She slept on my chest for over two hours this morning, so still I had to occasionally check to make sure she was still breathing. She would let out a contented sigh, attempt to snuggle closer, and then her body would settle again into mine, listening for the heartbeat that has been the soundtrack of her whole life.
Before she was born, I worried, I wrestled. Do I attempt it this time? Am I a coward if I decide to not even go there? What kind of woman--mother--am I if I don't even try to sustain my child with my own body? Because, well, what if--what if the third time is the charm and she gets it and we can work together in a way that never worked for her brother or sister?
But what if it doesn't work? Will she hate me? Will I mean anything to her if I am not her source of nourishment? Will she prefer someone else's touch, smell, love before mine?
These thoughts, these feelings, they scared me in their realness. Deep down I knew what I--we--needed to do, and that was bottle feed from the very beginning. My husband is 100% supportive, and frankly a little relieved, to not have to deal with the stress of watching me try to do something my body was supposedly made to do but couldn't quite manage to make work. To him, bottle-feeding is a way for him to help more, a way for him to bond with our baby and take care of his wife. It's a way for him to provide her with nourishment.
Does that mean that role is taken away from me?
I wondered.
And then, suddenly, my water broke and 14 hours later she, our Mystery Box baby, was born! A girl. It seems I'd known all along that she was a she, but didn't fully wake up to the thought until I saw her purple body. She didn't cry, but she was alert. She looked around. The nurses cleaned her up, and handed her to her father. I watched him melt as he held her.
And then, finally, after a million years, he handed her to me. And she settled in. And nursing was the furthest thought from my mind, but not hers. We tried for a minute, then we let it go. And that was the end of that, if there was ever even a beginning. And this time I was the one melting.
There are so many things it seems I just knew when I saw her. I knew her name. I knew her divine identity. I knew she was meant to be ours. I knew her calm, her sweetness, her spirit. And I knew that I loved her more than I'd ever loved anything or anyone, save for her father and brother and sister.
Over the past few days, I've come to realize that she was born knowing certain things about me. Colostrum or no, she knows that I am her mother. She knows I am a safe place. She knows my heart because she has heard it. She knows (and Dad knows) that when Dad fails to understand her, I will figure out her needs.
Sometimes, that need is, simply, me.
