Picture, if you will, that you’re a baby monkey. You’re hanging out with your mom when– yikes!– a scary lion comes bounding towards your monkey village. Everyone flees as fast as they can, but you can’t do that! You’re just a baby! Instinctively your arms stretch up over your head, tiny fingers spread wide, in hopes of grabbing onto mom’s chest fur so you don’t accidentally get left behind in the scramble to escape. Pretty good for a survival technique based entirely on id.
This is how our pediatrician described the Moro reflex, more commonly known as the newborn startle reflex, to us, and I think about it every time Rosie flings out her starfish hands after a sudden noise. I have never been more aware of cars honking in the city, but the clatter of a pan in the kitchen will do it. Sometimes her eyes fly open but they might stay closed if she’s sleeping. Her arms lower slowly, drifting back down towards her belly in stops and starts, ready to grab onto my fur if need be. I would never leave you behind, I whisper, just in case she’s listening.
The first few months of parenthood feel like being started awake for all parties involved. The world is new to her but Alex and I are living in a new world too, through a haze of broken sleep punctuated by sweet snuggles and daily delights. Neither of us had ever changed a diaper before. I swing between the panic of too much information at my fingertips tempered by newfound confidence I can trust my own instincts. To my surprise they haven’t led me wrong yet.
Getting pregnant again after a loss took so long, and IVF did such a number on my mental health, I felt like all my body did was betray me. Then I got knocked up on vacation (of course) and didn’t really believe it, couldn’t fully trust this was happening until the baby was basically almost full term. Once she reached a point where Google told me she could survive outside my swollen belly, I was like okay, I think we are having a baby for real. No shit, everyone said.
In my 38th week, the day before my water broke, my OBGYN told me I wasn’t dilated at all and she was going to schedule an induction at 40 weeks. I threw up as usual and went to a barre class and packed a weekend bag for a pool party we were going to. That night I woke up with what seemed like contractions but couldn’t possibly be… except they became very intense and frequent, very quickly. Alex and I stared at each other wide-eyed in the dark.
After years of feeling so frustrated that my body wasn’t doing what I wanted it to do, giving birth was a turning point. The challenges gave me a certain toughness that suddenly felt like a real gift. I was calm and perfectly still while the epidural needle went into my spine.
I had been so sick throughout my pregnancy that the baby was tiny, just 4th percentile, but that had its blessings during the delivery. I felt so proud and strong when Rosie came out not long later in just a few pushes. The euphoria when they placed her on my chest was a high unlike anything I ever would have believed. I felt it flooded the room. The nurses were laughing with us, maybe they thought we were crazy. I was only out of my mind with joy.
Rosie was my guide for everything that came next. She latched immediately, knew how to feed before I had a clue. She survived on colostrum and I prayed that my milk would come in while my nipples bled. She was the skinniest little alien thing, with wrinkles instead of rolls. For a few days the pain was excruciating and then the floodgates opened. She had a lot of ground to make up and she knew it and she drank and drank and I cried with relief.
The first month was a blur but I never felt like we couldn’t do it. She started to get squishier and happier. I stopped worrying that I would smush her if I fell asleep during a night feed, a physical trust between us I can’t really explain. I woke up when she needed me, I learned how to comfort her when she cried. We found that when she yells, most of the time it’s for a reason, except when it isn’t, and that’s okay too. She slept for stretches that got longer with each passing week. We started putting her down in her crib and she didn’t protest.
Already we have favorite sounds that she doesn’t seem to make any more. Alex loved her “heh-heh-heh” dolphin cackle when he’d lay her on the changing table. For me, a purr that would come babbling out after she sneezed. I would give anything to have them captured on video. I didn’t know how fast they would be gone.
The days, they simply evaporate. Every morning I have ideas about what I might do and then time slips away and I can’t think of a single thing I’ve done except keep us alive. I am overcome with gratitude for the maternity leave that enables me not to worry about anything else for a while. It’s especially jarring since my job is a daily grind mired in the relentless 24-hour news cycle. I have almost completely checked out of what’s happening out there.
What a privilege to turn inward for this brief precious moment. My world feels both incredibly small and vast, shrunk down to the needs of this little cooing miracle at the center of our universe who sprinkled us with stardust.
After we give Rosie her evening bath I take her into her nursery to feed her to sleep, something some people on the internet think you shouldn’t do. Alex shuts off all the lights and turns on the sound machine while I cozy her up to my breast. The street lamps are visible through the window just enough to watch her face as she drifts off.
Some hours later I’ll hear her stir and we will do it again in the middle of the night, moonlight streaming in and casting a glow across her silky cheek. With one hand I cradle the back of her head, a thumb stroking fuzzy tufts of hair that remind me of a little chick. So absorbed in her am I that I am always surprised to realize I am beaming.
Even when she can’t see my smile it stretches from ear to ear. It’s just us in this liminal space, half asleep, two heartbeats in the dark. I have a few more weeks left of maternity leave, a few more weeks to give her everything I have, all my focus, my time, my body. Soon we will be startled awake.
Mindful, by Mary Oliver
Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less
kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle
in the haystack
of light.
It is what I was born for—
to look, to listen,
to lose myself
inside this soft world—
to instruct myself
over and over
in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,
the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant—
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,
the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help
but grow wise
with such teachings
as these—
the untrimmable light,
of the world,
the ocean’s shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?Thanks to the Morning Person newsletter for bringing me back to this poem I love.
It is so beautiful to watch and read how the two of you help each other grow 🌸
Not me crying reading this on the subway. I’m so so so happy for you and all this precious time you get with your baby girl. ❤️❤️❤️ Cherish it, you deserve it!