A chronic disease called maternity
Being a mother has always been a goal for me. I couldn’t imagine my life any other way. It was not only a wish but the call of an inner clock that grew near 30.
It seems I knew almost immediately that I was pregnant, even though I did four tests to confirm it. It was the magic everyone described, smiles, joy, and happiness toasted from a few tears.
Telling the relatives was also gratifying, except my grandmother that her immediate response made me angry “So, are you sick of being well?”. I was horrified. It took me a few years to realize it, but then I achieved it, I achieved it completely
Pregnancy is a whirlwind of emotions, hormones are bouncing around, and me? I cried with Oprah shows and laughed when I threw up after eating a dozen hot croquettes at night before going to sleep or when I woke up with a wish of eating berlin balls. It seemed like insanity, but excusable, I was pregnant.
Always gifted with a sense of timelessness, my precious, was born on the birthday of my mother, her grandmother. Seven weeks ahead of schedule. And that alone would give a book, but not for now.
From the moment we feel that new being has placed in us, our heart, our soul, our being surrenders to an indescribable love.
It is one of those feelings that cannot be explained, one feels.
And yes, being a Mother is the best in the world, I don’t question it for a second.
But it is not only this love that invades us and overflows in us that changes. It is the arrival of a being that almost inhales our existence. The priority passes from us to them.
Hardly compared is how one more member grows from within us with an outer extension, with greater importance than whatever is ours.
It changes our perspectives, our priorities, everything! All that theory we had, the whole concept of what to do and not do with a child changes.
How many of us before being mothers criticized the fact that children sleep with their parents, use pacifiers late, spend nights with babies whining on their lap… How many? Nobody is accused, I assume! I thought it was absurd.
My baby was going to be different, he was going to sleep in his room right away, we had to let him learn to calm down by himself and suck? Only to a point that would affect his teeth.
But no… My son wouldn’t sleep at night, he would scream with his lungs up and I would move from my room, feeling sorry for my neighbors, to the living room, where he would make more pools from one side to the other just like a professional swimmer with him on his lap. I would give him the pacifier, the drops for colic, give him belly massages, everything…Everything and only when the sun came up would that soul fall asleep like a good vampire.
Eat??? Another adventure, I didn’t have a breast and don’t judge now. I didn’t, my son was born prematurely and nobody told me what to do while he was intubated in the ICU regarding the breast. Only then … then I was told to buy a pump and try to get the most milk and then I do not know but I think that the breast or milk in that complicated situation has dried up or extinguished from my body. But I tried, I squeezed my breasts as much as I could with the machine, and even like a good milkmaid took her hand. Indeed, I milked literally but it was not enough and I had to drink powdered milk. Between the ideology that my milk would be the best even with blood, the mixture, and the child drinking powdered milk, come the cans, please.
My baby was growing and each phase seemed worse than the last. I held my breath every time “an experienced mother” said that it was nothing, that it would be worse, which leaves anyone rested. That look of knowing everything and that everything I said was nothing but an exaggeration or that evil was in me. Because they knew. They knew all those wise councils, unshakeable truths that we should know, I didn’t know!
Never again!
Future mothers or mothers don’t ask me for advice that I don’t give. I don’t! I will listen to all your complaints, all your torments and sacrifices and I will be there in time of need. I will start the conversation like all those I don’t want to meddle in personally; “In my case, it happened like this.” Or I will embrace you with all my strength in trying to calm that despair, which yes it is true, I recognize.
Being a Mother has no value, I wouldn’t trade semi-crazy, sleepless nights, food wars, changes in the body, and exhausted mind for nothing.
It’s a job for life.
As someone said to me “don’t cry Mom, this is only the first day of the rest of your life”!
And whoever wants to experience it, let them do it, in consciousness, and my congratulations! Without any illusions life as you know it will end.
And yes, then it’s not worth crying for your whole life. Like a chronic illness in unconditional love.
