Jean.” Just when I started wondering how I could ever keep up with another one and why I had wanted to in the first place, Finny would climb into my lap, rest his soft, baby hands on my forearms and with book in hand, say, “Read it.”
Parenting is a give and take and sometimes if feels like there’s a whole lot of taking going on. But the gifts when given are small but enormous all at the same time, and despite the fatigue and the blahs that sometimes come with pregnancy, I’d do it again and again for the touch of those soft, baby fingers resting on my forearm, that soft, baby head resting on my chest, and that soft baby voice shouting through the bars of his crib long after I’ve left the room, “Nite-Nite, Mommy!”
Nite-nite, Finny. Mommy’s sorry she’s been such a crab. She’s growing you a shrimp who has big shoes to fill. It’s going to take a lot of work.
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