Oh, but those early days were challenging....The lack of restful sleep meant that the daytime hours cycled between either first-light-of-day hyperawareness or mid-afternoon sluggishness, and the continuous 3 a.m. feedings were a quiet desperation.
But then the baby was staggeringly beautiful, taking my breath away...every movement cat-like in its elegance. At times before he cried he seemed to invoke sadness, scrunching up his face and clenching his fists to embody the emotion.
From birth, the tension begins between the baby's and the mother's needs. Sometimes they are mutual needs: bonding, napping, mother's need to feed / baby's need to be fed. The mantra of 'baby first' is most compelling at the beginning. Mother and baby also become one entity at times, interdependent and emotionally linked. We become a they to others: 'they're feeding,' 'they're sleeping.'
The early days are also the beginning of the near-inseparable bodily contact during the waking hours of the first months. The newborn manages to snuggle back into me while we nap together, even though each time I wake I carefully re-establish some breathing room. He craves contact, lulling movement, warmth.
I'm already aware that these early days, living moment by moment, will not last.
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