Motherhood
by Jane Bell Goldstein
A murmur from the next room awakens me. Though I am by nature a sound sleeper, the soft harbinger of the baby's cry snaps me to full consciousness. I slip out of bed, careful not to disturb Mark and rob him of a few last moments of precious sleep. Soon enough we will be on the road to my grandmother's memorial service, 75 miles to the south.
Pausing at the door, I take in the rosy sky of first morning light through the great room windows, then hurry on. I savor the tingle of goose bumps rising on my forearms, still a novel sensation six months after the long sweat of pregnancy. As I enter the children's room, I find Sam hanging precariously over the side of his single platform bed. Since the baby displaced him, I have found him more than once asleep on the floor. Today I kiss him softly as I roll him back onto the mattress. He stirs but does not wake up.
Turning my back to him, I face the crib on the opposite wall. Emily, on her tummy, switches her head to observe my approach. Her arms and legs bob, giving the impression that, at any moment, she will launch herself into flight. I too feel strong. My periodic exercise of lifting a kicking two-year-old with one hand while balancing a baby on the opposite hip has worked. Without lowering the side rail, I scoop my eighteen-pound daughter into my arms with ease and swirl her around in a silent waltz.
Detecting the slightly sour, though not unpleasant, soiled diaper scent of a baby who is solely breastfed, I lay her on the changing table. While I lift her bottom and pin the cotton cloth, she studies my face and mimics my expressions; but, as if conspiring with me to preserve the privacy of our time together, she does not make a sound. Finally, we settle into the pile of cushions that I have made my place to nurse.
I have read many descriptions of breastfeeding: scientific explanations of how the hormones prolactin and oxytocin create and eject the milk, testimonials to the health benefits it bestows on mother and child, and even a few attempts to compare the sensations it engenders to those of other physical acts that evolution rewards, such as sex. In a meditative mood on the day I am going to say goodbye to my mother's mother, I acknowledge that the most eloquent metaphor is inadequate to describe what it is like to nurse a baby, because nothing is like it.
As I bring Emily, my last baby, to my breast, a routine I have repeated thousands of times over the past few years, I recognize the powerful magic I embody. Though it cannot be expressed in words, I vow to remember how it is to nurture another human being with nothing more than myself, to infuse her with my instinctive love, unmitigated by the ambiguities of all other human relationships, including the one I might have with her when she has grown to have a will of her own.
Pausing at the door, I take in the rosy sky of first morning light through the great room windows, then hurry on. I savor the tingle of goose bumps rising on my forearms, still a novel sensation six months after the long sweat of pregnancy. As I enter the children's room, I find Sam hanging precariously over the side of his single platform bed. Since the baby displaced him, I have found him more than once asleep on the floor. Today I kiss him softly as I roll him back onto the mattress. He stirs but does not wake up.
Turning my back to him, I face the crib on the opposite wall. Emily, on her tummy, switches her head to observe my approach. Her arms and legs bob, giving the impression that, at any moment, she will launch herself into flight. I too feel strong. My periodic exercise of lifting a kicking two-year-old with one hand while balancing a baby on the opposite hip has worked. Without lowering the side rail, I scoop my eighteen-pound daughter into my arms with ease and swirl her around in a silent waltz.
Detecting the slightly sour, though not unpleasant, soiled diaper scent of a baby who is solely breastfed, I lay her on the changing table. While I lift her bottom and pin the cotton cloth, she studies my face and mimics my expressions; but, as if conspiring with me to preserve the privacy of our time together, she does not make a sound. Finally, we settle into the pile of cushions that I have made my place to nurse.
I have read many descriptions of breastfeeding: scientific explanations of how the hormones prolactin and oxytocin create and eject the milk, testimonials to the health benefits it bestows on mother and child, and even a few attempts to compare the sensations it engenders to those of other physical acts that evolution rewards, such as sex. In a meditative mood on the day I am going to say goodbye to my mother's mother, I acknowledge that the most eloquent metaphor is inadequate to describe what it is like to nurse a baby, because nothing is like it.
As I bring Emily, my last baby, to my breast, a routine I have repeated thousands of times over the past few years, I recognize the powerful magic I embody. Though it cannot be expressed in words, I vow to remember how it is to nurture another human being with nothing more than myself, to infuse her with my instinctive love, unmitigated by the ambiguities of all other human relationships, including the one I might have with her when she has grown to have a will of her own.
