The night my first child was born the nurse handed him to me, pointed to a call button on the wall, and left the room. I was in a foreign country, recovering from an emergency c-section, with a strange creature in my arms and painful nipples. I could barely manage to drink from a glass of water and hold my baby at the same time. This did not feel natural. It felt difficult.
I used to revel in awkward experiences. I traveled to cities solo, ate alone in fine restaurants while staring self-consciously at the wall, and after marriage, moved with my husband to Iceland to start a new adventure in not-fitting-in. Motherhood, I found, is much the same, but a million times more emotionally taxing, and a lot more at stake. I’m not a ‘natural’ mother. I never held a baby before I was handed my own. The midwife’s urging to constantly talk with my child felt undoable: only crazy people talk to things that can’t respond. The baby lived in pajamas, I counted the minutes between naps, and our apartment was in constant chaos.
Gradually, the foreign experience of having a new little being clinging to me day-in and day-out started to feel thrilling. I wore the baby while making dinner, I made up ridiculous rhyming songs, and discovered my son could spend an hour playing in our recycling bin. Being a mother was a lot like traveling to a strange, new place. I was learning to speak the language, I was savoring the local delicacies, I was becoming more myself.
I also discovered that a baby is a fantastic social crutch, allowing me the freedom to dance in public and expose vulnerabilities to strangers. The biggest help was getting out and joining other first-time mothers who were in similar states of self-doubt. We met at coffee shops and discussed how difficult nursing was, what little sleep we were getting, and the tiny, daily miracles of our babies growing. I learned that nobody had the answers, and that I didn’t really want to hang with the mothers who ‘had it all figured out’ anyways. I enrolled my baby in swim and gym classes, and took him to playgroups where I sung songs in a language I couldn’t understand. I felt like I had a partner and we were discovering the world together.
When Marcus was 18 months old, we returned stateside. I knew a large part of our venturing abroad was over; we were going to be firmly entrenched in parent life, and there would be no jetting off with minimal baggage. Perhaps after traveling all over, and spending a few years living abroad, I was ready to feel comfortable, and really belong somewhere.
With the birth of my second child I felt like a native in motherhood. I let go of the rules a bit. I posted my toddler up with pretzels in front of a tv show while I cooked dinner over a hot stove with the baby in my arms. I knew I was lucky to have one of those ‘easy’ babies, and I had to hold myself back a bit from being the annoying mother with all the answers. Not that everything was smooth and natural. We struggled a lot during the pregnancy with possible diagnosis of microcephaly and growth restriction. I think this glimpse into the difficulties that exist beyond parenting a healthy child made us appreciate even the early exhaustion of parenting our infant.
In traveling, and in parent life, I often think of the parable of a lobster who, in order to grow, must get cramped in his shell. He feels uncomfortable, so he hides in order to discard his casing and grow a new one. There’s always a new struggle to face while parenting or pregnant, and always room to grow.
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Casady Monroe moved to Portland in 2014 from Iceland. She is a former teacher, now stay-at-home mom, a wife to a software engineer, and mother to two children, ages 3 and 1. She spends her free moments sewing, knitting, baking, and volunteering for social justice nonprofits.
Absolutely love this blog.It expresses the feelings I felt when my children were young.
Wonderfully written Casady. So happy we are on the
Motherhood journey together! Keep writing. Love you.
Puts a lump in my throat and makes me all the more proud to be your Aunt. You are an amazing mother, wife, and niece. I love you!
You forgot to add “author” to your resume. You are very talented in many areas, especially motherhood.
Cassidy,
We met long ago, and shared, at times, what I felt, was a remarkable closeness. I think we were both in a relatively dark place at the time, and our relationship spiraled into tumult, probably mostly because of my insecurity. I learned a great deal from you in that time, and since have come to understand far more about life and relationships. From time to time I read your blog to see how you’ve grown and I am always impressed by your insights. You always did have a sharp eye and a clear perspective – I admired those qualities most about you. I, too, have created a family – now ten years married with three children – and as I age and watch my children flourish, I often think of the window we opened briefly. I am sorry for the way I left you and us. It was wrong of me to put such pressures on you and myself so early in our lives as they naturally grew apart. It is a great sense of comfort to see that your life has turned out so nicely. I am fortunate that mine has been a blessing as well. I am still writing, never publishing, like I have always done, but I am now back in my hometown working in the family business. I wish you all the good fortune and success that life has to offer, and may your beautiful children grow up healthy, strong, and wise like their mother. Remember that the joys of those cherished moments in life cannot be fully appreciated without having endured the darkness of the difficult ones. Stay the course, and always be grateful for your many blessings!
All the best,
Brandon