January 12, 2014 was the first day I held him in my arms.
I spent the day in a state of panic and worry. I couldn’t feel him moving inside of me and I needed to know why. What an absolutely terrifying experience followed my arrival to the hospital.
The look of concern on the doctor’s face was enough for me to know that something was very wrong. As the nurses rushed into the room to wheel my hospital bed through the halls, I pleaded with them to tell me what was happening. “We are headed to the operating room, we can not wait any longer”, was all they said to me.
The operating room was blindingly bright and freezing cold. I couldn’t stop shaking as they strapped my body to the table. I couldn’t feel a thing except for my heart beating violently against my chest. The tears poured out of me as finally heard him cry. “Is he okay?”, I screamed. “He is”, someone replied. They held him close to my face for a moment and as they carried him out of my sight, they reassured me that I would see him again soon. It was hours and hours later when I finally held him in my arms.
As I was lying on the bed, alone with my baby boy, I noticed how still and quiet it was. It felt as if the world had stopped. What a strangely beautiful feeling- nothing else to do but slow down, be present and rest.
The rest did not last for very long. He cried and cried. The nurses said he wasn’t getting enough milk. My body ached, but he was starving. I needed to figure out how to help him, but I had no answers. I suddenly realized, I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t know how to do any of this! Of course I had read a bunch of parenting books and took a parenting class, but this was REAL now, and it was fucking scary. The weight of it all rested firmly on my shoulders. I was now responsible for keeping another human being alive. A human completely dependent on me, and I was failing already. I didn’t know how to be a mother. I wasn’t ready for this.
Over the following years, I learned and grew and learned some more. I learned to ask for help. I learned to push myself harder than I ever knew possible but I also learned to rest. I made many mistakes and felt so overwhelmed at times, that I thought I’d shatter into a million pieces. Now, my baby boy is almost seven years old and I have birthed another. We are all alive and healthy. I learned how to be a mother because I had no other choice. I had to learn to care for myself while caring for my children; a balancing act. A multitasking role like no other. A journey of staring straight into the depths of my soul and beginning to heal all of the trauma I had, unknowingly, been holding onto for so very long.
I can’t help but notice that my journey into motherhood was much like that of my journey toward sobriety. I was able to stop drinking and stay sober only when I found myself with no other choice. I was able to rip myself open and pull this new life out of me. I stitched myself back up, took time to heal, and got to work. Learning and growing and learning some more. Asking for help. Feeling like I was going to shatter into a million pieces but determined to keep going. I didn’t know how to get and stay sober, but I did it anyways because there was no other option but to keep going.
Before I left the hospital after my son was born, I was told that they had found meconium in the amniotic fluid. He had not been moving because he was suffocating inside of me. The day I was packing to head home, a nurse pulled me aside and said, “I hope you know that you saved your son’s life by coming in when you did, if you had waited any longer, he wouldn’t be here today!”
I may not have felt ready to become a mother that day and my birth experience was not as beautiful, peaceful or as natural as I had planned and imagined it to be…but, I saved his life.
I may not have felt ready to get sober when I did, and my road to sobriety was anything but graceful…but, I saved my life.
We often don’t feel ready for change…but the moment will come when we no longer have any other choice; we must move forward and so, we do.
With love, Brianna 