Sunsets and Rainbows 11/03/2010 - By Jenny Hardy
Sunsets and Rainbows
An honest and intimate look at motherhood by inspiring author and mother Jenny Hardy.
I was told that the love I would feel for my baby will be deep and profound. And that’s true. But what they didn’t mention is that this love isn’t the sunsets and flowers romantic ideal, it’s more of a “Get Out a Restraining Order” kind of situation. I am obsessed. And I believe I have to be. No one else can take care of her like I can. No one else loves her like I do. Does that sound scary? That’s because it is. I’ve become a stalker. She is always on my mind. How much sleep has she had? What has she eaten today? What is the colour of her poo? And if she is away from me I may sneak a phone call to ask ‘what is she wearing?’ She is the first thing I think of when I wake up (if she isn’t what has woken me up then I have to question why she isn’t awake yet…) and before I can relax enough to fall asleep I have to work out if she is warm enough. We are told that they need one more layer than we do. So I lay in bed imagining myself wearing a fluffy pink all in one, with one cellular blanket, and wondering if I would be cold. And just like a stalker it often feels like the love is unrequited. In the beginning she barely knew I existed. I was interesting until the next bright shiny object passed into her field of vision. I would leave the room and she wouldn’t notice. But like a pathetic wretch, I hung off every scrap of recognition or morsel of affection that passed my way. Did she just look at me? Was that a smile? Even the pain of being scratched and poked recedes into the background as I enjoyed her first attempts to reach out to touch me. Then one day she looked up at me, held my gaze, smiled and whispered sweet nothings in the form of gurgles and gahs. Then I was hooked for ever. So I will say that the love a mother feels for their baby is deep and profound. It is a love that finds its way into your subconscious. It gets into your DNA. Your consciousness is now shared with some one else. Even when you are asleep a part of your mind is still awake and listening for them, the slightest murmur can drag you from the depths of a desperately needed slumber, meanwhile your partners voice, alarms clocks and sirens can not rouse you. Some mothers describe waking just before their baby wakes. As though they are some how linked to each other. The rationale sceptic inside of me argues that a slightest noise has woken them with out them realising it, and they lay awake in anticipation of hearing more. But if you have experienced it, you know that is not the case. But I will let you in on the other side of the love coin. The bit they don’t tell you about, but you start to suspect when you hear about people who have battled with depression after the birth of a child. With this depth of love comes the accompanying anxiety. Some one you love that much is helpless and totally dependant on you. You can no longer only be concerned with your own needs, desires and bodily urges to take care of. You can’t feel their hunger or their exhaustion, so you have to keep a constant watch. If you don’t, you will be greeted with a screaming baby who is so over tired, hungry and distressed that they can’t sleep, eat or settle. It is a preoccupation. An obsession. There are only windows of time where you allow yourself to fully relax, only when the babies needs have been checked off the list. Still there is an ever constant clock ticking in your mind, keeping track of the last feed, the last nap, the last nappy change. The count down until when you will be called upon once again. At no time does the clock stop ticking, you are always on guard, even if it is the count down to when your shift will start, the time is always moving. It is as though before I had my baby I could see the colours of the rainbow. Now I have the joy of seeing the ultra violet that sits just beyond the last visible shade of purple. And on the other side of the spectrum is the invisible, intense and ever present infrared. These are the life altering highs and lows that come with being responsible for something so precious.
