Seeing Through Vasaline

When Olivia was born, it wasn't her first cries that I can still remember clear as day - it was my husband's raw emotion as he proclaimed "Oh my God" as she came into the world.

They held her up for me; her white, wrinkly body stark against the lights of the labor and delivery room. She writhed and yelled and all I could say was "look - Josh!! She's real! She's real!" as we cried together and enjoyed a moment that would never in our lives be replicated.

They cleaned her up and handed to her to me and I was in awe that this little person was in my belly and that she was now here, that her name was Olivia, and that I was now wholly responsible for her.

But almost immediately, there was some thing wrong with me - or so I thought at the time and for months beyond those wonderful early moments.

The reality, for me, was that she was a stranger. She was not my daughter - she was a kid that God dropped off and said: "You wanted her? You got her!"

What started off as a sensation that caused me to tilt my head slightly to the side and say "hmm... this doesn't seem right" snowballed over the next few weeks into a feverish hatred for a being that had no concept of anything.

And then, I hated myself for hating her.

When Olivia was born, Jenn was split into two people: a person who very much reflects who I am everyday - an impatient but even-keeled girl capable of anything and everything she sets her mind to. The other was a vicious, malicious, impatient, easily frustrated, whiny, depressed woman.

The two personalities fought with each other constantly. On many occasions the dialogue would go like this:

Mr. Hyde: The baby is crying. Again. What the %*$(?? You can't even make a BABY stop crying?
Dr. Jekyll: I am trying. She won't stop! What do you want me to do!?
Mr. Hyde: Well. There is nothing you CAN do now, is there? You went and got pregnant and made the commitment. Good job.
Dr. Jekyll: NO! This will get better. I know that it will. It has to. People wouldn't have kids if it was always like this.
Mr. Hyde: You are too selfish. Other people aren't as selfish as you are. SHE IS STILL CRYING.
Dr. Jekyll: I know. I don't know what to do. I can't do this.
Mr. Hyde: No. You can't. You are a horrible mother. You are a failure. What were you thinking?
Dr. Jekyll: I want to love her. I will love her. I KNOW I will love her. Right? I will love her, right?
Mr. Hyde:.... the baby is crying....

It's like I became a visitor in my own body for months following the birth of my daughter.

She would look up at me, innocently, bleery-eyed, and smile. I would cry because I didn't deserve it.

She had no idea of the private war that was being waged inside my mind. She didn't remember 5 minutes ago - so she didn't remember me leaving her in her play pen for 15 minutes while she cried and I tried to figure out how to calm myself down and love her until she stopped crying.

When I was given the opportunity to return to work a week early, I leapt at the opportunity - thinking that this would be an opportunity to sink myself into my work and give myself a break from the 10-11 hour days of nothing but baby. I was partially right.

Returning to work was an onslaught of well-meaning friends and co-workers asking "and how is that beautiful little girl of yours?" - their eyes lit with love, adoration, and all the feelings and emotions I should have for my own child. I squinted my eyes to make them smile, clenched my teeth and lifted the corners of my mouth as I faked my way through my rehearsed responses: "She is so goooooood!", "She is amazing. I love her SO much!", "She is so pretty. I can't believe how lucky I am." (See? And you thought my acting background had completely fallen to the wayside!) What I really wanted to say is "I'm back early for a reason!", "I am so tired I could throw up", "I'm not breastfeeding because she tore through my nipple and now I am on so much medicine I can't even think straight", "You love her so much? You can take her for a little bit!" and my favorite: "She sucks. I need a break".

But, as you can imagine, even the slightest indication that I didn't love my newborn baby immediately drew some very dissapointed reactions from people and, so, I avoided anything that sounded like frustration or disappointment.

Afterall, a new mother thinks that merely not loving her brand new baby means she will get reported to DYFS and lose him/her.

Finally, nine horrible months later, the veil of post-partum depression lifted and I started seeing the blessing that God gave me. She. Was. Beautiful.

She was spirited and determined. She was stubborn and curious. She was wary and loving. She was, well, me. And she loved me.

Through the haze of post-partum I had gone into a routine of taking care of her. It was robotic. BUT, Olivia didn't know (or care) that robo-mom didn't know what she was doing. She didn't care that robo-mom didn't put much emotion into it. She didn't care that robo-mom felt like a failure. What she appreciated is that I was there when she woke up. I hugged her when she was tired or hurt, happy or sad, cold or scared. I played with her on the floor. I sang to her. I did all the things that I had seen other parents do - I faked it - and she didn't care.

At the end of it all, the reality is that Olivia didn't need me to love her - she just needed me there at all. To catch her when she fell down, to hold her up when she wanted to take her first steps. To hug her when she was scared of a dark room.

The blessing of a baby's incredibly short memory (the idea that they barely remember five minutes ago) is that our post-partum distance from them is never permanant in their minds. She will never remember that I walked away from her to go calm down. She will never remember that I screamed, at the top of my lungs, on more than one occassion.

But, unfortunately, I will. I can never get those months back. True, they are "boring" months as far as childhood goes, but I feel robbed of a right-of-passage... the first months of your firstborn baby.

Looking at videos now of Olivia in those early months, I can see so much in her little face. I can see when she was scared or when she wanted me to pick her up and hold her. Her face, as I see it now, tells me EVERYTHING that I need to know about her and what she needed at that moment. What Post-Partum Depression did to me is put a pair of vaseline-covered goggles over my eyes and robbed me of nearly the first year of my daughter's life.

The best I can offer her is to love her with the whole of my being every single day for the rest of her life. And I do.

So, here is why I am writing this.

The worst feeling in the WORLD was feeling as though no one could hear me and that I couldn't talk to ANYONE about how I really felt. There is an intense fear that comes with being a mommy when we don't love our kids the moment they exit our bodies and enter the world. If you are one of these women, I am here to tell you: "I HEAR YOU". Don't be AFRAID to say it. It doesn't make you less of a woman. It doesn't make you less of a mother. You aren't alone and it ISN'T forever. I promise.

So if you are out there, whether you are a friend of mine or a person who happened to come across my blog from the world wide web, feel free to reach out to me. I am happy to listen and (proudly and emphatically) not judge!

Even as I write this last portion of this blog, Olivia is on my lap, playing with my cell phone, happily suckling on her nuk.

And when the day comes that Olivia finds the right man and is ready to start her own little family - you bet your ass that I will proudly and shamelessly share with her the battle we survived together. I would never want her, for one moment, to think that I may judge her for encountering the same challenge should she encounter it.

So, in the end, maybe some good came of those very dark days! I was always a sucker for a happy ending!