Motherhood is Everything; It Gives And Takes
Zakia. The one who plays with children. My cousins rib. Soon, you will give birth. We will come and celebrate with you. We shall bear gifts. Plenty. Clothes, toys, food, anything that can make a new mother happy. We shall celebrate motherhood with you when the feeling is still new, overwhelming.
We shall come bearing wisdom too. Wisdom here is wide and varied. There are those who will tell you to relax. The child will be fine. Listen and do not listen. There are times the child comes bearing some surprises. Some not so pleasant. At times they just come with a stillness of their own.
There are those who will tell you to listen to the baby. When it hiccups, put a paper on the forehead. The demons will be appeased and the hiccups will grind to a deafening halt. Press ignore.
The wise women will come with stories of yore. They know how to measure a child’s cry. They will say things like ‘when he cringes when crying, the child is hungry. Your breast-milk is not enough’. Those ones will give your child pawpaw when you are not looking. It is supposed to soothe the baby’s tummy. Avoid them like a plague.
The generous us will come with a 20 liter Elianto container full of porridge. They say it is supposed to give you strength and make your milk flow like river Nile. They will say eat for two. Drink for two. Bones from Kariakor market will be boiling from morning to evening and there will be someone pouring more soup, more uji, everything is more and it comes in a gigantic mug for good measure. Press ignore.
I know you are wise and haven’t been listening to those housewife tales warning you not to buy clothes for your unborn. I had my fair share of those. I was naive to listen to the ones who said I shouldn’t check the gender of my first born child. I have no regrets. Just memories.
When the baby comes, a lot will change. Your time is our time. Your meal is our meal. Your sleep? Depends. Mine was never there. My first woke up at 8 pm and slept at about 4 am. He wept as if there was fire blazing under his ass. He wept and wept and sometimes the night guard, Patrick, would gently knock on the window, disrupting the chaos within and quip ‘mama Tumaini mko sawa?” I would respond a muffled yes. In tears. I don’t know why but I cried so much those nights. It just happens by the way. No need to be ashamed. The baby cries and cries and you don’t know what to do or say so you start to cry too and keep him company? I don’t even know.
First time is guess time. You know nothing even with all the stories you have been told and all the children you think you have cared for. When mine slept he would turn and toss and I would worry my self sick. It’s not even a month and I felt like my mind was escaping from me. Sneaking through a porous membrane. I am trying to catch it with prayer and all these good books that women read when they get children. I am consulting Google and all he offers is tonnes and tonnes of conflicting information. Google must be male. Don’t ask why. I don’t know.
Then, I just wasn’t there. For some reason, I would worry my self sick. Then the child would keep crying and all of a sudden those stories they tell you about breastfeeding and bonding and joy do not just add up. I am poor at Math. It is worse when you are trying to make it work in regard to human behavior. So breastfeeding=bonding. How come mine is not working?
I became a traveller. I would wake and pump milk for the tot and walk to town. 9 am would find me very occupied with leaving. I would walk and walk and walk until the soles of my feet hurt. Then, guilt would wash over me and I would return home to my baby. I would sit there and rock him gently. Again, soon, the night cycle would begin.
On one of my visits to the doctor I mentioned that I had been pumping milk for the baby. The guy wanted to know why. I explained I had found a new hobby in walking aimlessly window shopping and saying hallo to all and sundry. It is then that what had been happening to me, my body, was laid bare. Your body is yours until it is not.
Enter Postpartum Depression.
I heard it for the first time. 3 months after I had delivered. It is ugly when you do not know what it is. Your emotions are all over the place and you cannot quite explain where you are at. I developed fear. The palpable kind. The fear that you can touch and hold a conversation with. It was around the time that Mungiki had embarked on a killing spree. So I feared that they would steal my baby even though I was far away from them. I closed my grills at Aboretum Drive for the first time when the child was born.
At night, I would wake and shake the boy, just to be sure that he was there, breathing. Fear. Yes. Fear can consume you. Writing this now, it feels insane. Like who goes around thinking about dusk at dawn? Why not just relax and enjoy the here and now?
I cannot tell how that phase passed. But it did. Motherhood became blissful. It was the one thing that gave me such joy and fulfillment. It completed my life in a nice gentle way. Awesome job, awesome family, awesome me.
My second. You know his story. You were there. How he just glided into our lives with this sense of entitlement. How the little guy just sits there saying nothing and everyone is all dotting around him. This one is easy you know. No blues, no stress, nothing. Just the last straw in my aching back. Sometimes I think he just broke it. The #houseofjoyfulchaos is complete.
Motherhood. I hope you find your zen. I pray it ignites in you a passion that will not stop you from striving for better, because you want the best for them. The laughter. When you will see that toothless grin of your tot, the fruit of your womb, it will zip everything. It will flip a new page on a journey that you is joyful. Eventful. Rocky. Gratifying.
Motherhood is bliss and it is not. It gives and takes and that is what makes it rock so fine.
