Birth: My personal birth plan: Don't be a hero, get the epidural. I am overdue and induced, and spend 21 of the next 22 hours of labor in the hospital bed answering text messages, responding to LinkedIn messages explaining that I am currently on maternity leave, and chatting with the nurses. M spends most of that time enjoying the hospital's air conditioning in the middle of a San Diego heat wave. He sleeps through a lot, and wakes up when it is time to push.
Baby C arrives and our world changes in an instant. I cry involuntarily, staring at him. M, as usual, shows his emotion by smiling. He is pleased that our son's birthday falls on International Surfing Day, which he'd pointed out to me between contractions.
Meanwhile, M's parents, who are staying with us, fill our fridge with food, help M set up nursery, and clean our house. They are heroic and of more pragmatic help than I would have dared to ask for. My parents come see us, along with my grandmother. They cuddle the baby and drop off gifts, including trail mix from Costco, because Chinese parents count random things as presents. My parents also follow up with a large check, which we tacitly understand will go toward computer camp/ Harvard for Baby C.
Month 1: The first night we bring Baby C home is excruciating. He cries all night, and I accept this as our new fate for the next several months. My engineer husband, however, treats everything, including our baby, as a problem that can and must be solved. The next morning, M goes to Buy Buy Baby and sweeps everything sleep-related off the shelves and into the shopping cart. He comes home with a Rock 'n Play, white noise machine, and eighty-two pacifiers. Baby C calms down somewhat, and we breathe a sigh of relief.
Everything in the first few weeks of Baby C's life consumes me with anxiety: unwashed hands stretched toward the baby, the grunting noises he makes when he's sleeping (is he able to breathe??), when he's not grunting and sleeping silently (is he not breathing at all??), taking a shower and coming out to find a hapless M and a wailing, hungry infant. etc. I feel tethered to this newborn and under house arrest. He just. Needs. Me. So. Much. And he seems so delicate and helpless, and I feel so incompetent. I find myself muttering often under my breath: "Please stay healthy. If anything happens to you, Mommy and Daddy go to jail."
Also, Heidi Klum's return to the runway shortly after giving birth has filled me with false hope. It's been four weeks, and strangers are still congratulating me when I'm out alone in public, asking when the baby is due.
BUT. We have a son! He's barely out of the womb, and already the smartest and most gifted human being we've ever seen, even though he says and does mostly nothing. I immediately begin posting too many things on social media about him, so that other people can see what he doesn't say or do.
Month 2: I am a lightning rod for well-meaning advice from people, mostly people I don't know well, about everything, from the amount of clothes I put on him to how often I hold him. I'm spoiling him, I'm neglecting him, I'm doing too much of both. I thought that the newborn phase was supposed to be easy: as long as there are 8-9 wet diapers a day and he is gaining weight, everything should be fine. How am I already screwing up?
I eat my feelings with the meals that my over-generous friends and family are STILL bringing over. Meals that are far better than anything I can cook. When I start finally feeling comfortable enough to get around and bring the baby with me to the grocery store, I reluctantly put an end to the meal train. I am sad, and M is even sadder.
Right Before Month 3: Baby's first trip to Georgia. He is very good on the plane. He also becomes a sudden politician, making eye contact, smiling, even chatting with his grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, when there was very little social interaction before. (I am also extremely touched by how well-loved he is by his entire extended Southern family, especially his oldest cousin Kailyn who wants to hold him every second). I am constantly tense, expecting my son to start fussing at any given time. Prior to this trip, whenever he was awake, he was crying. But no, he is fine. We go home, reveling in our newly low-maintenance baby.
Month 3: Baby C immediately starts throwing huge, unstoppable wailing sessions before every nap/ bedtime. I feel thankful that my sister and her husband live in San Diego too, with their two young sons. I am a lot less scared and alone with her close by. Even when she labels me a paranoid first time helicopter mom, I take it as a compliment, because it's better than "grossly negligent mom."
Month 4: I finally get a handle on Baby's nap schedule. Sometime in the past month he has started giggling and babbling, and I feel hugely grateful to be able to stay home with him while working part-time. My boss, a benevolent Christian CEO who just wants us all to be happy, is the best.
Month 5: Baby's first trip to Sacramento to see my brother's family. Still doesn't sit up on his own, but enjoys watching his cousins. Jordyn, the oldest cousin, is always able to get a smile out of him. Something about the older ladies appeals to him. We fawn over my brother's newborn, his fourth child. I marvel at his wife, who handles all of us descending on her home (my parents, M, Baby C and me, plus my sister's family) plus her own four children, with grace and efficiency. I will never reach her level of competence. The President of the United States will never reach her level of competence.
Month 6: Baby's second trip to Georgia. He's done great on every plane ride so far. Our goal is always to not be the worst baby on the plane, and so far we're succeeding, without having to buy ear plugs and drink vouchers for everyone around us. Baby experiences his first Christmas with the Jordans, complete with all kinds of presents and Christmas jammies. I practically throw him toward any outstretched hands and sneak off to M's parents' hot tub on the back porch every chance I get. His oldest cousin Kailyn makes him laugh for forty-five minutes straight. Baby C gets his first taste of solids while in Georgia. Sadly, it is not Cracker Barrel, but strained peas.
We come home and my sister throws a family reunion at their house. We get to see our cousins for the first time in a couple of years, and their children look gigantic to me, though most of them are only in elementary school. I wonder gloomily whether they're sleeping through the night yet, as my own tunnel is so dark with no light in sight. My cousin Tim is a baby whisperer and manages to keep Baby C asleep in his arms. I consider hiring him as a night nanny. My parents enjoy spending time with their San Diego-based grandchildren. My mom gives us a beautiful handmade quilt. My dad inexplicably gives us more trail mix from Costco, and a giant jar of chocolates for M, because he likes chocolate.
Month 7: Baby C experiences Big Bear and Hawaii. He has the same passive, stoic face for both trips as we attempt to show him new worlds. But the important thing is, he continues his good behavior streak on airplanes. I enjoy the opportunity to go snowboarding/ relax on the beach with friends and start to feel a little like myself again.
People describe Baby C as a very "chill" baby, which is fairly true in public. He smiles politely for strangers and is amiable, but it takes a lot of work to get a full grin or laugh, and he prefers to hang back and observe the group dynamic before engaging. In other words, he is his dad's son.
Month 8: Baby C has been sitting up on his own for a few weeks now, but he's not at all interested in crawling or standing. It seems like every other baby I know his age is running 5K's. He's also not super interested in food (did he get ANY of my genes??), and is a pretty skinny baby compared to the chunk-a-monks I'm seeing on Instagram. Worst of all, he is still not sleeping well at night, which I suspect is related to the not eating well part. I can't bear to leave him to cry in hunger when he nurses so much at night, and so I still get up 2, 3 sometimes 4 times a night.
At this point, eight months into sleep deprivation, I feel worn down. I turn to M one night in bed and cheerfully say "good night." Then I promptly burst into tears and sob for ten minutes, which is a very long time when no one's saying anything. M is bewildered. I am bewildered. I think that maybe being tied to a baby 24/7, doing the laundry, cleaning, cooking, shopping, and working from home without childcare, are possibly catching up with me. (I could let M pitch in more, but he already works long, stressful days at the office and does a lot of big projects around the house in his free time, and I want him to spend time with the baby in the few slivers of the day when Baby C is awake and M is home. Anyway. Moving on.) It is not the first time I feel overwhelmed to the point of tears, but it is the first time I cry to the point of near dehydration.
Eventually, I stop crying and draw strength by thinking of air traffic controllers, Navy Seals, parents of multiple kids, and single parents with multiple kids. If they can do what they can do, I can handle our ONE. BABY.
But, I think it's safe to say that my insistence on doing All The Things plus Everything Else has allowed our marriage and family to suffer needlessly. We don't spend much money and strictly speaking, we don't need more than what M makes. In the coming days, I gather my courage and ask my CEO if I can cut back on the number of assignments I take on as a recruiter, even though I am already part-time as it is. He agrees immediately, because he is the best boss on earth. I feel at once both a giant sense of relief and failure.
This should probably have been a separate blog post.
Month 9: At his well-baby check-up, our pediatrician confirms what I suspected. Baby C's weight is on the low side, and she would like to see us put more calories in him. I stop messing around with the offering of this and that and get down to business. Baby C gets organic yogurt mixed with banana. He gets organic chicken with sweet potatoes. He gets finger foods. And he rejects nearly everything. This is no surprise. Everyday, in response to my best, well-researched efforts at parenting, my son hands me defeat and resignation on a platter.
Luckily, the good parts of parenthood are awesome. For a couple of months now, Baby C has gotten exponentially more fun. He babbles like he's trying to tell us something, he shows interest in whatever we're doing, and he has actual preferences: he laughs at my jokes and cries at my singing.
Month 10: Tummy time has finally paid off and Baby C goes very quickly from belly crawling to hands-and-knees crawling. Of course, the bebes on my Instagram feed are taking their first steps and handling silverware with aplomb, but no matter. Our son is finally mobile! I come downstairs one morning after showering, and M informs me, "The baby took a little tour of the living room today. We need to dust under the piano."
Month 11: Baby C has learned to crawl very quickly, and he wants to do everything I feared: crawl into the fireplace, go to the kitchen and open and slam kitchen drawers on his own fingers, move bar stools around, show interest in our open, slatted stairs. M "babyproofs" our living room with a kitchen chair, laying sideways, blocking the exit and another sideways kitchen chair blocking the fireplace, along with our sofa pillows blocking our Internet router and other wires. We are a living meme of subpar parenting hacks. All that is missing is block letters over the entire scene spelling out "NAILED IT."
1 Year: We have survived the first year, and everyone is still alive! We take a trip out to Florida and Georgia to spend time with Matt's parents, grandmother, Aunt Kay, and Matt's sister's family. I've long since abandoned my paranoid helicopter parenting and swing too far in the other direction, handing off Baby C to his 4-year-old cousin to baby-sit while I check Facebook on my phone. Luckily, this 4-year-old and her sisters are excellent caretakers, playing peekaboo and catch with his toy rubber ball. He is enamored with them.
Baby C still doesn't sleep, and still doesn't walk without help, and throws his smashcake to the floor. But he remains everything we hoped for: a pretty happy, if somewhat stoic, curious, loving little being. M and I pray all the time that the Lord blesses the road ahead of him, and that he both finds and offers joy and peace through his faith and community.
A final note: I thought that being a parent would bring out the best in me: a testimony to my ability for sacrificial and unconditional love, my body being a monument to my superhuman mom powers, etc. etc. etc. In truth, I am all too aware of my own shortcomings, and have had to learn to trust in God like never before.
I also attribute any success I have in motherhood to the love and support of Baby C's community: his affectionate grandparents on both sides, his aunts and uncles who have vastly more experience and wisdom when it comes to child-rearing than M and myself, co-workers who dote on him whenever I stop by the office, our friends who have not dropped us despite our being considerably more inconvenient to hang out with, other fellow mommies that keep me from spiraling into a life of isolation, and the friends who do not yet have but long for a child of their own, or who have experienced deeply painful loss, who show an incredible tenderness toward Baby C.
Most of all, I cannot imagine what life would be like without M, who works long days and comes home to build blanket forts and read to our son and change him into PJ's, and who takes him first thing in the morning to let me sleep. I often come downstairs to find Baby C in his high chair eating string cheese and bananas while M sleepily sips from his mug of coffee. And finally, when the continued sleep deprivation pushes me into yet another tearful meltdown, M creates a schedule on weekends whereby he takes Baby C for the afternoon and gives me a regular break. For there is no problem that can't be solved, including his wife. And for this, and for M, I am hugely grateful.
