Joyful Cross

This is a post that I do not want to write. This is the post that I’ve rehearsed a thousand times in my head, wondering how do I speak the truth so that I do not make you all turn away? This is brutal honesty, and is there anything more terrifying than that?

I had a feeling that, despite my waiting, and despite how very much I wanted Maggie, that motherhood would not come easily to me. This sense of anxiety turned to dread during the days before Maggie’s birth. I was, of course, so excited to meet her, but I was also realizing how incredibly inadequate I was to accept the herculean task set before me: giving birth to a baby, and then taking her home.

It’s what I dreamed of, what I hoped for, and now that it was only days away, it was what I feared most of all.

Some women seem to gently coast into the choppy sea of motherhood. They don’t seem to mind having a human being physically attached to them for what seems to be 24 hours a day (in all likelihood, it’s probably only 20 or so at the beginning). Even if breastfeeding is painful or uncomfortable, they press on, serenely offering all their pain to the Virgin Mary as their little one latches on for the 12th time that day. They laugh it off as the third spit up of day is followed by a leaky diaper, and all this at 3 am. Some women seem to gently coast into motherhood.

I crash landed.

I loved being pregnant. But I suppose that’s because I am an introvert, and my idea of a good time is spending hours by myself in a quiet house. Which is exactly what I got to do basically every day for the last three months of my pregnancy. Maggie was here, but not really. She was here, but she was not yet interrupting my schedule. I did what I want, when I wanted. It was that way right up until the day before she was born.

In 24 hours I went from being able to do as I pleased, to having to pee on someone else’s timetable.

So it has gone, for the past eight weeks. I have shakily made my way through motherhood, and the truth is, I have not lived up to the expectations I set for myself.

I said I’d exclusively breastfeed “for at least six months”. She had formula by day three, and here we are at 8 weeks, and breastfeeding is over. By the time we got her frenulum clipped, and it healed, we had been using the nipple shield for weeks, as well as supplementing with formula. I couldn’t pump after feedings, because I am home alone all day and she’d scream if I put her down to pump. So I never established enough of a supply, and frankly, it wasn’t worth it to me to go to the ends of the earth to try and do so.

I’m slightly disappointed, and I will try again to breastfeed with another baby (should we be blessed with one) but I can’t say I’m heartbroken. All the pain aside, I never liked breastfeeding. Even during the times when there was only little pain, I still could not wait for it to be over. I never liked the idea that she relied on me (and only me) for nourishment.

It’s been two weeks now that I am alone all week during the day. By the time Atticus gets home on Friday evening, I am spent. Truth be told, I’m usually drained by Thursday morning.

The longest she has slept at one time is four hours (that happened once), and this from an eight week old formula-fed baby. Co-sleeping has turned out to not be as great as we hoped for.

Maggie makes a lot of noise about 50% of the time that she is sleeping. Which means if she’s laying in the bassinet next to our bed, neither of us sleeps very well. So we split the night in half, and we take turns sleeping on the couch or guest bed while she sleeps in her swing or sometimes her crib.

My poor husband gets by on little sleep, because he knows that if I don’t get what can reasonably pass for enough, I will not be able to make it through the day.

I know that I am lucky. I have a healthy baby. None of my stories are all that much different from any new parent’s.  All of this is by way of explaining what’s been going on and how it’s helped me to to understand a simple (yet very complex) truth, which is this:

Motherhood is the most joyful cross you will ever be crucified on.

Motherhood is so joyful, to be sure. But a cross it is, and crucified you will be. Motherhood is a tool that God is using to break me down, to make me confront my own selfishness and sin. Maggie’s relentless and exhausting need makes me see just how hard my heart really is. It’s like a stone in the bedrock being smoothed out by the rushing water of the river above.

Motherhood entails suffering, but it is not the same kind of suffering as illness, death, or disaster. It’s the suffering of purification. I am being purified by fire, and it burns like hell. You see, I knew it would be hard, being a mother. But I did not expect it hurt. But the pain, the exhaustion, the anger I feel are the parts of me that need to be pruned, being stripped away.

It is God trying to teach me a new way to be. I pray each day that I will learn the lesson.

If any of you seasoned veterans of motherhood have any wisdom to share, I would be so appreciative.