Today I Couldn’t Do It

June 30, 2011 by ·

You spring from bed in the morning, awake, bright-eyed and ready to go. My eyelids feel like sandpaper. A glance between half-open eyes reveals the clock: 6:12 a.m. I roll over and wonder how long I can put you off, but I know it’s coming.

“Let’s go downstairs!”

As I stand I feel the effects of the night. We never planned to co-sleep but you don’t sleep without one of us there, so I’ve slept in your bed – balancing on the edge, muscles tensed so I don’t fall off on one side and don’t elbow you in the head on the other. I cherish your sleeping form on these nights – your quiet, soft breathing and your smallness – but I wake with the ache of not enough sleep in a bed you like to hog.

You get downstairs and are overwhelmed with the abundance of choices – breakfast? TV? Toys? What to do first? My first instinct is to get the kettle going so I can have a cup of tea.

“Do you want to play with me?” Asked over and over, this question leaves scars in my heart. The honest answer is sometimes no. I wish I wanted to play with you, but I’m tired. My brain is not awake. I want to drink my tea and read my email and enjoy the morning while you play next to me, but you’re not at the stage where playing alone is what you want.

The backyard beckons. I see you heading toward the sliding door and my heart sinks. Outside, to you, is an extension of your ecstasy – the sandbox, diggers, weeds to poke at and caterpillars to search for. I’m in my pajamas and it’s chilly and I’m not prepared to deal with sand before 7 a.m.

I love you, hard, with the fierceness of a mother who has created life. I love you, softly, with my heart full of the child you are and the person you are becoming.

When I’m not tired – when I’m in my mama zone – I can do it. I rejoice in the experience, seeing the world from your perspective. From down low as you search for leaves or sticks or crabs or shells, and from up high in that place of wonder as you discover something new.

But lately I’ve been tired and that makes all those good things elusive.

I don’t love you any less. In fact, I might love you more because I can’t give you what you need. It’s just that today I couldn’t do it.

Filed Under: Letters to Connor, Motherhood · Tagged With: , ,

Now You Are Three

June 13, 2011 by ·

Dear Connor,

Today you turn three. I can hardly believe it.

I know, that sounds trite. But as I write this on the eve of your birthday – with you asleep next door in your big boy bed (the one you insist on showing every single person who comes into the house, and the same one you never want to sleep in alone at night) – I feel a little bit stunned. Three years!

This is the first photo taken of you when you were born:

Looking back, it tells me so much of what I now know about you. You’re not a huge fan of being taken away from your mama. You know exactly what you think and aren’t afraid to express it. You’re sensitive to your environment, but if you want to be the loud one, nothing can stop you.

As well, the expression on your face is one I’ve seen many a time since:

Something has happened in the last few months. I don’t know when, exactly, but you stopped being a baby. I know you’re not a baby and haven’t been for a while, but until recently I had moments every day where I caught a glimpse of baby in you. Each time I held on tightly, knowing it was a fleeting gift.

I’ve only just realized it, but it doesn’t happen every day anymore. Hardly at all, actually. Even last week when you were sick you didn’t stay stuck to me in the same way you did when you were sick only a couple of months ago. You’re growing up.

And I’m growing up with you. Since I’ve been off work the last couple of months, I’ve been working on getting better and for a long time Daddy was taking care of you. He was doing all the hard stuff that I couldn’t do at the time, like getting up with you in the mornings and trying to get you to eat breakfast, putting you down for naps, doing baths and bedtimes. For a short and very scary time I wondered if I would ever be able to do those things. It seems so silly, but I couldn’t do them. I was too sick and I needed to take care of myself before I could take care of you.

Over the last couple of weeks, though, I’ve started being mom again and doing some of those hard things that used to set me off when you didn’t cooperate. At first I had to talk Daddy into letting me do those things, to let him know it was okay and to assure him that I’d ask for help if I needed it. And we always had back-up. So many people have helped us over the last few weeks – I only wish I could repay them with something other than endless thanks and undying love. We owe Grandma especially for being here at times when I needed someone to do what I couldn’t do with my own child. Sometimes you just need your mom and I’m so grateful for mine. I hope I can always be there for you, for whatever you need, the way she is there for me.

We’re doing well, though, you and I. Which is not to say everything is easy, just that I can handle the hard stuff better now. And my darling boy, sometimes you are a holy terror. I can’t tell you how many times someone in public has commented on what a handful you are. If only they knew. I could do without the screaming fits and the meltdowns over seemingly insignificant things, but I know that’s part of who you are – a passionate, expressive person. (And you get that from me but don’t tell Daddy I acknowledged that.)

The past three years have changed my life in ways I never could have imagined, and for a long time things were so hard I wasn’t sure I’d make it through. I know what happened to me was hard for others as well. Your dad is really annoyed that I didn’t get the help I needed soon enough. In one way I’m sorry too, because it meant he had to deal with a lot of things I wish he hadn’t had to. I can’t change that now, but I do know how much he loves me and I know how much I love him because we’ve been through this together.

Mostly, though, I really don’t resent what I’ve experienced. It was awful – don’t get me wrong – and it’s not over yet. But I’ve learned so much from it – about you, about our family, about myself and about life. I now know just how much love and support we have, and that’s a powerful thing.

My experience with postpartum depression has also taught me that every one of us has something to give. We all have ways of helping someone. Of changing someone’s life, even. A few people have helped change mine, and I hope I can do that for someone else.

I have found new passions and new sources of inspiration that I never would have found if it weren’t for this, and no one can ever take that away from me. This insight is one of the biggest gifts I hope to offer you – to live your life fully, to do what you feel you’re meant to do, and to love and be loved in the process.

I will love you always and forever,
Mama xx

Filed Under: Letters to Connor, Postpartum depression · Tagged With: , , ,

5 Minutes to Yes

February 15, 2011 by ·

July 21, 2007.

Running. Running so fast I almost want to laugh but I’m afraid if I do I’ll have to stop running and I don’t want to miss this plane.

Signs in German are flashing past over my head. I don’t register what they say – I’m just following numbers looking for 36N – but the fact that they’re there registers somewhere deep in my consciousness, pulling up old memories.

Your dad is running with me, darting around families and business people and little old ladies, all of whom are taking way too long to meander towards their gates, secure in the knowledge that they’re not about to miss their flight. I catch a glimpse of him, running fast but delicately, the way he does, springing off his toes as though this wasn’t a sprint. I know he probably wants to body check some of these slow people, but he’s way too polite for that.

I don’t know where your Farmor is – she’s gone on ahead, driven in a much more stately manner in one of those golf cart things that’s blessed with a horn to move the herds of travellers when someone needs to get somewhere fast. There wasn’t room for us, but I prefer the run.

I’ve been in lots of airports in my time. Lots? Enough. I’ve been fortunate with travel, confidently encouraged by your Grandma to go places I wasn’t sure I was brave enough to go. Now, running through the Frankfurt airport, the memory that’s stirring is of the first time I was here, as a shy, scared 15-year-old about to embark upon an adventure. I want you to know this feeling I have now. This knowing that it’s scary, yes. And exciting and overwhelming and life changing. To get to spend time in another country, another culture, is a gift. I’ve done it as an exchange student – here in Germany for four months, without my family, without all that’s familiar to me, without even really knowing the language – leaving me with the knowledge that I can do it. I’ve done it as a backpacker – on my own, and with others. With your dad. I’ve done it as a tourist. I’ve done it as a professional who has occasionally had to pretend that getting up and talking in front of a whole bunch of people I don’t know, who have years more experience than I do, is a piece of cake. Having done it, I know those experiences are what make me who I am. Having done it, I will always choose to do it again. I will always choose yes.

But for now I’m running. The lights overhead are bright and the airport is busy. It’s full of the sounds of people – people talking, people laughing, people rolling wheeled suitcases down laminated halls. But I don’t really hear these things. I hear your dad’s footsteps beside me. I hear my own heart pounding in my chest. I hear, occasionally, an airport announcement and I listen more closely to see if they’re calling our names.

It has seemed like ages, but it’s really just a matter of minutes and we’re there. Farmor is there and we’ve made it, with some time to spare even. And right next to our gate is a book shop. Right out front is a display featuring the latest – the last – Harry Potter book, which has just come out today. Your dad doesn’t hesitate – walks right into the shop and buys a copy.

I wish I could share this feeling with you. This feeling I have here, now, in this scene – the trip to Sweden to see family, the run through a familiar-and-yet-not airport where I first found my wandering spirit, the last-minute dash to buy a book we both can’t wait to savour. It’s a scene bursting with things that make life so beautiful and things I hope life will offer you. And when the offers come, I hope you will choose yes.

 

———

This post is in response to a new series of memoir prompts at The Red Dress Club:

For this week, we want you to imagine that after you have died and your daughter/son will be given the gift of seeing a single five-minute period of your life through your eyes, feeling and experiencing those moments as you did when they occurred. What five minutes would you have him/her see? Tell us about them in the finest detail. Maximum word count: 700 words.


 

Filed Under: Letters to Connor · Tagged With: ,

Luck of the Draw?

January 24, 2011 by ·

I’ve often wondered how someone like me who really has nothing to complain about can end up with postpartum depression. Luck of the draw? Or genetics, or hormones, or whatever. It happened. Is happening. It’s a legitimate illness and most days I accept it even if I don’t always understand it.

But then I read stories that are so heartbreaking a little piece of me thinks, again, that I just need to suck it up.

Over the weekend I came across Finding My New Normal – one woman’s painfully honest story of having a stillborn child at 36 weeks following years of infertility. I can’t imagine.

Through following a trail of blogs tonight I found this post on transplanted thoughts. Holding your 7-month-old son as he takes his last breath? Almost unbearably awful. I can’t imagine.

When Connor was really small, I participated in an online community of pregnant and new moms. Through several weeks I followed one woman’s story, from her finding out through testing that her baby would have a birth defect to her daughter being born and their endless trips to the hospital. The baby was better. And then she wasn’t. She was better again, and then worse, and then really bad. Finally, none of the things they did were working and she couldn’t breathe. They had to keep her throat open with a tube, but the tube meant they couldn’t feed her properly. One surgery and then another, but in the end it came down to feeding or breathing. And those things aren’t mutually exclusive.

They made a decision. They took her out of the hospital and to the beach. They showed her the ocean. They held her and talked to her and soaked in every bit of her small being one last time. And then they took the tube out and let her go.

When this was happening, she let us know this is what they planned to do. It was awful to read, especially because none of us could do anything for her except hold her virtual hand. And when it was done, she came back to let us know. The community rallied around and a day or so later, at a specified time, we all lit a candle for this small child who had left the world far too early, and for her parents who had to carry on without her.

I lit a candle and cried. I cried, and cried, and cried. What an absolutely horrible thing to have happen.

So what on Earth is my problem? So my child doesn’t sleep well. Eventually he will. Right? (Right?!) So he had to be bounced all the time when he was small so he didn’t scream. And he was heavy. But hey! I lost all my baby weight and then some. I could have had a baby who slept and played happily and rarely fussed. Luck of the draw, I guess.

Compared to other stories, none of that matters. He’s alive. He’s healthy. He’s beautiful. And I love him with all my heart. My heavy heart. For tonight I will be grateful for all I have and send loving thoughts to those moms who aren’t so lucky.

Filed Under: Letters to Connor ·
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