Cold coffee, and other miracles
BY MADDY HILL
Photo Courtesy | Maddy Hill
Little Bear’s feet are slipping and sliding over the cover of ‘Organic Chemistry’. I’m not trying to subtly steer his career 25 years early (I promised myself I won’t care what he does, which we all know won’t be true). My in-laws bought him a bouncer, and despite being two months older than the suggested age, his feet barely brush the floor. I put ‘The Ultimate Travelist’ under his feet first, which was a bad idea for me as we haven’t been on holiday for three years (thanks, COVID), and when that was too low I swapped it out for the dusty text book which probably hasn’t seen any action since the 70s. This ten minutes in the bouncer is a desperation activity – you know when you’ve been up since 4 a.m. and it’s 7 a.m. but you’ve already been through all the activities? I know that Little Bear is one babble away from a meltdown, and then I have to find something else to do for the next ten minutes. That’s how life feels at the moment – one ten-minute stretch after another, until I have reached the end of the day, and I can sink deliciously into sleep for a few hours until my son decides to grace us with his 1 a.m. persona. I am searching wildly for something to give me strength to get through the next ten minutes, when my eyes light upon a cold cup of coffee left from earlier; a miracle if ever there was one. Hot drinks are the first sacrifice of new parents I think, thrown onto the altar of parenthood along with lone toileting, sleep and anything that involves the word ‘relaxing’. However, I have found a strange sense of comfort in the cold cups of coffee littered through my day. Coffee is a true love of mine, and though I seem unable to drink it in its best form, this compromise tethers me a little to the person I used to be.
gasping, the room closes in on me,
air clawing at my throat all the way down,
meets the war drum in my chest,
who’s blood is this on my shoes?
hands clenching, I close my eyes against this moment,
two seconds, breathe,
my fears are rushing in my ears and I
didn’t even get to meet you
or say goodbye.
Failure. Like a vulture creeping.
My hand looks funny in the canary bathroom light,
was it always so small,
so paper pale?
Three seconds, four, breathe and
I try to pack the bag for our trip into town today. A day out with my son is like a day out with a shark: impractical, sometimes impossible and occasionally speckled with wonder, though I’d be bitten less by a shark. I count the bottles, count the hours they can be in the cold bag for, count the nappies in the changing bag, count the hours of sleep I’ve had (completely pointless, why do I do this each day?). I park in the smallest space on the street, and feel secretly proud. My achievements since becoming a parent range from the sublime to the ridiculous: getting dressed, cooking dinner one-handed, keeping a human alive. I forget sometimes, how precious that last one is. Often I feel like a part of me is adrift at sea; floating aimlessly in the hardness of each day, struggling to feel like I will ever achieve anything ever again. But I forget I have kept a child alive. I have held his hand when he cries. I have sat with him in the dead of night, and walked rings in the carpet to soothe him. I have whispered him to sleep.
we have made it into the room,
the relief washes over me, hope flares,
just for a second.
five, six, breathe.
I am begging the midwife,
desperation dripping from every pore.
this pain will kill me and I
didn’t even get to meet you
or say goodbye.
They said my body would know what to do,
but mine is all confused and failing and
wrong.
a cacophony of voices,
the wave of sound overwhelming me and
My son is not a content baby. And as a result, I am not a content mother, my daily mantra what am I doing wrong? I spend my days getting through them, in any way possible. I face easy challenges – my baby throws up down the inside of my t-shirt at the exact moment that the doorbell rings, and I face impossible challenges – how do I force my body to produce milk it doesn’t have the reserves to make? I have been on a punishing pumping schedule which I have had to relinquish for my own sanity, and the voice in my head whispers failure. Every stumble is a fall, and every fall is another bit of me dropping away, until I’m not sure what’s left.
everything is hazy,
words blurry and murmuring shimmers.
I watch your face as the surgeon is talking,
words like consent, risk, drift in the air,
but I am looking into your eyes which are
wide open to the world.
the theatre is cold, shattering bright white
fear has taken hold of my muscles,
the anaesthetist steadies the needle against the tremors,
it feels like I’ve been afraid for weeks.
the darkness of the ward pervades,
you lie in the bedside crib fussing,
but my body has been commandeered and I can’t
reach you.
blood still smeared on my body like a white flag.
this night tastes like helplessness, and I
didn’t even get to know you
or say goodbye.
We have a semi-successful trip to town. I almost cry in the café when my son pulls a glass of water over and then screams for no reason, but then a dog sits under the table next to us and he is transfixed, eyes and mouth agape. A miracle. I get to enjoy the milkshake I bought, despite almost downing it like a sixteen-year-old with their first jäger shot. Our outing culminates in a run around the supermarket, and it is a race between my son’s patience and the level of importance each list item is for dinner that night. Whilst waiting to pay at the checkout, (nervously rocking the pram, as coming to a stop, whether on foot or in the car, only ever causes trouble), an elderly lady leans right into the pram and says “Hello! Well aren’t you a gorgeous boy!”. For a second the whole world slows on its axis, at which point my son pushes himself up onto his elbows, looks her right in the eye and blows a huge raspberry. I am equally horrified and amused. In today’s climate, it seems inappropriate to get right up in anyone’s personal space, let alone a small, vulnerable baby, and yet I can’t for the life of me work out how he’s learnt to do that. I can virtually feel the dribble that he must have showered her face with. He continues blowing raspberries left, right and centre as we pay and leave, and I am almost relieved to shovel him into the car and head home. Almost. It’s hard work, having him at home. It’s hard work having him anywhere really, but particularly at home, where there are no other people to distract him, no other stimulation apart from my face and voice, and an endless requirement for me to rotate my ‘baby’ activities ten minutes at a time until he finally crashes. Several people have asked me whether I’m enjoying motherhood, and each time they do, it makes me want to cry. I can’t formulate an answer that quickly. I can’t begin to tell them that I steel myself for each day when he gets me up, that I steel myself for each night when he goes to sleep. I can’t put into words my guilt at not enjoying every moment when we’re so lucky to have him, at my desperation to do a good job, to be a good mother, and my fear that I’m falling short. I can’t express that I love him more than I’ve ever loved anything, that I yearn for the coming years and the laughter and fun we’re going to have. I can’t say that I’m scared it’s changing me in ways I didn’t want to be changed. Scared I’m becoming something unfamiliar, that I don’t know myself anymore. I usually just smile and say I’m not sure yet. And then they smile and offer some titbit of advice, or anecdote, and I am left alone to remind myself of this miracle we made.
living room softly lit and invitingly warm,
we sit, a family for the first time,
nestled in the gap your tiny hands reach
for us, before you even know we’re there.
you already love us I think,
before you’ve even got to know us,
or say hello.
I watch your chest rising and falling,
one second, two seconds.
The night brings new questions,
and doubt flocks to our door,
but the dawn will always come,
and with it a gift,
to love you
as much as we can.
MADDY HILL lives in the West Midlands, United Kingdom with her husband, son and cat, and puts to page her experiences of a traumatic birth and her awkward first attempt at motherhood. The first time she read a poem about someone’s traumatic birth, it made her cry with the overwhelming relief that she wasn’t alone in her experiences and thoughts. She hopes more than anything that she can return the favor to someone else who may be feeling isolated by how they feel.