To Love A Baby

“It’s different when it’s your own child” they said.

“You’ll feel a new kind of love” they said.

“Ok” I said, and nodded.

That was the only answer I could come up with.

Not because I didn’t believe them,

but because I just didn’t think it would ever apply to me.

For the longest time, I thought I was born without maternal instincts.

Babysitting children was difficult and awkward for me

In high school.

In college, volunteering at a church, the childcare department

didn’t call to me like it did many others.

As I entered my 20’s and finished college, I watched my peers

Begin to meet their significant others and get married.

I too developed a longing for true love that would last and

an opportunity to walk down the aisle myself.

But my train of thought never developed beyond that.

I met my husband when I was 21.

That year and the one following,

many of the others I had graduated with

and gone to college ministry at church with

were walking down the aisle.

The year I turned 25, they began having babies.

The year I turned 27, I finally married my husband.

At this point, all but just a few of them had had a child.

A few had two.

But when I went to premarital counseling,

I told them I could see it being “just us forever”,

meaning Max and I. No children.

I had been dreaming of becoming a wife,

but not of trying to raise a child.

At nearly 27 years old, I was still afraid to hold other people’s babies.

At 30, I was still talking to my friends about the things I wanted to do

Before I reached 40.

Having a baby was still not one of them.

By that point, I had decided that

if my husband and I reached 45 and one Or both of us felt like

“something was missing”, we would adopt a baby.

Or perhaps foster a child. But most likely,

I would just live vicariously through

his younger siblings and their journeys as parents.

I would go through seasons.

Sometimes, I embraced my lack of baby fever

and adamant resolve to enjoy my freedom to go anywhere.

Other times, I would look around me at young mothers,

often when I was at church,

and I would let it bother me deep down that

I didn’t feel an innate desire to be one myself.

At one point, on the closet door where

I stick little papers with my prayers on them,

there was one that said

“God, if you intend for me to be a mother, prepare me for that”.

That note would be up on my door for over a year,

and in that year nothing would happen

to make me think God was warming me up for anything

that landed remotely close to parenting.

It was not until the beginning of this year

That something happened. --

What do people without a maternal instinct do

when they find out that they are pregnant?

I know what some people do.

But at the same time that I told the premarital counselors

that I didn’t see myself planning a family,

I also told them that if a pregnancy happened unexpectedly,

I would accept it as part of God’s plan,

go forward and raise that child.

Over the years, I had not been true to my word on a lot of things.

So when an unplanned pregnancy arose just after

the New Year began,

 I decided that I would definitely keep that promise I had made.

After all, my husband had, at that point,

decided he DID want a family.

Part of my struggle was being afraid

to invest in something that may not come to pass.

A positive home pregnancy test could be accurate,

but sometimes, the pregnancy comes and goes

on its own terms within that first few weeks.

Once I could see the baby on an ultrasound,

I felt more connected.

But an ultrasound was something I could only obtain

once in several weeks.

A lot can go wrong in a period of several weeks.

For someone who didn’t think they wanted a baby,

It still felt like if I thought I had one inside,

and then the baby ceased to be there,

I would somehow feel like I had failed that child.

Even if I had not drank alcohol or gotten into a hot tub

or done anything wrong at all.

When I started being able to feel the baby moving and kicking,

I remember thinking “Hey I’ve never felt THAT inside before,

that HAS to be the baby!”

It wasn’t an overwhelmingly emotional

like it is for some people,

But it was definitely like a kind of “Ah-Haa!” moment.

And after the first time,

I was able to detect the movements nearly every day

Thereafter until the baby became so large

that the movements were painful.

If I didn’t feel anything,

I would poke and prod my own belly as a way of saying

“Hey, you ok? I’m a chronic worrier.”

And the baby would respond by kicking back,

probably rather annoyed at the disturbance,

as if to say “yes....I’m fine. Thank you.” Eye-roll.

Once the baby was larger and the movements hurt,

I remember thinking

“Ouch, this is hard. This is making sitting at my desk hard.

This is making sleeping hard.

This is making me go to the bathroom too much.

But now the baby is almost to term

and I know some don’t make it this far,

so I’m glad the baby is healthy.”

You see, over the course of that nine months,

I gradually grew from a woman whose train of thought was

“Oh no, I’m pregnant. What am I going to do?

I have to take precautions with my health now,

because it’s the right thing.

But what AM I going to do about becoming a parent?

I’m not fit.”

To a woman whose train of thought was

“My baby is almost here. I can’t wait to meet them.

It’s clear now I was meant to have this baby.

If God gave me a baby, God must have had a plan for me as a mother.

I must try my best at being one.

This baby is an innocent, pure child that deserves a good life.”

It took the whole nine months to reach that conclusion.

I know some women have already made it before they conceive,

But remember, I was not on the baby fever bandwagon.

Now he’s here.

He’s been here for a month.

Now back to that claim that “I’d feel a love like no other”.

Since I pushed him out and the doctor placed him in my arms,

He has been the first thing on my mind every day and every night.

I have no idea what I’m doing,

but I do know he makes me want to be better.

I want to have patience I never had.

I want to nurture him. I want him to trust me.

I want to keep him safe.

I am sad when I have to be away from him.

He’s vulnerable and he needs me right now.

Most importantly, I can’t imagine life without him.

I don’t find myself wishing I could go back

to a time in my life when I wasn’t a mother.

I see myself in a new chapter of life and the years of sewing wild oats

or trying to satisfy my own needs for validation and love

are a distant memory in another life in another reality far away.

I can look at him, and in my mind’s eye,

I see him five, ten, fifteen years from now.

I see a vision of what he very well could look like-

a spitten image of his father Maxwell,

but tall like my father when he’s grown.

I see him being sweet and kind because

we didn’t give him a reason to fear or to hurt.

We didn’t let anger manifest in him.

He did not see my anxiety or depression

while he was too little to understand it.

He did not go off to the military at eighteen and get hurt,

covered in scars on the outside

and on the inside like his father.

He invested in real friends, not people who would take advantage of him.

Those are my hopes for him,

but they can only come to pass if we take one day at a time.

I think most parents look inwardly at their follies

and then look at their pure, innocent little children

and want better for them-

but not every parent can make that come to pass.

I hope for Max and I to be two of the ones who can.

I wouldn’t describe all of this as being “in love” with the baby

or “in love” with parenthood.

It is more of an awakening,

A swelling of courage and strength and emotion

To be great enough to encompass this new life,

A self-awareness of what needs to heal and change

To be best for him

And a very powerful protective sense to keep him

safe from all that is evil, whether seen or unseen.

It’s a silent promise, a solemn oath

And it’s burned into the surface of my heart.

His livelihood depends on me.

I will not let him down.