I have been a mother now for exactly 28 years, 8 months and 19 days. I remember that moment when they placed that tiny little being, all five pounds of her, into my arms and the feeling of absolute responsibility I had never felt before. Actually, it was more a chasm of inexplicable joy mixed with a bit of terror and the clear knowledge that life would never be the same again. In reality, that is what motherhood is all about- a conglomeration of sensations.
My mother was the youngest of eight children. Her mother, my Grandma Fannie, once told her that when the doctor informed her that she was pregnant, she told him, emphatically “I don’t want this baby!” The doctor just replied, “You have seven children already; one is not going to make much of a difference.” Ironically, Fannie told my mom this while she was living with her. My mother was giving Fannie a shower at the time when she recounted this story and then in the next breath, said, “And you’re the only one of my children who took me in.”
Needless to say, my mother has always had a sense of being unimportant. She was the second daughter to six sons. When my Aunt Dorothy was born- the first daughter to five sons at the time, they celebrated for two weeks. But when my mother was born, there was no celebration. Hence, the beginning of my mother’s life really explains my mother’s low self-esteem and constant self-deprecation.
In spite of my mother’s feelings of inadequacy, she made each of her four children feel special. I attribute my finishing college at the time when it wasn’t so important for girls to finish college to my mother. She made me stick it out. And I am grateful to her for that, amongst so many countless other things.
My mother was the one who begged me to have a baby. I was married four years already. However, Mark and I were not financially ready at the time; although, when is one ever financially ready to have a baby? She promised I could go back to work and she would take care of the baby. I had a second bedroom already, so I thought, why not? And on the second try, I got pregnant.
Happy and scared- an emotional roller coaster- my first reactions to being a mother. And then I got up one night in my first trimester and was bleeding- not spotting, bleeding. I was sure that it was a miscarriage. I called the doctor and he said to come in the next morning.
At the doctor’s office, it was my obstetrician’s partner who examined me. He told me, nonchalantly, that either I miscarried or the baby died inside me, because I didn’t appear pregnant anymore. I needed to take a sonogram to verify this. In those days, obstetricians did not have sonograms in their offices and I had to wait three very long days to get an appointment for one in the hospital. I was devastated. I was sure I lost my baby, although, my pants wouldn’t close and the night before the sonogram, I could swear I felt fluttering in my stomach. But I dismissed these two things because I didn’t want to get my hopes up.
In the 1980’s, you had to drink gallons of water before taking a sonogram. The technician at the hospital told me in order for them to get a clear picture, I need to feel that I have to pee so bad that I can’t hold it in anymore. When I felt that way, I remember, going in thinking, let me just get through this so I could go to the bathroom. I laid on the cold flat table and the technician globbed cold slimy liquid on my belly and began sliding the probe on it. “There’s the baby’s heartbeat,” she said in less than a minute. I was stunned. “What baby?” “Your baby,” she said laughing, “You’re about thirteen weeks.” Elation. Pure elation. That was what I felt and of course, still having to pee worse than ever in my whole life. I think I flew off that examining table and as I headed for the bathroom, I spotted Mark and gave him a thumbs-up before I raced to relieve myself. Relief, elation and then that phenomenon of utter fear that I was really going to be a mother.
That was my first peak into what it really means to be a mother- to always be ready for the unexpected, to have this consciousness of trying to control the uncontrollable. From the moment you put that infant down in the crib, then check five more times in all of five minutes to make sure she’s breathing- that’s what it really feels like to be a mother. To be jubilant over a burp, a first step, a smile, a laugh. Then comes the uncertainty of caring for that fussy baby, that curious toddler, that unpredictable child, that insolent adolescent. It’s the hardest job in the world.
And yet…
My mother recently told me that when she was talking with a group of women she lived with at assistant living, the topic came up of what part of their life they would live over again if they could. They all agreed- it would be when their children were children. That was the best time of their life. I have to concur. I would go back and do it all over again.
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