Limitations
I'm a fraud. "Why on Earth did I think I know enough to start a blog about motherhood?". I'm a fraud, I'm a phony, I'm so embarrassed - that's all I could think, on loop, as I sobbed around 2am the other night. It'd been one hour since my son had woken up to eat, two hours since I'd gone to bed. There he was, balling, and I had no idea what he wanted.
At first I thought we had it covered. "Can you please try to burp him? Did you check his diaper?", I whispered in the dark to my husband, face half-buried in my pillow (we take turns). The crying continued. "He can't be hungry, he just ate! Keep trying to burp him". Every minute of a newborn crying in the night feels like hours. I quickly, too quickly, started losing it.
Then I reluctantly asked for my godmother's help. We've been lucky enough to have her around since S was born - but to ask for her help at 2am meant admitting that we don't have it covered. She happens to be a trained nurse who's worked in childcare for the past 40 years, so her presence has been just a bit reassuring. But those days are almost over, as she'll soon head back to Brazil. "When did he eat last?", she asked. "He can't be hungry, he just ate", I answered, defensively.
In the meantime YY was still trying to burp him. He burped! - but the crying continued. He passed S to my godmother. She took him away and patiently calmed him down. Then I lost it.
I started sobbing, telling myself I don't have this, we don't have this, I need sleep, I can't, I won't - but I will. My godmother asked me to prepare a bottle, as she knew I couldn't breastfeed at that moment. "But... He just ate", I muttered as I mixed the formula. That was it. He was hungry, and I was in denial. I preach that "fed is best", but at that moment I had trouble feeding my son formula. I couldn't accept that my milk wasn't enough. I felt like I wasn't enough.
As it turns out, S is slightly underweight for his age, and we'll have to feed him formula multiple times a day from now on. I look back at that night and try to make sense of my desperation. From a distance, I understand that I'm not a fraud, or a phony, and there's nothing to be embarrassed about. I am doing the best that I can on the daily - mind and body - but sometimes that doesn't cut it, and that's okay. The problem is accepting it.
The pressure of parenthood is unlike anything I'd experienced before. I salute parents everywhere, and think about them sometimes as I feed my baby at 2am. I wonder how many of them are out there at that very moment, exhausted, feeling inadequate, feeling like they're not enough. Feeling like a fraud. Feeling like I so often do.
Is that, I wonder, a sign that we must be doing something right?