Woman, Wife, and Mother: The Ingredients

I think about the way my life has changed so drastically in the five months since I've had my son. It's forever altered my identity in a way no other experience possibly could. I am Mother now... and still trying to find the pieces of Woman and Wife in the aftermath. It's a new job that is at once amazing and terrifying. It is also a journey -- the quest for Mother's Wisdom is a long one and the path can change in a matter of days.

What seems like it might last forever changes in a matter of weeks, sometimes a matter of days. When you feel like you cannot possibly go on, somehow you manage. Even if you have to count the hours, the minutes... you manage to survive. And at some point in time... I can see it lurking over the horizon... this will become the new "normal." I will find Woman and Wife and they will blend with Mother, and I will be the better for it.

The enormity of this baby did not hit me when I decided that I was ready. It did not hit me while I was pregnant. It did not even hit me in the hospital when he was born. It hit me in a quiet moment, looking into his brand-new eyes at home, the two of us alone... and then real fear was born. Suddenly, I had something to lose that was greater than myself... far greater. A piece of perfect clay, ready for my touch to shape it. I have to make it perfect, keep it perfect, pristine, I thought to myself.

This is not possible. This piece of clay will end up a masterpiece, but it will have chips and dents and scrapes. And I won't be able to stop all of those. Nor should I. It will hurt him more if I do. The core of the piece will collapse and the entire thing will fall.

It's so easy to see this in black and white, so difficult to absorb it into my heart. If somehow, someone made a road map... and if I followed the map... then I stood a reasonable chance of reducing the amount of dents and chips. So I read. And read. And followed every rule. And I felt guilty for any rule that my child did not fit. My fault... somehow... always.

And my darling son is an easy baby. A soft, calm temperament, a quiet cry rarely used. Predictable most of the time. Happy. Healthy.

The truth is that there really is no map. There is the way an individual family did it. There is the way another individual family did it. But there is no One Way. I need to internalize this.

So this is my goal: reduce the anxiety through cognitive behavioral therapy and exposures. This will help both Baby D and I in the long run. And I need to remember that it may get worse before it gets better!