The phone rang. I instinctively looked at the clock before answering it. It was 4:30 am. Any time the phone rings before 7 am I am overcome with anxiety and a foreboding feeling that something bad has happened.
The divorce and its fallout have been the source of my most recent anxiety. But I have always lived with a lot of anxiety. Anxiety overshadowed or maybe even defined my early years as a parent.
I didn’t want to answer the telephone that morning. Calls at such hours rarely bring good news. But I was able to see the name of the caller displayed on caller ID. I still panicked. I picked up the phone. “I have to go to the hospital,” her voice said over the phone. “Do you want me to come with you?” I asked. “No, not now. D is going with me,” she said. “I will call when I need you”. “I love you," I said. I hung up the phone. I lay awake in bed for several hours until it was time to get up and take my youngest child to school. During that time I didn’t really have any cohesive thoughts just a lot of anxiety.
“I need you to come now,” she called to say sometime later that morning. I headed for the garage. Along the way, I stopped to clean the kitchen. I unloaded the dishwasher. I put a load of clothes in the washing machine. It was until about 45 minutes later that I remembered I was supposed to be somewhere else. No, I am not senile although my children often joke that I am.
“What you doing?” I asked myself in an exasperated voice. I talk to myself often, sometimes even out loud. I became aware that I was avoiding the trip. I was terrified to see my daughter suffer physically or emotionally. I am such a wimp when it comes to my children. I have had to learn, painfully, to step back so as not to rob them of their growing pains and experiences. They need to learn for themselves. This experience will mature my daughter, Jessica, greatly I say to myself somewhat convincingly. Still I wish I could endure the suffering for her. As I drove to the hospital my thoughts were mired in the past.
“Are you here all alone?” the nurse asked me. “Yes,” I replied. I had been alone in that room for what seemed like an eternity. I think I was actually in there all by myself for about 12 hours before I was wheeled to the surgical room and moved onto a cold hard metal table. At least in the delivery room I had the company of the doctor and the nurse.
“Where are you taking her?” I asked the nurse as she was removing my newborn daughter from my arms. “She has to go to the nursery and get checked out,” the nurse replied. “You can see her tomorrow,” she said. I was wheeled into the recovery room where I again spent a long time period of time alone. I didn’t see my baby, Jessica, again until sometime the next morning. My heart sank when they brought Jessica into my room. “Why is she in an incubator? What is wrong with her?” I shot off in panic. “It is just a precaution because of the condition you had while you were pregnant,” the nurse replied. I emitted a huge, audible sigh of relief. I took Jessica into my arms. There really are no words to describe the rush of feelings you experience when you hold your newborn child.
The “script” set out for my generation provided that women got married and had children at a young age by today’s standards. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing or what I was getting into when I became a parent. It makes sense that new parents typically look to their parents to learn how to parent. But I knew even before I had Jessica that such a plan wouldn’t work for me. When Jessica arrived essentially all I knew about parenting was that I didn’t not want to be a mother like my Mother. That was the extent of my knowledge along with a little bit of experience I gained from babysitting some of the neighborhood children when I was a teenager.
For me, becoming a parent was the most significant maturing experience of my life. I was totally responsible for another person. I would have to put her needs first and always think about what was best for her in everything I did. My primary focus was no longer and could no longer be myself. I don’t know that I was afraid or overwhelmed by any of that. It all just seemed to be part of the natural progression of life.
Many women of my generation didn’t follow the “script”. They elected not to have children. I really didn’t think of that as an option when I was young. I am thankful that I was blissfully ignorant of the other choice. While I enjoy the company of these women tremendously there is a chasm that divides us. They never learned to put another first. They never experienced the kind of love where you would sacrifice everything for another –your child. What a loss! From the moment Jessica was born my life would never be the same. Being a parent has brought me the most joy and the most pain in my life. It has enriched my life beyond measure.
Now my daughter was about to embark on this sobering and enriching experience herself. Life has come full circle as they say - whoever “they” are. My daughter, Jessica, is now giving birth to her first child. In fact as I write this I am sitting in her “birthing” room with her. Writing this would distract from my worries or so I hoped.
The nurse bustled into the room and checked some machines - those annoying things that kept beeping. She was very brusque with a no nonsense attitude. She never said much. “How is everything going?” I asked. “You’ll make it. When I had my babies my husband was in the Navy. They knocked you out and you woke up with a baby. Those nurses gave you no sympathy,” she said. Things haven’t changed much I said to myself. She was my only human contact during many long hours of labor.
“Is that you making all of that noise?” I heard someone ask. I turned to see my doctor standing by my bedside. It was very dark outside now. When I arrived the sun was just coming up. She reached out and touched my arm. My entire body relaxed and I a feeling of warmth and comfort literally spread from where she touched my arm through my entire body. It was overwhelming. I was struck, in spite of all my desperation, by the power of the human touch. I feel it now as I recall that night. I have tried so hard to remember to touch my children. It is not something I grew up with so I have to remind myself to do it. My great grandfather expressed the importance of the human touch much better than I ever could:
Tis the human touch in this world that counts,
The touch of your hand and mine,
Which means far more to the fainting heart
Than shelter and bread and wine
For shelter is gone when the night is o’er,
And bread lasts only a day,
But the touch of the hand and the sound of the voice
Sing in the soul away.
The birthing process was, thankfully, so different for Jessica. I felt both envious and relieved. I am relieved that she will not suffer physically or emotionally as I did. She has her husband by her side and other family members when she wants. The nurses are so kind. She can dispense her own pain medication. They even gave her medication to speed up the process.
I wanted to forget my first birthing experience other than the moment when I first held that beautiful baby girl in my arms. The only time I wanted to remember is when we mothers were telling our “war stories”. We would compete as to who had the worst and most painful childbirth experience. I have some pretty gruesome “war” experiences to relate. In true puritan WASP fashion I felt I had to forgo any comforts to give birth. If I had taken any medication or made it in any way easy on myself I would not have been blessed with my beautiful baby or so I unconsciously believed.
I unconsciously believed that everything in life was earned including good fortune and happiness. They are earned through suffering. Suffering has the added benefit of keeping anxiety at bay. Something bad is already happening so I didn’t have to be anxious as to what misfortune lie ahead. Is this a vestige of the Biblical teaching of Adam and Eve that the price of sin is suffering?
I have always had a difficult time with the concept that love and good fortune are gifts to be appreciated and enjoyed. I had difficulty accepting such gifts, any gifts. I felt everything had to be earned including love. I also believed I had to go it totally alone on this journey. Isn’t it a sign of weakness to need anyone or any help? I would never want to appear weak. These attitudes would leave a mark on my early years as a parent. I would make things as difficult as possible for myself to test myself, to earn love and good fortune and keep anxiety at bay. I was unconsciously seeking out difficult circumstances to see if I could survive them. It was a test I could never complete. Unfortunately my drive to make things as difficult for myself also made things incredibly difficult for my children. I think I was just unaware that I was operating under this principle at all. That is just how I functioned. So I was oblivious to the consequences to my children as well. You can see now why I assess myself as a terrible parent. There are other compelling reasons as well.
“There are no purple hearts given out for suffering and pain,” the Jessica’s doctor said. I could see, on Jessica’s face that she was struggling with the concept that she will not suffer as much as she should. (Maybe she has heard too many war stories). Thankfully she is able to fight off that WASP urge to suffer. “You can control the medication with this pump,” the nurse told her. “It will numb the pain and speed up the process.” Jessica nodded that she understood. This to me was a triumph. Jessica was able to accept the help of modern science and the comfort offered by her loved ones.
I have anticipated this day with much joy and much fear and trepidation. I fear that my daughter will have to suffer too much or experience some life threatening complication. I am joyful that there will be a new person in this world to care for and to love. I fear that, even with all the tools of modern science, the baby may not be healthy.
I have fears about getting older. I am apprehensive about becoming a grandmother. After all grandmothers smell like formaldehyde and are totally out of touch with what goes on in the world. I don’t want to be one of those grandmas nor do I want to be one of those modern grandmas who strive to look like the mother rather than the grandmother. With the birth of my first grandchild staring me in the face, I can no longer deny the passage of years simply by refusing to look closely at myself in the mirror.
Jessica’s husband came into the waiting room. “We have a beautiful, healthy baby girl!” he said with such joy and relief. “Mom she is healthy!” Jessica said to me when I was able to enter the birthing room. We all had the same concerns I thought to myself. Why didn’t we share our concerns with each other? Were we afraid to speak to each other about them for fear we would upset each other by discussing what in reality we all already knew. How silly to think that everyone would not be aware of the potential dangers. Worries and fears that are shared are so much less powerful I think. Oh the WASP ways are so ever powerful!
“Can you come to the hospital with me?” is what I should have asked him. Instead I was silent and David went to work – a business trip – from which he would have to be called back after Jessica was born. I did not want to appear like I needed any help. I would do it on my own. I don’t think David really wanted to be present for the birth anyway. David arrived at the hospital after I had been moved from the recovery room to my hospital room. “You should have been here an hour or so ago. What took you so long to get here?” I asked. “Well I had to go home and shower before I came here,” he replied. “The baby was born about an hour ago,” I said to him. David stayed just a few minutes and then left. After all I was totally exhausted.
You are going to cry,” Jessica said making fun of me. “No I am not,” I replied as I looked into the face of the new baby. The resemblance to Jessica was absolutely uncanny at least in my mind. I felt a little numb. Memories flooded into the present and sometimes I couldn’t distinguish between the past and the present. I kept repeating to Jessica, “She looks just like you!” until even Jessica got sick of hearing it. I felt like I was somewhere outside of my body watching this all happen. Maybe that is just my defense mechanism when my emotions overpower me and I can’t control them.
“How did you know it was the right time to have a baby,” a friend of mine asked a few months after Jessica was born. She was much older than I and had been married for many years. “We need to save more money and James has to get a better job so I can quit working,” she said. She continued to tell me all the things that would have to change or occur before she would be ready to have a baby. I listened. “There is never a perfect time to have a baby. You just do it. If you wait for the perfect time it will never happen,” I replied in all my immature wisdom. That turned out to be all too true for my friend. She never had a baby even though I know she desperately wanted one. I guess it was never the perfect time for her. Is it ever? Isn’t dealing with the unpredictability of life a catalyst for personal growth? I am not advocating the absence of planning but, as with everything, shouldn’t there be a balance? Doesn’t too much planning make life stale?
