The Second Nine Months

I read this book by Vicki Glembocki in record time, I think mostly because I felt like she was in my head. I tried not to dog ear every other page but there were some that I just had to. She summed in a very honest and funny way what the begining of this journey has been and without apologies.

Some of my favorites:
Month 1:
"Wasn't that whole maternal instinct thing supposed to stick around after that first night in the hospital? Wasn't some maternal gene supposed to switch on and keep me all stoned on bliss and beaming at this child like she is pure light? Like she is the sun? Like, by having her, my life has finally begun and I am finally complete? Isn't that what everyone says at the end of A Baby Story?"

Month 2:
Vicki is going to Babies R Us to pick up formula. "On a day like today someone will surely peer in the cart and say 'Oh what a beautiful baby. So quiet. So content.' And she will think, What a good mom this woman must be...As soon as the doors close behind us, Blair starts to scream. The cries should sound familiar to me but they don't because they are ricocheting off the three story high ceilings, echoing down the aisles, filling up Babies R Us like a sonic boom. People are turning around...'Hang in there kiddo," I say to Blair as we cut our path to the front of the store. 'We can do this,' Except when we get to the register I realize I don't want to do this. What I want is to walk out of Babies R Us and leave Blair there wailing, the blue vein popping out of her forehead. Nice people work at Babies R Us. Surely someone will take her home and care for her and buy her pretty things. I look at the door and picture myself walking through it into the parking lot, into my life as it was before, where I was a confident, able, reliable person. Where I laughed at myself. Where I never, ever felt the urge to run away from anything because it was hard."

Later her friend Kim tells her to put away all the books and trust herself: "I can vaguely remember a time not so long ago when I customarily did what I thought was best. When I trusted my instincts. However, my instincts seem to have slid out with the baby and are at the place, wherever it is, that they put all that extra stuff that slides out with the baby. This new, instinct-less me wants someone the old me never would have tolerated. Someone to tell her what to do."

Month 5
They are working on getting Baby Blair to sleep in her own room. But first, Vicki consults the "experts."
"We could ferberize her by going in after 10 minutes, then after 15, patting her back to let her know we hadn't jumped in the car and sped to Atlantic City where we planned to assume new identities managing a funnel cake shop, leaving her to starve, all alone, in this lacquered white cage. Except, Health Sleep Habits, Healthy Child warned that patting interferes with learning to fall asleep unassisted. But then Dr. Sears thought crying it out went against a mother's basic biology. He thought that babies lost trust in the mother and this mistrust will carry over into other aspects of their relationship, which I assumed meant Blair's first words would be 'I hate you, Mommy," and then she would immediately have every part of her body that sticks out pierced."

Later she is at a community pool when she hears a baby wail and she is shocked that it isn't Blair.
"I was trying so hard to get her to stop crying all of the time that I didn't notice her smiling. I didn't see how happy she was when the swaddling worked, when the bouncing worked, because I was already preparing for the next fit. Because I was living melt down to melt down, oblivious to what happened in between. "

This previous one really strikes a chord with me. I am always so quick to take responsibility for failures but not for successes like smiles.

And finally Month 9
She has been reading an email from one of those list servs that details the top 10 ways your life changes with a baby, like you become a morning person, you stop to smell the roses because your baby is in your arms.
"I wanted to scream. I did scream. Are you friggin serious! I yelled as I hammered down on the delete button as if the message were some kind of venomous bug. This is exactly the problem I thought. This is exactly why I spent six months feeling like a failure, why I spent months feeling alone. This should be illegal, all this mommy propaganda...Here I am at the gym, face to face with a woman who is 8 months pregnant. She probably subscribes to baby center.com too. She probably got the same email this morning...I'm proud of myself. This is what I should do. Start a crusade. A movement. Mothers Who Break the Silence. Mothers Against Pretending They're Good Mothers. And here I am. Telling the truth...'Its really hard. Just so you know. The beginning was harder than anyone ever told me it would be. If you feel lost or frustrated or guilty or anything, know that you're not the only one.' 'Wow. You really make it sound great,' the woman says sarcastically squinching her eyebrows together."

"Maybe Blair won't remember crying, being trapped in swaddles, needles in her heels, falling out of her swing, starving, Thad and me fighting, me talking to myself about how much I hate this, about how I don't know what to do, about how I don't know if I can handle anymore, about how I'm not sure if I love her." "Yes Blair has changed. But the real change happened in me...There is no switch. There is no maternal gene that clicks on the moment the nurse places the baby on your chest. I had to learn to be a mother." "Just then I remembered an email a co-worker sent while I was pregnant. 'Some people, their kids ground them. Other people, their kids shake them up. I'm afraid you and I are doomed to be shaken up. But that's what we get for being so sure we're on top of things all of the time.'"

Sing it loud sister. I'll keep telling the truth if you will.