i went to the dentist last week. we've been going to her since my oldest was a baby, and she has been excited to meet my children as they have arrived. yesterday she met my daughter, our fourth child, who is five months old.
the meeting prompted this question:
"have you learned something different from each pregnancy?"
kind of a deep question to answer when you've got several instruments in your mouth, right? anyway, i've been thinking about it a lot since then, composing sentences as i sit nursing, change diapers, sort laundry, do dishes, walk to school, make dinner, change more diapers...
so here goes.
baby number one:
i learned that being a mother is work. it's not just holding the baby, cooing at the cuteness, nursing every so often, changing the occasional diaper, and swapping birth stories with other moms (which, by the way, was one of the weirdest things to me about becoming a mother).
that is only the beginning. it's also washing blankets and onesies and scrubbing the carpet after an explosion of bodily fluids, feeding the baby every two hours around the clock, trying to put two words together when you've had no sleep for months (isn't sleep deprivation a method of torture?), wondering whether you are more than a food source when it feels like that's all you're doing all day long. it's holding and rocking and diapering and washing and bathing and wiping and swaddling and feeding and burping and clipping tiny fingernails. all day. and your baby needs you. you are the only one.
oh, and on top of everything you're doing for the baby, why is your kitchen a mess? where's dinner? why aren't you wearing clean clothes? when was the last time you showered? brushed your teeth? why isn't your baby wearing socks? is that the same outfit he wore yesterday? do you know what day it is?
it's a straight-into-the-deep end kind of shock, coming home with a newborn. and i think i resented it a little. i knew in my bones that i was embarking on my magnum opus, the most important thing i would ever do. and the sudden deepening of the love i had for my husband as well as the staggering, instant love i had for my son told me that it was going to be a wonderful ride. and not every day of my life as a new mother felt like i was slogging through the desert with a ten-pound pack and no water. sometimes i felt like i had my act together and enjoyed myself, even. :)
but it's hard to reconcile the idea that you're not the most important person in your life anymore.
