No Sleeping in Brooklyn
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What’s the hardest part of having a baby? Sure labor is rough, but it doesn’t last forever. (Okay, so maybe I shouldn’t talk since I had a relatively easy, short one. The baby was born in a flurry, 45 minutes after I arrived at the hospital… but that’s another story.) It hit me many hours later, after the visitors had gone home, after his father had kissed his new baby and held him and brought me good food to eat. After the work of labor was done and the celebration of life was spreading around our circle of loved ones. I positioned the newborn next to me in a tiny hospital crib and pulled the sheet around my sore body. The maternity ward was quiet and the dull hue of fluorescent lights illuminated my cubicle. I watched his tiny chest rise and fall in rapid rhythm. I realized I was too scared to sleep, too scared to shut off the light. I stood up, and moved his bed three or four times, uncertain that he was able to breathe. Exhausted my eyes began to shut, soon interrupted by his innocent whimpered. I sighed and rose to pull him close. Eventually, I laid him on my chest and took solace in the warmth, our heartbeats intertwined again. It was the longest night of my life as I felt the weight of his need, exposed to the world, and the real beginning of my motherhood.
In a healthy baby situation, the toughest part about having a baby is the disintegration of slumber. How a tiny being that sleeps up 18 hours a day could possibly tire you out in their wee waking moments is a feat that took me a few weeks to understand, but I think I’ve figured it out — it’s the nature of rest that changes. Make no mistake, those bags under new parent eyes are real. If you have a baby, you can’t say you weren’t warned. Of course you were. As you get rounder in your final point-of-no-return trimester, knowing parents smirk in elevators or shake their heads in pity standing in line next to you as they issue the decree “You’ll never sleep again.” Ha! What do they know?” I thought weeks before my delivery. “I’m a former club kid and a natural night owl,” I told myself. “What’s 4 a.m. to me? ” Ahh the days of bliss, when I thought with mind and body, I could conquer anything.
What I didn’t realize is that as a mother, I think that l will never sleep soundly again. Sure, I drift away and sometimes even start dreaming, but even in the deepest slumber, some part of me is now trained to pop up, probably similar to what happens to doctors on call. Initially, it’s the frequency of feeding that triggers this response. Somebody needs me for sustenance. I am the lifeline. And yet, while he’s learning to sleep through the night, (He’s up to 5 hours now!) it’s just not the same kind of sleep for me. Inside, I know that he needs me, and that without me he is lost in the world, at least for now. And at the core of this is the instinct to protect.


