Coming Out of the Woods

 I can feel things changing.   The days are more stable, the nights nearly predictable.  The scales are tipping toward more good days than bad.  Finally I can see the light beyond the trees!

It's been so hard, this time around.
Sparky.
My dear sweet boy.
He came out of me screaming and in many ways he seems to have done so ever since.  The first 2 or 3 months were awful.  Everything I had to do with him filled me with dread. Everywhere I took him he cried.  No, screamed.  He screamed in the car, he screamed in my arms, in D's, in the girls.  No one in the family could hold him, no one could help him.  He didn't sleep much, and couldn't ever be laid down.  I felt like I was wound in a tight coil all the time, in the quiet moments waiting for the inevitable storm, and in the hours of distress just breathing, pacing, sweating and trying to stay calm.    I'll never forget on Turtle's 1st Communion Day -- the screaming and screaming as I had to lay him on the couch and ignore him, trying to do my beautiful 7 year old's hair and veil and trying not to resent the spoiling of what could have been a nice mother-daughter moment.  I was on my own with the kids, so I blocked out his crying the best I could and gritted my teeth, finished readying the girls and the screaming baby.  It took so long! It seemed like hours of sheer torturous screaming.  Finally as we were getting in the car, the stress and worry overcame Turtle and she started sobbing.  On the way to this wonderful Sacrament.   It was an all-time low.  I thought, as I drove, that I couldn't possibly go on another second.
 
In the weeks that followed I struggled against resentment and rejection, feeling as if Sparky was taking away my ability to be present, not only at my daughter's Communion, but at my sister's wedding preparations, with my Grandpa in his last months, at the second half of my beloved Catechesis training.  I felt that those postpartum months passed by without me being present to anyone, not even in my other children's lives as I left them alone day after day to pace and rock and breathe with this baby.   I struggled to love him unconditionally.  I thought that I would love him better IF and WHEN.

Then, as he approached 3 months, when I had taken him to several doctors, gotten countless advice, given up many foods, taken supplements and herbs and probiotics, and given those things to him, the colic finally subsided.  I began to be hopeful.  But the road was still rocky.  He seemed unhappy. Any little thing set him off.  He didn't like the girls to hold him or show him toys.  He had such a hard time sleeping. He still would cry for hours at least once a week and there was never anything that could console him.  So many prayers I breathed and affirmations I whispered:  "You are my precious boy.  I love you.  I'm here.  You will be okay!  Dear God . . .  You are so strong, Sparky.  So flexible and capable.  You are my pride and my joy! This is hard, but you can do this.  I love you so much! . . . Help me, Jesus!"

It was so hard to understand.  It still is.  His was my most peaceful, healthiest pregnancy and my smoothest, most natural birth.  I felt like I had done and was doing everything "right" and it seemed so "wrong" that he was so unhappy.  I felt like a need to identify myself as a "good mother" couldn't be met while a child of mine seemed so often so miserable.  I asked D. many times in tears: "Why doesn't he like being in our family?  Doesn't he know what we love him?"
 
 And while I still do not understand all of the lesson of these past 10 months, I feel I am just beginning to see something important.  Sometimes the need to understand something comes from a need to control it.  I cannot control my little man.  I cannot control his happiness.  My value as a mother does not come from my children but from God.  When I had literally done every. thing. I. could and he was still screaming, it was time for me to let go of that lie that I was a bad mother, to step away from that burden.  At that point, I am no longer responsible for my child's happiness.  He is.  And God is.  I am a good mother, whether or not my child stops crying.  I can love him, even when he -- oh, to say such a thing! -- is hard to love.  And I mean to keep saying to him (over and over in tears if need be): "I accept you as you are!  I accept you as you are!" 

These last few weeks I have begun to breathe deeply.  The knots of tension in my heart and my body have begun to relax.  I have watched his smile come more frequently and we can even make him laugh now!  He is happier and more peaceful.  And I am so so thankful!  He is shy, yes.  I can't leave his side for long, true.  Okay, so sometime he still screams in rage for a long time -- that's okay, its not every day! He won't go to any relatives' arms, that's fine!  I love my dear little boy and I am so so glad that at long last he seems to be enjoying life.

My mother shared the following passage from Exodus with me and I would like to quote it here.

Moses said to the Lord, "See thou sayest to me, 'Bring up this people'; but thou hast not let me know whom thou wilt send with me . . . Now therefore, I pray thee, if I have found favor in thy sight, show me now thy ways, that I may know thee and find favor in thy sight.  Consider too that this nation is thy people."  And [the Lord] said to Moses, "My presence will go with you and I will give you rest. . . This very thing that you have spoken I will do; for you have found favor in my sight and I know you by name."
Exodus 33:12-14, 17

Consider, Lord, that these children are your people!  I give them to your care and accept the rest that comes from knowing, trusting, that you are doing your own good work in them.