Surfaced

When Gavin was born, I felt like I'd been sucked underwater. It seemed I had been heading that way - in the last few weeks of pregnancy my belly was so large it felt like a globe-shaped sandbag, and I waddled around with the sensation of slowly sinking. Once my beautiful little bean made his official debut, he nursed every two or three hours around the clock for months. Near-drowned on love and sleep deprivation, determined to feed him from my own body, I spent most of my time drifting through a dim, blurry waterscape between asleep and awake as summer, fall and winter passed through my peripheral like weather patterns.

Occasionally I would bubble to some surface and become fully aware of where I was in life, and note how changed I found my self and my surroundings. Then I'd go under again, and not think anything coherent for weeks.

As recently as a couple months ago, I became better able to manage caring for my son (nearly one year old now, and sleeps better though only marginally) with other life activities - brushing my teeth, taking care of laundry, socializing. It felt like having been lost at sea and finally crawling upon the shore of some island, bedraggled and confused, with terrible hair - where am i? Wait, who am I?

Maybe it's part of new motherhood, but I've been doing a lot of reflecting since the ability to do so was restored to my brain. The intense, difficult, joyful, exhausting, rewarding but frustrating experience of being in charge of another human life has highlighted my strengths and weaknesses in all areas, and made me think about what's important. I've come up with this - love and friendship. While this is not an original concept at all, it arrived as news to me.

My husband is still firmly by my side, but scanning my surroundings in this new place I see that not everyone who seemed to be with me in the beginning is here now. Life actually continued while I was away, which seems obvious, but the extent left me flabbergasted. I've drifted apart from a couple people, due to life moving us in different directions. I lost one good friend out of my own unintended negligence, and her absence digs around behind my ribcage like a claw.  

Those friendships that were left standing, or that were easily renewed, I'm grateful for. I've also opened my time to new friends, mama friends, and the experience has been refreshing.

Sitting here in this stage of life that still feels new sometimes, I find myself mentally gathering up important people in my life - my budding family, friends - and proceeding with caution, so as not to take any of them for granted.

Sexy Mama

This morning, I was massaging my left breast. Not for fun, but because it was about as pliant and boob-like as dried concrete. My son had just nursed from the right breast, so that one was fine, but the left was, quite simply, not well. This happens from time to time when he sleeps a long stretch at night after several nights of frequent wakings, and in the mornings I end up with so much milk he fills up on one side while the other is left hurting.

"Check it out," I told my husband Jon, who was buttoning his work shirt. "Can you tell which boob he nursed from?" The left one bulged out awkwardly, engorged as though it had eaten way too much thanksgiving stuffing and could only hang there, moaning in distress.

Jon glanced over, then quickly away. "Mm...yeah, I see."

"Feel the difference," I pursued. "This one's rock hard." 

He hesitated, then said: "Remember that thing we talked about?" The day before, we discussed how sometimes the partners of women who give birth have trouble reconciling their wives as both mothers and sexual creatures, especially if they see the delivery.

Since that isn't something Jon has issues with, I laughed and we joked about him having found "the line."

The sad things is, I'm hearing too much about how for some people "the line" is much more obvious, going so far as to make the mama feel isolated and unwanted. Failing to recognize a woman as both mother and lover is a concept I find mostly horrifying. A husband or partner not wanting to be intimate after all a woman goes through in pregnancy and childbirth just seems unfair.

At the same time, I wonder what would happen for me if the situation were reversed, if I were to witness a life form emerging from my husband's penis. The very thought feels so unnatural it brings to mind the movie Alien, where that horrible, slimy, screeching octopus-like thing tears its way out of a human stomach.   

That's not a good example. I'll try to envision a new scenario: men giving birth is the most normal thing in the world. After watching the baby come out, which might look like a snake eating a rabbit in reverse, would I...

Hm. That might actually be worse.

Ok, if I were in a lesbian relationship. Could I watch my loved one birth a child and then look at the vessel the same way? I think of my own delivery, when the nurse held out a mirror and cried, "Look!" And I did. I looked. I shouldn't have. What I saw was like a brutal crime scene.

I suppose I can understand, a little bit, the other side. The problem is, it's difficult enough for the woman to merge this new mama role with her sexual side - adding the shame of feeling rejected by a husband or partner is unnecessary, and makes me want to get all Eve Ensler. 

By all means, any mother's partner should be able to take an adjustment period (or at least wait until the nightmares stop), but do so quietly. And if the wife needs for you to demonstrate affection before you've overcome any reservations, well, take one (or two) for the team. She pushed your baby out of a very sensitive area, and that trumps your discomfort.

As for the mamas...you're beautiful. Your new maternal side can co-exist in harmony with your inner sex goddess. Now I sound all Cosmopolitan. Maybe I'll launch into a top ten list. I really just have one recommendation though. Motherhood is an adjustment for all involved...so just be conscious of that, and maybe don't do things like shove your rock-hard lactating breast in your partner's face.