Sunday Blues

Let's get one thing straight: I adore my daughter. I love every inch of her and could literally spend hours staring at her tiny features and her hands and feet. There is nothing I would not do for her.

And.

And, this is really hard. By "this," I mean being a new mom to a new baby and spending hours a day not knowing what I am doing, what Sadie is doing, what she needs and how to comfort her or give her what she wants or needs. The ear-piercing crying is like a red bull shot to my heart. She used to have a cry that was a slow build up to the full-out, I-am-going-to-rock-this-entire-zipcode-with-my-tiny-vocal-chords, and now we skipped all the foreplay and she just opens her mouth and screams as if I was threatening to leave her with Michael Jackson (when he was still alive). It is hard to get used to. I was hoping she would not make this a habit, but it started yesterday, and she has perfected it today. She also started doing her champion screaming during her feedings. I am still recovering from having her little head pop off my breast and launch into this distressed scream. Not exactly the reaction I want to have when someone has sampled my breast.

So, here's how I have handled this new development. First, I catastrophize in my head that she'll scream all day every day for the rest of her life, which is going to make her career at Yale very trying. Then, I start to cry silently until Jeff tries to interact with me, at which time I start to cry openly and unabashedly. The next step was to put out the S.O.S. on Facebook letting every parent who can see my status update that my sweet little Sadie has been permanently affected by something horrific and irreversible that I have done in her first 10 dayys of life and that I am decidedly ON THE EDGE. Then, I turn to the telephone and start calling all of the moms I know to ask them (1) why my child is screaming hysterically after NOT doing that for the first 9 days of her life and (2) what do I do to make it stop so I don't have to feel ashamed that I ruined her whole entire life. This last step was seriously frustrated because I accidentally put my cell phone in the washing machine this morning when I did a load of laundry. The phone is not going to make it. Thus, gone are the numbers of my mommy friends-- washed away like the soil on our sheets. To remedy that aparent tragedy, I turned back to my lifeline, Facebook, and posted that I lost my cell phone and the only way to contact me is through email or our home phone.

And, then I took my little Sadie in my arms and I told her the following:

"Sadie, I love you. I love your feelings and fully support you screaming at the top of your lungs. It's good to feel feelings and to express them. You are doing a good job being a baby. You are supposed to cry to communicate with me. It's my job to figure out what you need and want. Mommy may have feelings about your screaming or crying, but it's not your job to take care of me. I have lots of support in my life-- people who can help take care of me so I can take care of you. I am not going anywhere no matter how long or how loud you scream. We are both learning and there are new things every day. I will probably disappoint you a lot, but you will not disappoint me. You are the perfect baby for me. You and all of your feelings and all of your expressions are welcome here. They are essential for your emotional development, which is important to me. Thank you for letting me know when something is not right with you or when you need someting you don't have."

She kept on crying, which is basically what I told her to do. It's very important to me to raise a daughter who feels safe and comfortable being loud or angry or vocal or lonely. I want her to know that I honestly do support her having feelings and that they are beautiful-- and any failure on my part to embrace the parts of her that need to wail or blow of some steam or just plain bellow is just that: my failure. It's my job to get more support to deal with my own feelings around the intense moments around here. It's not her job to be quiet. She's not a church mouse; she's a baby. And at one point she was wailing so loud with her mouth so wide open I thought I could see China, a small part of me was cheering her on: "Go Sadie, scream it out. Start early. Do whatever you need to do. Don't let anyone's discomfort with your process stop you from going bold and balls out and just letting it all out. You are definitely my daughter and this is healthy and adaptive."

Someone please remind me of this down nthe road when I can only hear the voice that says: "Christie, you failed. You fucked up your daughter and ruined every second of her life. There is nothing to do now except give up, accept the greatest defeat of your life, and never ever forgive yourself."