I published a post not an hour ago that I’ve taken down.
I’m sitting here in shuddering tears, knowing that I am truly a selfish asshole.
A mom should never have to leave a hospital, clutching her baby’s clothes to her chest. She shouldn’t have to go home and see an empty nursery, knowing it will remain so. She should never have to deal with that kind of heartbreak. No parent should never have to watch their child die before them and say goodbye.
Heather and her family are faced with this reality tonight and I just posted 600 words about how my daughter has been pissing me off and I cannot handle it.
I feel lower than I’ve felt in a lifetime.
When I found out I was pregnant with her, I knew I would lose her. It wasn’t a question of if, it was a measure of when. The previous eight pregnancies were a direct indication that I would never be a mother. After the first trimester of bedrest, heart monitoring, creative vomiting and blood pressure testing ended, I was convinced I’d be one of the small percentage who would be forced to deliver a 20 week old fetus, unviable. When I got to the third trimester, her breech positioning told me that things were not going to be okay. When I finally accepted, around eight months, that I was indeed going to have a baby, I started psyching myself down for what would be, as I saw it, her inevitable death of SIDS.
Post partum depression set in before I gave birth to her, on her due date, in a perfectly healthy, albeit traumatic way.
By her second day of breathing air, I wanted little to do with her, but knew I had to have every thing to do with her – that this was my burden and I wasn’t to let anyone else help. At least until the SIDS came. I became a full-time martyr, working 24 hours a day to keep her quiet and fed, dry and clean. I suffered, my relationship ended before it actually ended, I relapsed into anorexia and she was called ‘a not very happy baby’.
It wasn’t until she was nearly a year that I stopped resting my hand on her back while she slept to check if she was cold with death. It wasn’t until after her ninth month that I gave up on the fantasy of plunging off of the Granville Street bridge within half an hour of I finding her unbreathing in her crib. It wasn’t until she was nearly two that I stopped thinking that she would die.
I got really comfortable. Too comfortable. I take her for granted every day, in every way, constantly whining about how motherhood is not fun and joy, like most chick lit would have you assume.
I waited impatiently for her to walk, so she could be out of my arms. I waited for her to talk, so that when she cried and screamed nonsensically, I wouldn’t feel bad for demanding she tell me what was wrong. I waited, even half an hour ago, for preschool to start this coming fall, so that she can be a smaller part of my life.
It’s bullshit and it’s typical of me.
Everything that I can’t handle feeling gets bottled into angst and anger. Frustration and resentment overtake the honesty of simply saying, “I don’t think I’m doing this right. I’m not strong enough.”
I give up on everything that I can’t ace, whether that’s dropping out of school multiple times because working two jobs and waking up for classes while getting drunk everyday wasn’t human, or choosing to let Dora auto-replay while I read a novel and pretend she doesn’t need me to talk to her, wrap my arms around her and show her that I’m in love with having her in my life.
Realistically, you could probably guess that I didn’t really move on from post partum depression – there’s still the barebones feelings and resentment and lack of emotions – but intuitively, I know it’s something else: I’m not trying enough because I already feel as if I’ve failed.
Tonight, when I climb into bed beside her, I won’t loathe the small space we live in that requires my form right next to hers as she rolls and kicks in her sleep. I won’t begrudge her a shot to the ribs with an elbow – I’ve got it coming. Tonight, after I throw the extra pillow on the floor and prod the duvet between my knees, I’ll curl my body around hers, much like it was two years and nine months ago.
I will cushion her blows, breathe in her snores and run my hands over her sticky hair.
Tonight, I realize everything that I could have lost.
My entire life.
