On Parenting

I never knew how hard it was going to be, to be responsible for a life, or three. As soon as you get married, well-meaning people start asking about the babies you're supposed to be churning out. They never mention that it's going to change your life so completely that nothing is going to be the same again. They never mention how hard it can be, to be a parent.

Nothing else in my life has given me so much pleasure and so much pain. Guilt becomes a constant companion. As soon as I got pregnant, I started to feel guilty. Was I eating the right things? Should I play music to my unborn child, speak Spanish to it, have my husband talk to my baby bump? I should do more, more, more.

My first son was born with the cord wrapped around his neck and he had swallowed meconium. He was blue and lifeless when he came out after four hours of pushing. He had an Apgar score of 0, twice. He spent eight days in the NICU. I would go the the NICU and feel so helpless: poor baby all hooked up to tubes, and nurses always bustling around him. He had to have a spinal tap, blood transfusion, and so many other tests that I lost track. He was "irritable" the nurses told me. Wouldn't you be?

Committed to nursing my new baby, I religiously pumped breast milk, froze it, and then delivered it to the NICU every day. It was just tiny amounts, as a pump will never get the same results as a real baby. My body was sore and exhausted, my emotional state . . . numb. My baby was sick and they couldn't tell me if he was going to be okay. He hadn't been breathing for a long time. I wouldn't know for sure until he was much older that he was going to be okay. When I was pregnant it was all possibilities and promise. Now, every day in the NICU, it was all possible problems. Brain damage. The worry sat in my gut like a anvil.

Bringing my first baby home was not the joyous affair that I had imagined it would be. Before he was born I had agonized over the outfit he would wear home; now it hardly seemed to matter. Carrying his little car seat out to the car and driving him home was done without fanfare. Trying to actually nurse him was frustrating; he had thrush, and hadn't learned to suck properly yet. I would pump and then feed him with a bottle. Time consuming and painful. And he was always hungry, and he didn't sleep much, and he cried a lot. I tried to nurse, I really did, but eight weeks into it--with infected nipples and a constantly hungry baby--my pediatrician told me to put him on formula. Oh, the guilt!

Then came the horrible diaper rashes, yeast infections because of the thrush that just wouldn't clear up. The exhaustion, the lack of free time, the frustration and anger with the work load and my husband working swing shift. The waking up to his cries and that feeling of anxiety, knowing it would take hours to get him back to sleep, getting him to burp, to lay down easy and peaceful. And the fear, creeping into his room to make sure he was breathing and okay. What I thought before, that everything was going to be okay, was an illusion now. Bad things did happen.

And the loneliness, day after day. At that time none of my friends had babies of their own. None of them understood what had just happened to my life. It had been hit by a train and everything had stopped. My husband was working two jobs and he was also exhausted and overwhelmed. I'll admit we weren't much help to each other in those days. There was more fighting then partnership.

And yet, I could sit for hours and just watch him. His little fingers, his little toes, his fat little thighs. We have hours of video of him just laying there, cooing, kicking his little legs, endlessly fascinating to myself and my hubby. I was in love. Kissing his little face all over all the time. He didn't like it much, but I just couldn't stop myself. Singing to him softly: "Mr. Sandman" and "Supernova" and "Close to You" by The Carpenters. Bouncing him around on my shoulder until sleep overcame him. Then just watching him sleep, so peaceful. This magical little baby who looked so much like his father. And that smile, wow, made it worth it. And that look in his eyes, wide open and soaking it all in, his mouth shaped into a perfect little oh. And how happy he would be when his daddy came home, little legs kicking, arms waving uncontrollably.

Yup, it's the hardest and best thing I've ever done. Period.