Sleepless Gibber from a Waiting Mother…

The clock in the bedroom had just flashed from 4:19 to 4:20… to 4:21… I am surrounded by silence and darkness.  Yet I don’t know if it’s the sound of the rain or the traffic in my head that’s keeping me wide awake.  What is it with these quiet nights that keep the restless awake?   I have been carrying Oliver for 36.5 weeks now, five more days, he is medically ready to meet the world.  Perhaps it’s the knowledge of these countable quiet nights that unconsciously keep the waiting mother counting.  Life is about to change forever in days, let’s hope not weeks.  How can anyone sleep, despite what the birthing instructor advises?

The last 2 weeks have been physically challenging.  Flipping from side to side in bed is becoming a little old and a little more painful to do with my recently acquired joint aches.  At last, pregnancy is catching up with me, physically, and unfortunately psychologically. Everyone says the last weeks are the toughest weeks, I really shouldn’t complain considering the past seven and a half months sneaked by without much disabling effects, but perhaps this is the same reason for why suddenly the changes are hitting me by surprise.

Becoming a mother has been a complex process.  I am anxious to meet my baby.  I am excited and scared for the changes and the unknowns.  I am emotional about everything.  I am afraid of loosing myself.  I feel ready.  I don’t feel ready. I fantasize about the most profound love from a parent toward a child, as this will be the most important role anyone can ever hold in life.  For the first time, a life depends solely on me, no second guessing, no questioning if it will love me back.  No need to question, because I will be it’s world, and therefore, it will become mine!

I can also imagine, in ten or twelve years, as this little life gets bigger and stronger, it’s world will also expand bigger and wider, and I will eventually become fractionalized.  This may be the tough moment, we have all heard about, when the parents transform from heroes to human, both in the eyes of our ‘babies’ and the image of ourselves.  The desire to hold on to the precious and developing real estate in our ‘baby’s’ world will inevitably bring out the sad, the jealous, the possessive emotions that all other relationships go through when the very essence of our sense of security in that relationship becomes uncertain.  These emotions may not existed before in this parent/child relationship, it didn’t have to.  The baby and the parent can do no wrong to each other. What difference does it make? If the baby peed on your hand by accident, didn’t say ‘mama’ until 2 years old, or if the mommy fell asleep while feeding the baby,let the baby scratch his knee or didn’t know the answer to one of the ‘but why…’ questions, do we really get mad at each other, loose fate in each other and have to regain the trust in our love? I can’t imagine so.  But then again, nothing stays constant forever without adjustments.  There will come a time when finally we have used all of our tricks and hopes to show the little one how to see and feel the world for himself, he will want to explore his world on his own, without all of our crutches and concerns. This is when I have to, against all natural instincts, learn to let go, so that my little human can learn to walk in his own shoes.  I will have to force myself to re-explore my world all over again with and through his experiences.  Even if it rationally makes sense now, this will surely still be difficult to do. We are human after all.  It is in our nature to possess and hoard.  It is only when we can’t fight our instincts,  that this once most profound love between a parent and a child can quickly pick up the resemblance of all the other kinds of love affairs that can easily be trimmed with doubts and jealousy. Suddenly this world’s most intense and giving love that I’m imagining can sound so predictable and gloomy. Not my typical take.  But not everything has to be sunny and bright all the time.  Perhaps, it takes the darkness of night to appreciate the vibrance of day.  The good news is, aside from my current sleep deprivation, I still have a couple more days to wait, and then, a long way to travel in the valley of unquestionable love, before having to prepare for the battle against my humanly instincts… Besides, isn’t knowing better than not knowing, and thinking better than not thinking anyway?

The rain has stopped by now. The darkness has creeped away. I must sleep and find my sanity again…