GRACE AND GRAVITY

by Cynthia Via

Week 4

I’m scared when she’s inconsolable, like I will never be able to soothe her cries. I keep thinking I don’t have a mother’s touch. How does one acquire that skill? Is it something inherently part of you? Jackson Lamb’s voice from Slow Horses comes to mind: “These kinds of conversations are not my forte.” I ran away from this type of affection, never took care of a pet long enough, or kept friends long enough to love them unconditionally. Consoling her is a way to console myself. To understand how love flourishes from the beginning.

On the phone, my mom tells me how to bathe her and recalls the times when she did the same for me, soothing my fears in Spanish. “No tenías una tina, así que simplemente te senté en mis piernas y dejé que cayera un poco de agua sobre tu cabeza,” she says. “Al bebé no le va a gustar bañarse al principio, pero cuando ya sea grande no querrá que la saques.” She mentions how I giggled when 

I splashed water at her. “Te reías tanto que me hacías reír.”

Maybe I wasn’t raised by wolves, as my sister and I like to joke. Talking to my mom, at least, confirms this. She gives sane advice and reminds me that I was not her first baby. She always repeats that if it was not for her, my tia, Mary, would have been abandoned to the wind.

She’s sleeping on my chest now. I don’t know if she had enough to eat, but I know better than to wake her at this hour. She also burped. A sign of success, I suppose. My partner is out in the living room waiting until I need help calming her. I’m not surprised he’s good at this, the same way he knows what to say when I’m in my darkest moments. It makes sense that he would be the balm to our cries. Her head falls on my boob and I don’t want to move, but I’m starting to get cramps. I finally wrap her in a saint swaddle, and she looks adorable. I lay her in the bassinet after a few sways. She doesn’t seem remotely close to waking up.

Sometimes there’s peace, other times, I can’t quiet her fussing. That’s when I question this endeavor of being a mom and doubt my motherly instincts. Was I raised by wolves? I ask myself when I roughly pick her up. Other times I’m too gentle when burping her. Or I didn’t wait until she was fully asleep to set her down, and now she hates me. I don’t think I have a difficult baby, but I complain then remind myself I shouldn’t complain. But this is all new and no one is used to getting their nipple chomped down on at two-hour intervals. I’m mad for feeling mad for not having all the answers. I fear one day I’ll make a terrible mistake.

I pay attention to the way she gets excited, and wiggles around, putting her hands near her mouth as if devising an evil plan, but after the cuteness, there’s just feeding. I dislike the sensation, so I mask it by reading election crap. It’s not as painful as before, since her latch is bigger, and I’ve grown accustomed to it. Like a pecking warbler with the occasional tiny bee sting. No, more like a mini vacuum with the occasional bee sting. I love watching her hands as they wrap around me, how eventually, her grasp loosens as she dozes off, staying effortlessly on my chest like a cloud. 

I want her to function like clockwork, but she doesn’t always sleep after feeding. Sometimes she’s fully awake and wants to be walked around the house in case she’s missed a corner, a shadow, or wait a minute, a floor that is black and white. I forgot we had that. I have to learn to accept the good with the bad, to work around her confusion and my discomforts, to find the humor like my partner does. “She’s a walker just like her mom,” he says.

Week 3 

My partner’s auntie came to visit with her daughter. We tried to tidy the place as best we could. I practically threw my clothes in the closet and finished nursing by the time they arrived.

When they saw the baby, they oohed and aahed while I worried if my shirt was wet. Auntie hugged me, and asked how I was doing. I gave my usual answer: “Things are better now. It was rough the first two weeks.” Saying those words makes me think it will be sunshine and rainbows from now on, but really, it’s just a gradual progression where new issues arise, some less comical than others.

Auntie mentioned her two pregnancies; her trials and tribulations with nursing semi-embarrassing her daughter. “I breastfed all day. Started with one breast, then went to the other, then fell asleep,” she said, making me laugh at her honesty about the messiness and how you have to roll with it.

“Do you watch her sleep?” 

“Sometimes,” I said, sounding emotionless.

“I would watch her all day. Look at that cute face!” 

“I guess.” 

“Have you tasted it? It’s sweet, right?” 

“It tastes bland to me.”

She laughed. But maybe that was just my milk. She told me if I ever needed help, I could ask her, from washing dishes to cleaning. She only asked for one favor in return. A venti coffee latte with coconut milk. I told her I could give her a gift card, but she insisted on one drink, nothing more.

As I drive down rows of cars, I keep thinking I’m not doing enough at the right time. My head feels messy. A sense of confidence emerges but fades. There’s a poetry reading tonight. It seems absurd to read poems when there’s a crying baby and I have to feed it. Even the lines that play in my head from any poem I intend to write sound nonsensical, with the importance of crumbs. It’s absurd that I should even want to go out—there’s no point to anything but her right now. 

I’m finally at Target, and my car is stuck between two others in a tight parking space. Why did I come here again? My shirt already showing wet patches signaling time to feed I let it trickle down my stomach, cold tickled stretching out minutes while she naps how far can I stretch it enough to describe weeks since I cleaned my keyboard and picked out the crumbs, a sauce stain on the shift key.

They weren’t lying about the haze. It’s difficult to remember any tasks when the baby is cluster feeding. She’s so precious, it breaks me when she cries. I think everything is my fault. Worst of all is when I change her diaper. It’s like I’m inflicting pain. I want her to be clean, but I don’t know if I’m taking too long, or if the wipes are too cold. My partner reminds me that she’s a baby and that’s what they do. “Follow the list of things that could be bothering her. Is she hungry, sleepy, burpy, or is her diaper soiled?” Now that he’s off work, we’re able to clean, and the baby is less fussy. Also, I’m not the only one carrying her around, which can be painful. The scar hurts when I rise abruptly, as if my skin is tearing. I can feel the stitching. I can feel my anger over it.

She makes faces. A pouty mouth, half smiles, her eyes slightly open somewhere in light sleep. She’s like a tiny kitten or bunny with big gray eyes. To her, my face is probably still blurry, mostly sound and touch.

When it’s time to feed she’ll start tasting her hands and blocking my boob. At first, I thought she preferred her hands to my breast. My biggest fear was that she wouldn’t want to breastfeed, especially as we offered her formula in the hospital, because she lost weight. I’m paranoid about making a mistake to the point of annoying my partner with questions. Sometimes it’s warranted, like when he wanted to use a baby sling not meant for newborns or when he let the baby sleep on the couch. Or worse, when he let her sleep on the Bjorn unattended inside the crib. He agreed those were bad ideas. For the most part he knows what he’s doing. He remembers things I forget, like doing tummy time, quieting her with his bounce steps, while trying to bring joy to the house. Sometimes I get annoyed with his cheerleader schtick, because it makes me sadder. It feels like a chore to be happy. I want to be on auto pilot—a neutral zone where I don’t get distracted.

Finding creative ways of soothing the baby brings me joy: singing nursery songs, dancing, being a shhh noise machine, using the bouncy ball, or just having her stare out the window, day or night. After going to the pediatrician, who assured us she was gaining enough weight and was healthy after checking her reflexes, I have more confidence.

Some days it feels odd having a baby. “I don’t feel adult enough,” I tell my partner as he raises the baby like Simba from The Lion King, cue music. Another day he raises her toward the ceiling fan, which startles me, but then I realize it’s off. The baby worships this mechanical object, opening her eyes wide to see its angles against the white paint. We only have eyes for her, but she only has eyes for the ceiling fan. There are corners of humor and joy. Some days I find them. There’s a healthy baby and a kind partner waiting for me.

Week 2 

To watch her sleep is an eternity in a dew drop. To soothe someone else you have to know how to soothe yourself.

I tell myself not to give up, to keep trying. I don’t want to believe she cries less with him. Somehow, he finds a way to bring her back with his bounces. I soon discover she’s easily lulled by back massages. On the last gulp, as she falls to sleepy land, she smiles a mischievous smile. It’s a gradual love that appears in unexpected moments.

I haven’t written anything of substance since before she was born. I took my journal to the hospital, but my body was occupied trying to birth a baby, so there was no space. And with all my physical and mental energy drained, I just wanted to rest, take care of her, and recover. Now that we’re back home, writing still seems unnecessary. I want to give myself to sleep and breastfeeding until I pass out. 

I recently peeked at my scar for the first time. I wasn’t even sure what I was staring at. For a minute, I thought it was just the clear film, but then I saw a burnt reddish line just under my belly flop. A thin line where they cut me so she would come out. I want it to stay hidden in its grossness, so I don’t have to think about it.

My sister called while I grabbed Nutella from the shelf at Target. Her misadventures at home distracted me from the present. I floated down the aisles, watching people carrying some semblance of happiness, until some teens walked by saying, “Watch out for the señora,” and I realized they were talking about me. Teens have a way of making you feel worse.

Standing behind the pickup counter, there was a woman carrying her smiley eight- or ten-month-old. How I wished to be there already. The baby’s hair in a thin half ponytail standing up all silly-frilly.

I assumed loving her would be automatic, like a switch, but maybe it didn’t happen because I had a C-section. I cried, but more so because she was alive and healthy. “It’s a girl!” the doctor said, raising her above the sheet covering the surgery. It didn’t sink in with all the commotion and the pressure on my abdomen. I had kept the sex of the baby a surprise though I felt it would be a girl. Even my little nieces had predicted this. My partner cried too, his hand always catching mine. 

Week 1

In the morning, I shiver and crave her warmth. Search for her in the dark even though my body is sore. I want her to hold me, because I cannot hold myself together.

Was I tricking myself into believing I was in pain when it wasn’t really painful? None of this is hard. Countless women have done it and my pain is no different. I’m exaggerating when I could easily get up. But I can’t ignore the stitches pulling every time I rise from the bed, the twisting and turning. I’m a lowly creature cast into infancy. Who is the lost creature, the newborn or me, without a functioning body, unable to pee, and needing a catheter? Her cries are mine. 

At home, I sink between the baby’s crying and my pain. Getting up at odd hours makes my head foggy and my body aches for stillness. My partner asks me if I can lift his heavy laptop as if he doesn’t believe my pain. “You seemed fine in the hospital,” he says. “All your emotions came out when you made it home.” I don’t know if he’s implying that I was faking it before. But then he says, “Of course I believe you. You couldn’t even walk to the bathroom.” 

“If my body was at a hundred percent, I would be moving around, cleaning, taking the baby upstairs,” I tell him on the verge of tears. “But I’m not!”

I broke down when I got home. All the comforts gone. The nurses, the pills, the bed with the up and down buttons, my family and their gifts, their presence comforting me. When the nurses came in they always asked, “What’s your pain level?” I try to remember the nurses’ names: Vanny, Marissa, Krista, Rachel, one I can’t remember. There was a nurse who took out my catheter. I told her I was sad about having gone through a C-section, especially after laboring through the night. “This is not what I wanted,” I confessed. “There’s a time to grieve your labor. It’s okay to acknowledge that it wasn’t ideal,” she said, implying I didn’t have to pretend to be happy.

I had a mostly normal pregnancy, though positive for gestational diabetes, but it was under control. I changed my diet and still ended up with a C-section. She was brought into this world by the hands of a doctor, not my birth canal. A part of my role was taken away. Fucking induction stressed me and baby out. My water broke so fast, and the baby’s heart kept decelerating. The whole thing was a ploy for a C-section. My partner tells me to be careful with my conspiracy theories, but fuck that. I blame the babymoon in Peru and eating ice cream. I blame myself.

I cradle her in my arms and don’t know how to calm her. I have to carry her and lift myself up from the bed through the pain. I don’t know how to stop her from crying, just as I don’t know how to console myself. The nurse’s words play in my head: only carry as much as your baby’s weight. Seven pounds and seven ounces. I want to crawl inside a closet, crawl into a ball and never straighten out. How do people have more than one baby?

On Friday night, I get her to sleep on my own. I hold her in a hello world position, and it stops her from crying. I carry her to the rocking chair, and she falls asleep in my arms.

“What nursery songs do you know in Spanish?” I ask my mom, dad, and sister in the hospital. My mom murmurs, “Un elefante se balanceaba sobre la tela de una araña.” I follow along as I bounce the baby, but can’t seem to quiet her long enough, so my mom tries swaying her like a swing, and the baby seems to forget her troubles.

I breastfed a couple times and it wasn’t a total disaster. The C-section is done. My family is here. The baby is crying as my partner puts a shirt on her and I think I won’t be able to take care of her. My sister sways a toy over her face, but she doesn’t care for plushy toys at this moment. My mom looks over with a critical eye as my partner swaddles and bounces our baby girl. She seems annoyed that she isn’t given full rein. After all, she’s the expert. She competes with my partner while I stare, nodding. Too many cooks in the kitchen.

I’m anxious for it to begin. We waited all night going through contractions that never led anywhere. I’ve already given in to the epidural. I’ve dealt with worse than their pierced needles in my back. The wait is long as they get the room ready for surgery. When I enter, it’s hellishly bright, like being on stage with a thousand eyes watching you, except their hands carry scalpels. The horror movie begins as they cut. Stripped for parts while fully awake. Soon my partner joins the room, and holds my hand. The anesthesiologist tries to distract me. “What color is the nursery?” “Mint,” I say.

She looks at the world around her, the rushed colors, some hunger in the sense of wanting to live. With a voracious appetite, she grabs my nipple with a wide mouth, as if it will get taken away. She uses her tiny hands to fight anyone standing in her way. She cries until she finds comfort in the form of a good latch bringing milk. 

When they carry her out she’s a ball bursting with loud cries. Her eyes open. They bring her to me as I’m getting stitched. Fully swaddled and cleaned. Her tiny, pudgy face stares at me quietly now above whatever drama came before. She observes us for the first time, perhaps wondering who we are. I am frozen in this moment. I can’t believe she’s here. “Get close to her,” my partner says. I touch the softness of her cheek.

She smiles when she dreams. I want to know what dreams make her smile.

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Cynthia Via is a journalist, poet, and editor based in the DC area. Originally born in Peru and raised in New York, her work explores gender, culture, everyday absurdism, and the relationship between humans and nature. Her poetry and prose has appeared in Acentos Review, Coffin Bell Journal, and Write or Die, among others. She’s a Tin House and VONA Workshop alumna for fiction and creative nonfiction. During off hours, she spies on birds and ice skates.