Motherhood: A Losing Game

My son just turned one. We spent his birthday mostly listening to him loudly stating his opinions in his baby talk that we hardly understand. And the whole time, I couldn’t help but think how I’m losing.

I’m losing him. I’m losing my baby.

It’s a daily thing. Ever since the moment he was violently ripped from me during a C-section after I’d been in induced labor for around 28 hours, I’ve been losing him.

I remember those first few minutes after I woke up from having my insides repositioned and my skin sewn shut, leaving a scar that would hurt far longer than I realized it would. I held him, already wishing that I could feel him kicking inside me for just a few more minutes. I felt the pain of loss knowing he wasn’t ever going to be as close to me as he was at that moment.

One minute later, I felt the loss of the minute before. It was gone. I would never get that minute back and now he was a minute older.

It may have been so startling to me because I’m not sure I ever expected or wanted to be a mother. Part of me felt that I would be terrible at it. I felt too selfish, too lazy, too insecure, too sickly, too ignorant, just too etc. We didn’t even plan the pregnancy. It was just the right - or rather, wrong - combination of timing and birth control, then suddenly my husband and I were looking at a stick I had just peed on, swearing it was all a dream and refusing to believe it. I don’t know if we’ve caught our breath since then.

I was completely spoiled. The conception happened without us trying. The pregnancy was a complete dream. I barely had morning sickness. Sure, I was tired, but I felt better pregnant with a chronic illness than I ever did with just my chronic illness. Some kind of pregnancy hormone that mimics a steroid seemed to alleviate my autoimmune symptoms and as I grew bigger, I felt better and better… until I was huge and my back hurt and I was so heavy.

But by then I had some little pre-human inside me, fluttering at first and then kicking. I may have imagined it, but I liked to think we played games even when he was still in my belly. He would kick-kick-kick and I would push-push-push and he would kick-kick-kick where I had pushed-pushed-pushed. We were creating a bond, a relationship even that early. The tie to each other only got stronger as we both grew larger and I could feel every movement.

And then The Appointment when my perinatal specialist told me the hospital was scheduled and I would be going in to be induced at midnight.

It was at least three weeks before we expected it. We didn’t have the bassinet set up. I didn’t have a hospital bag ready. We didn’t have a plan for our animals. Husband didn’t have work off.

I was an optimist, thinking “I’m great at being pregnant. I’ll breeze through labor.”

That is NOT how it happened.

We got there at midnight. Four hours later, I had a hospital room.

Six hours after we first arrived, I was given the medicine to induce labor.

The next 28 - yep, TWENTY-EIGHT - hours now seems like a dream. They broke my water at some point. I cracked jokes to hide how much pain I was in. Contractions. Heart beats. Cal’s heartbeat slowed at one point and we had to back off. Right back into it. Epidural. Epidural not working. More epidural. Then an explosion of pain as my back and muscles seized up because of the underlying health issues. They couldn’t touch me without me letting out a blood curdling scream. Cal was doing fine, but I was not. And so, we demanded a C-section. The doctors quickly agreed.

But the problem was that I’d been given medicine to induce. So I was in active, contracting labor. So when the doctor cut into me and tried to pull my tiny son from me, my body contracted, holding on for just seconds longer. It was excruciating even with all the medicine.

And then, he was out as I lost the battle of control.

Even with such an intense, screaming pain; even so exhausted after more than a day of laboring; even being so drained in every way from those 28 hours, I refused to give in to the sedation until I heard him cry and the doctor tell me he was ok.

And now, a year later, I realize what I was losing during that battle between my uterus and the doctor.

As a parent - and I think especially as a mother - you feel a constant struggle between such incredible joy and the ever-present sense of loss. Every minute they grow apart from you. Every day they need you less. Every moment has to go and with it they go. They will never be so little again as at that moment. They will never need you so much, want you so much, be so close to you as in that moment. That’s not to say there isn’t joy. There is. It’s incredible to watch them learn and grow and become independent. But part of it hurts. It’s a losing game.

So here I sit, with my little one-year-old quietly playing with his hands and feet, exploring what his little voice can do, his brain growing and changing. And I feel the loss and the joy. One year gone.