Another Mother’s Day

I started attending a UU congregation last October. A couple of folks were asked to speak as a mother on motherhood; I was one of ‘em. I resisted at first, trying to explain that my experience was so far outside the norm that people wouldn’t be able to relate……but, I’m known for my Big Mouth and interesting stories. And since it’s been awhile since I posted anything on this blog…..well, here’s my Mother’s Day. I’m having a good one. Hope you are too.

………..

My path into motherhood was, like many other facets of my life, decidedly non-traditional.

My daughter came three months early; at one pound, ten ounces. She was an alphabet soup of medical complications; an impressive case history of three-letter acronyms providing a neat shorthand of her various conditions.

While other mothers were adapting to their new status with feeding and sleeping schedules, my life moved to the unfamiliar cadence of nursing shifts and doctors’ rounds. I learned about PICC lines and blood oxygen levels. I wrapped my tongue around new lingo: “intravascular hemorrhage”, “periventricular leukomalacia”, “necrotizing enterocolitis” and “disseminated intravascular coagulation”. Demonstrating that I could handle words greater than three syllables meant the doctors would tell me more, and wouldn’t soft-pedal it.

I wasn’t able to hold her for the first two months. It was hard to feel like a mother during that time. I pumped my breasts with an almost religious fervor, because it was all I could do to be a mother, stockpiling breast milk for the precious time when she would be able to drink it.

As her condition improved, I learned to change iliostomy bags instead of diapers. When I was able to bathe her, I was mindful of her PICC line and put vaseline on her mucus fistula. I held her hand, sang her songs, described the world to her as best as I could. Told her what the shadows meant as they moved across the ceiling in the NICU, how the light changes during the day as it moves into night. As the planet spins on its axis. Moving us with it.

And how we spin. I was, and am, unmarried. During that time, her father developed a methamphetamine addiction. By the time my daughter came home from the hospital, he was spectacularly busted with a front-page article in the newspaper. He was also an electrician, so going into work the next day—construction sites not exactly being bastions of restraint or compassion—I felt like I was doing the perp walk. Thankfully, no one said anything.

I gave him the ultimatum—-me, or the meth—he picked the meth. We broke up, he spent the next several years in and out of jail. We did not stay in contact. I learned about his death the same way everyone else in the city did…it was on the late-night news. He killed himself by lying down on the downtown railroad tracks.

While he spent his remaining years in and out of jail, I spent mine in and out of employment. The economy was not good for electricians after the heyday of the Clinton years. Mostly, I traveled—-to Alton, Belleville, Granite City. My daughter and I kept up a rigorous schedule of therapies: speech, occupational, physical, developmental. My medical education was extended to include “failure to thrive” and “developmental disabilities”.

I’m a Bad Mother. When people ask me, “how old was she when she learned how to….crawl? walk? speak?” I have no idea. That all happened somewhere in that great sea of activity alternating with exhaustion. Never on time. One of her NICU nurses came to my house and gave me a gift—a “baby book” to write milestones in. I’m ashamed to say that one of the things I have in common with many mothers is that….that book has remained untouched. I can tell you that she learned to read on her own last year, and devours chapter books with a bloodthirsty vengeance.

The acronyms have not yet ended. Now, there’s “LD”, “IEP” and as-yet-undiagnosed “ADD”, but that last one she comes by honestly.

What I have in common with universal motherhood is….from the moment she arrived, my whole world changed. When she was born, when her eyes first lit up with curiosity, when she came home from the hospital, went to daycare, went to school. It’s still changing now, as she grows into young womanhood, coming-of-age.

She gave me a homemade Mother’s Day card of the 101 Dalmatians, with a picture of her. It reads, “For all that you do for me, I Love You.” I don’t know that I could articulate all that she does for me.

That’s my journey into motherhood. For all its struggle, I wouldn’t change it for the world.

(note: in the oral version, I use my daughter’s name after the first four paragraphs, but not before. That was in memory of her physicians not using her name until after the fourth month of her life. Also, that Mother’s Day card? She’s a phenomenal artist. She can draw characters with such incredible physical and facial expressions. She doesn’t draw like a kid.)