Another Little Piece of My Heart

Friday, September 7, 2012

Before becoming a Mommy for the first time over four years ago, I prepped as well as I knew how. I read pregnancy and breastfeeding and parenting books. I sought the opinions of other moms on the best bottles and strollers and highchairs and diapers. Though I was fortunate to have had lots of experience with other people's kids over the years, I still knew that having one of my own would be a whole other world. So, while I did go into this whole Mommying thing pretty high on the readiness scale, I have been thrown by one aspect of being a parent for which I am certain I could have never been prepared. No book, no well-intended word of advice, no pediatrician, no website could have conveyed the deep emotional connection I would feel to my children. A connection that so far supercedes love that their sweet emotions and feelings can instantly become my own causing a blurry line between where their tender little hearts end and my grown-up, affected one begins.
In the early days of Mommyhood, Mommy-Guilt became an all to frequent emotion; I've often said that when that baby comes out the guilt goes right on in! Especially with my first, I felt guilty about everything... not reading to her enough, having the news (and by the news I mean E! News) on while I was cooking dinner, talking on the phone during her playtime. This list of things that induced the Mommy-Guilt could go on for days. One issue came up though, that I quickly realized elicited strong feelings that went beyond this light, annoying guilt: breastfeeding.
When Carter was three days old and we were still in the hospital, I was chatting with a lactation consultant, and Daddy was tending to baby Pookie. When she made a funny sound, he scooped her up out of her little hospital bed and patted her back. The lactation gal, Carol, and I looked over and both of us saw a purple hue on the face on my precious newborn (Lindsay couldn't see it because she was up on his shoulder.) Carol dropped her papers, grabbed my sweet angel, and quickly ran out of the room. I stayed in the room, and Lindsay followed behind, only to find Carter in a nursery with some sort of tube down her throat. A few minutes later, Carol and Lindsay returned (they kept Carter for a few minutes for observation), and Carol assured us that this sort of thing happens with newborns, especially ones born via c-section. She did go on to suggest that the small amount of formula we had given Carter that morning (because of her weight loss) could have refluxed and caused the choking response since it's so much thicker than breast-milk. She then went on to deliberately, throw all the formula we'd been given in the trash and suggest that I stick to a 100% breast-milk diet for Baby Carter.
Here't the thing: for reasons that are a whole other blog post, I was not successful in nursing Carter, though I did pump and bottle-feed her breast-milk for the first three months. Additionally, Carter did develop chronic reflux (just a coincidence, I was assured by my pediatrician) that often lead to little spells that looked like choking and caused her great discomfort. When this would happen after the breast-milk was all gone, I felt a tremendous sense of guilt and my eyes filled with tears as I was sure that I was a complete failure as a mom. I internalized Carter's every symptom of reflux and mentally berated myself for making my child sick. (Of course, this wasn't the case, and Carter ended up needing reflux medicine long after her formula drinking days ended.) This whole experience, though, revealed this strong emotional attachment to my new baby daughter that I wasn't prepared for and that was hard for me to understand or even begin to explain.
Skip ahead a couple of years to Carter being at the park with her long time BFF, when another friend of his (an OLDER woman!) moves in on the playdate. The little fella was easily wooed and followed his new buddy all around the playground, leaving Carter behind. She would try to join in, but the other gal was quick to let Carter know that was not interested in a group date. As we were driving home that day, Carter sadly said from the back seat, 'Mommy, next time, I think I want to play with just Holdie,' and instantly, MY eyes filled with tears. This was the first time that I saw my little girl's heart be ever-so-slightly broken. I wanted to hold her in my arms and protect her from every boy who would ever dare to treat her as anything but his Number One Gal for the rest of her life.
Then, just this summer, as we began preparing for our move, my heart hurt for every farewell she had to say. Carter has such a tender heart and expressed sadness at saying goodbye to everyone from her best buddies to her gymnastics teacher to her pediatrician to the dog who lived next door. Once we got settled in Charlotte, she'd occasionally mention missing random people and things in Denver, but she also expressed excitement at making new friends once her school started up.
On Monday night as I was tucking her in bed, we began excitedly talking about her first day of school the next day. She was listing all the things she was looking forward to... recess, centers, table-top... and that's when she got me: the phrase 'table-top.' (This is what her amazing teacher at her fantastic school in Denver called the time first thing in the mornings when the kids could choose to play with whatever things she had set up on the little tables around the room.) For some reason, it hit me that she would be walking into an unfamiliar environment with new kids and new teachers and new activities and new routines. I gave her one last kiss and snuggle, turned out her lamp, and walked out of her room. The second I pulled her door closed, tears began pouring down my cheeks. Today, four days after this conversation, it seems completely silly, but at that moment my heart hurt for my little girl. I cried for a good thirty minutes (perhaps slightly due to pregnancy hormones) as I pictured sweet Pookie conjuring up images of what she knew to be school and realizing that the reality would be very different.
The next morning, my usually chipper and friendly girlie was exceptionally timid and unsure as we walked into the classroom. It turns out that she is the only new kid, and all the others were already happily playing with familiar friends. I know. I know, she will be fine (in reality, she already is) and make new friends and thrive in her new space, but as a Mommy, I just want to make things as smooth and as easy as they can possibly be. (At the risk of sounding completely crazy, I'll leave out the details of how I cried a teeny bit a couple days later when Carter wasn't allowed to keep her sunglasses on top of her head for school but had to put them away in her backpack.)
I've only described incidents with Carter because, thus far, my Murphy Girl is so emotionally attached to me, that I have not had the chance to empathize with her emotions beyond her oh-so-desperate longing to be in my arms at all times. I'm sure that I will be faced with similar situations with her as she grows and interacts more with others.
This phenomenon does seem to be more of a Mommy thing. I was so embarrassed at my weeping during the 'table-top' incident, that I couldn't even tell Lindsay why I was crying! Sure, it would have been nice to have been given some sort of forewarning to the fact that I would one day find my 34 year old self crying over a leaf that Carter was not allowed to bring in from the playground (another incident that's best omitted,) but I think this is one of those Mommy things that requires on the job training.
I continue to be amazed by the capabilities of the Mommy's heart...
to expand, to connect, to crumble, to meld... to melt.
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