On, Motherhood!

It's a battle cry, not an expository title.

I never imagined the victories and routs that would go along with being a mom. It's not difficult all the way through. It's no bed of roses, either. (And usually...far stinkier than roses...) Moment by moment, each child, each situation presents its own challenges and its own joys.

My life as a mother has taken so many twists and turns...and let's face it, I never really envisioned being a mother - ever - unless of course I had accomplished all of my super-awesome career goals first. And then - that moment when the nurses laid my firstborn in my arms - I had never been so overwhelmed in my entire life. All I could say was, "Oh. Oh. Oh, hey baby. I'm your momma." I felt so much responsibility had crashed down onto my head. I felt so unprepared, so underinformed, so vulnerable.

By the time our second child was born, a girl, I felt that I had the world by the horns. I was ready to be a mother to two. It was a heady, exhilarating feeling. I enjoyed two children even more than I had enjoyed our one, precious son. Life seemed to become easier. Prioritizing was instinctive instead of reactive as it had been before. The kids adored each other. We were all so in love.

Nine and a half months later, when disaster struck in the form of SIDS, I questioned my arrogance, my impossible hubris, my confidence that I had been a good mother. For months, our family lived under a dense fog of grief. I continued to doubt myself, and lavished attention on our son. During that time, I dreaded meeting new people. I hated answering the inevitable, "How many children do you have? How old are they?" I hated the asker's awkward backtracking and my embarrassed apologies for mentioning an unmentionable. But how could I deny that I had two children?

I constantly wondered what I could have done differently that would have saved our daughter. I wondered if I would be damned for not protecting my baby. I feared judgment from family and friends. I hated the pity and the questions in their eyes. I could avoid all of that by staying shut in, but I couldn't avoid my own self-imposed guilt and questions. Worst were the nights I would wake up to the sound of my husband or my 3-year-old crying. How could I have failed us all so miserably? How could my sweet baby have been expected to pay for my failure? I was supposed to protect her. I was supposed to make the hurt go away for my surviving child. Fail, fail, fail.

The theme of the year was self-recrimination, self-damnation, self-loathing. My thoughts ran in the same white-hot groove, day and night. Three months after our daughter's death, I lost my job due to lack of work. Then there was absolutely no escape from my thoughts. I started running. It was probably oxygen deprivation that allowed my brain to turn off enough to cope. Or the fact that running is hard work, so I could concentrate on hating my robot lady training program rather than myself!

During that time, we were ecstatic to learn we were expecting a third child. I eagerly made an appointment with our OB and began dreaming of boys' clothes, girls' clothes, heck, even equipment for twins! Lightning struck again. At eight weeks pregnant, only four months after the death of our daughter, I began to bleed. We rushed to radiology at our local hospital for an emergency ultrasound, where we were relieved to see a strong heartbeat pulsing on the screen. We were sent home on bed rest with instructions to return to the OB the next week for a follow-up ultrasound. By Monday, the ultrasound no longer showed a heartbeat. Our precious little one had lost the fight. We waited weeks for the miscarriage to complete. I hid from everyone except my husband and son. I had only one thought, over and over again. Why wasn't I the one being punished for being inadequate? Why were my innocent children being punished? My husband? Our parents? Our brothers?

On the outside, I was calm. On the inside, I was breaking into a million pieces. A support group for grieving parents helped, but it didn't alleviate the guilt I felt for failing these beautiful, helpless children. Our call as mothers, I think, is to protect our children from this harsh world until they are old enough for us to teach them how to cope with its realities. More fail, fail, fail on my life's report card. I could check off dozens of failures for the year 2011. I felt sure that if I were to die, I'd stand before God and be laughed straight down into Hell, to be so presumptuous as to ask for Heaven after letting everyone down so completely.

And then - joy, cautious joy - once again. After a wonderfully uneventful pregnancy, we were blessed with another beautiful baby girl in 2012. Amazingly, I wasn't frightened. I felt the same reckless assurance I had felt before the birth of our first daughter. Yes, I checked on her too often during the night. But I had this, dammit! I could do this, and I could do it well!

And she, after easy babies 1 & 2, was colicky. And "On, Motherhood!" became a grim mantra, a heroic call to arms. At midnight. And 2 in the morning. And 4 in the morning. 6 in the morning. Breakfast time. Morning naptime. Lunchtime. Afternoon naptime. Dinnertime. Bedtime. Soldier on, mothers. I had no idea how fatiguing colic could be. "On, Motherhood," as I bounced a screaming baby, trying to will her to sleep. "On, Motherhood!" as I nursed her in one arm and prepared dinner with the other. And then, late at night, a rather frantic and neurotic "On, Motherhood!!" when my hard-working, sleep-deprived husband struggled to rest as I hush-hushed our screaming baby.

We survived. I am still a mother. I didn't expect it, when it first happened. I developed a book-knowledge grasp of the abstract motherhood during my first pregnancy - all of which I threw out with that first overwhelmed, overjoyed, "Oh. Oh. Oh, hey baby. I'm your momma." How do you survive the early days of motherhood? (Coffee. Soap operas. Resignation to being a little stinky due to lack of showers. More coffee.) How do you survive the expansion of a family from one to two children? (Bribery, cartoons, an immeasurable amount of cuddles and hugs. Definitely more coffee.) How do you survive the death of a child? (prayer. prayer. prayer.) A miscarriage? (More prayer. And coffee. Irish coffee. And video games. And running like the devil himself is chasing you. Maybe if you run fast enough you can escape your bad luck.) How do you survive a colicky child? (mainly coffee. lots of coffee. and earplugs.)

I don't dread the question anymore. "How many children do you have?" I proudly answer three. The awkward backpedaling after "How old are they?" (6, 1, and one who passed away who would almost be 4) no longer fazes me. My children are everything. To deny one would be like cutting off my arm. The battle cry continues. "On, Motherhood!" When it's hard, and when it's easy, and every time in between. Through colic, through tantrums, through sweet-smelling cuddles and all the not-so-sweet smells, too. Through Christmas programs and school projects and first report cards and potty training and sticky kisses and sassy remarks. Through devastation and loss. Through success and triumph and sacrifice.

Through the very wall of death itself. On, Motherhood!

Despite the struggles, the joy is all too real. My love for my children reaches across them all, and all the way up to Heaven. I am blessed. I pray daily for strength, and courage, and the tools to become a better mother. I pray for other mothers - those struggling with issues with their children. Those who have lost their children. The mothers who seem to have every last bit of their poop well restrained within a group. Those who await the arrival of their children. Those who struggle and wait and pray that someday their prayer will be answered and they will someday, somehow hold a child of their own. I pray for us all. For all of us mothers. Our love is the glue that holds this world together.

On, motherhood! indeed. This is our battle cry. This is our call. This is our song.

On, motherhood!