Motherhood:”Breasts leaking. Eyes burning, toe throbbing”…

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By Danielle Pinks

I named you Aiden before I saw your face. You moved like a sun setting across an open sky, with purpose, holding onto my heart from inside. The fiery one I couldn’t wait to hold, play with, sleep next to…and then you started kicking my ass. Those first three months I must have gone through every textbook symptom — extreme fatigue, nausea and vomiting, dizziness, headaches. And to top it off I got the flu for the first time ever in my life. Things weren’t always so pleasant, but I couldn’t wait to see that first roundness at my core, the first sign that you were showing yourself to the world.

By the time you’re old enough to read and understand this, I will have probably reverted to some form of myself before you came into the picture and started wearing heels again. Let me tell you that your mother loves a nice pair of shoes and by the time my belly started getting nice and poochy, I was still comfortably doing 3½ inches. I craved potatoes and green beans, orange juice and grapefruit, chicken soup, ginger ale, and French fries. A lot of times your father, the wonderful man he is, would go out of his way to bring me whatever I needed/wanted, making sure I took my vitamins and ate all my meals. Seeing you on the screen at the doctor’s office somehow didn’t make your arrival any less scary than in the previous months; some small parts of me couldn’t believe I was going to be your mommy.

Times got a little rough around the third trimester, and you were determined to make me uncomfortable at all times (or so it felt). My back ached and so did my hips in preparation for the head that was sure to be big as hell. Anxiety turned into calm back into mild panic, morphed into desperation and moseyed into anticipation as we tried to be ready for you, whoever you would be. Your baby shower was an event for the ages and then…

My hands were swollen that morning and they had never gotten swollen once during the entire pregnancy so I should’ve known something was up. All I was thinking was that the days were drawing nearer and you would soon be here. After a long day of shopping, Daddy and I came home to rest and when I went to use the bathroom, I realized you were on your way. 11 hours later, after only 4 hours of labor that felt like 35, after I screamed that I never wanted to have children again in my life and I couldn’t stand your father; after the most excruciating, blinding, mind-numbing pain I have ever experienced, there you were.

2:30am. Breasts leaking. Eyes burning, toe throbbing from bumping it against the bassinet. I sit at the edge of the bed with my head nodding as I check your pamper. Nothing. Knowing I just fed you an hour ago doesn’t eliminate the possibility that you might be hungry, so I bring you to the left one, the one that makes the most milk and hope that will bring you peace. You suck feverishly and blow bubbles at me, smiling at the new trick you learned. 4:30 am. Daddy needs to be to work in 45 minutes and you’re still awake. As you stare at me and continue blowing bubbles, a genius idea comes over me and I dress you with all the urgency I can muster. Driving around the cool night, I talk to you as if you understand, asking you to sleep just for a few hours while I rest and get the house together. You don’t answer of course, leaving me, my thoughts and the red light that won’t seem to change fast enough.

Where are you going?! It feels these days like you’re never sitting still. Ever since you could hold your head up on your own (when the hell did that happen by the way), we have to keep on top of you at all times or you’d roll right out of the apartment. I watch as your face changes and you stop looking “like [someone]” and more like yourself. Your eyes, quick and all-observing, remind me so much of mine, but you see the world with the reckless innocence I lost long ago. Your hands, small and deft, try to pick up everything they can touch and grasp while I try to keep them from your mouth. I struggle at this in-between stage where you remind me less and less of the tiny, flaky thing I brought home.

At almost 11 months, you have lived up to the name we gave you – the fiery one who is like God. The random BAHs (kisses) you plant on my cheek, knee or elbow at any given time remind me of your father and his need for affection. The squeals and grunts you give to show your disapproval are strangely familiar to the grunts that escape the back of my throat when I’m annoyed or trying to maintain my cool. Your personality is remarkable, and everyone who meets you tells us we are in store for the great challenge of a child who was born with the wisdom of years he hasn’t lived inside of him. I watch you flip through books and point at characters, dance at songs you know the beat to, and smile with the recognition of familiar faces, and I wonder if everything I have to give you will be enough. The fear of being a new mother has been replaced with the anxiety of sending you off into the world without my hands to hold yours at any given moment. I think of taking off your training wheels and watching you enjoy that first big boy ride, then of the scars that are sure to trickle up and down your brown legs. I think of your first heartbreak, when I’ll probably be heartbroken for you, and hope you won’t be made bitter by women who didn’t deserve you in the first place.

I want you to know love, freedom, excitement, intrigue, sorrow, pain, rage and the ability to heal yourself. I wish you peace within life’s darkest moments and the comfort of knowing that your heaviest problem is my biggest enemy. I hope you always remember to put the seat down, not because it’s your mother’s preference, but because it’s the right thing to do. I hope you know when to use accept vs. except and that you never break my heart and marry a non-West Indian girl (joking). Most of all, I hope you know what it means to greet the world with arms wide open.

Tags: aiden, baby, breasts, father, growing up, love, mother, motherhood, motion sickness, nausea, pregnancy, son