Bringing Up Mommy: Only a mother can do this -- on giving birth Sept 28, 1988

An excerpt from my collection of 
newspaper columns, Bringing Up Mommy,

written 23 years ago, posted now in honor of the birth day of 

Christopher Harkness Hook 23 years ago, Sept. 28, 1988.

                                                                                    ---Photo by Ginger Pinson
 

During her pregnancy, a woman reads a lot of books and talks to a lot of mothers as she searches for answers: How will I know when it's time for the baby to come? What will I feel? Will it hurt? Can I do this? She clings go mothers who had good experiences, hoping for the same.

And yet, as author and childbirth educator Fritzi Kallop says in her "Birth Book":
"As inconvenient as it is to have labor begin spontaneously, it seems fitting to have inexplicable forces controlling one of the most important events in life. Scientists may marvel as they observe the wonders of our farflung universe; it is equally miraculous to contemplate the birth of a child. Not one is ever routine."

At some point, then, the mommy hopeful realizes there aren't any answers. Her experience is hers, alone, to endure.

I began feeling the intensity of this predicament two weeks before my baby was due. Big and tired, I had decided to take maternity leave from my job as a newspaper reporter to rest up for the days and weeks ahead. I thought I might enjoy this respite, sitting at home with my feet up, daydreaming about holding my baby for the first time. This was so very much not true, as it turns out. At least at work, I could try to be like everybody else. At home, I was isolated, trapped by Oprah, Beaver and a phone that rang incessantly. "Anything yet?" callers demanded, as if this baby was theirs, not mine.

Finally, on the morning of Sept. 28, while I toddled alone about the confines of my house, I felt the telltale trickle of water. The nurse at the OB's office confirmed what I knew to be true. "Your water has broken."

I must say I was excited as I arrived at the hospital. My husband and I settled into one of those Home and Garden delivery rooms that make you think you're going to have a cocktail party instead of a baby. Time settled into a warp as we lounged toe-to-toe on a mauve sofa under dim lights. We chatted intimately as contraction after contraction passed without a grimace. Perfect. We could have been in a movie for Lamaze.

But, oh, lest a laboring woman get too comfortable, the transition stage of labor, when the cervix opens that last little bit, was only gaining steam. Some women told me they moved up to this "real work" of labor gradually. For me, transition came fast. Nothing in the pregnancy books could have prepared me for the intensity -- or the aloneness I felt.

I remember thinking I was the only one who could do this. I remember wishing I hadn't said I didn't want an epidural. I remember getting up on all fours because the baby wasn't getting enough oxygen. I remember feeling scared. I remember forceps.

I especially remember my husband dropping his head to my shoulder and whispering, "Thank God" when we were told, "You have a healthy son."

Then he was gone. Because the cord had been around his chest, they whisked my baby into the nursery before I could look into his eyes, count his toes, feed him.

I didn't get to "bond." Steve didn't get to cut the cord. I didn't feel any of those miraculous feelings.

The experience I had anticipated for months was over, my baby was gone and so was my husband, who went to stand by the nursery window. And I was left alone with the clean-up crew who mopped up my body and wheeled me into a room where I choked down half a dry turkey sandwich and made a few phone calls. My husband came in and out of the room. He said I still looked pregnant.

Time settled into a warp again until sometime after dark, when Steve poked his head inside the door and said I had a visitor.

I grimaced then, wondering who would be coming to see us now.

Steve opened the door wide. A nurse came in, pulling a tiny cart behind her.

I cried out loud as my baby was laid in my arms while his father looked on.

There had been nothing in the books to prepare me for the feelings I had then, either.

I was not alone anymore.

~

And you? What will you do for Mother's Day?

Yesterday was Everything Mother.

Child 1 graduated from college.

I threw a party for him.



















Child 2 went to prom activities at the high school. After the party,
I went to the prom and shot pictures
of the Homecoming Court and friends
for the local newspaper.














About midnight, having been up and mobile for about 17 hours
without sitting down, except when I sat and cried at college
graduation, I climbed into bed with my laptop and pictures
to edit, but not before seeing Child 3 return home, his having
been gone to a three-day choir competition in a neighboring state.

This morning: I think there are about 10 teenagers with Child 2 in the
basement, preparing to go home to their mothers.
Child 1 is helping one of his professors move this morning.

But after that, they're all here, like my own Mother's Day court, ready to do my beck and call. Still not sure what we'll do today. Don't really care, just so long as we're together. Maybe a walk in the beautiful spring sunshine. Maybe after that, nothing.The best part of my children being with me on

Mother's Day is that I know they are resting.
They -- we all -- go so hard and so fast. It comforts me when they are still.

And you? What about you? Who will be with you today, and what will you do? Strawberries and cream in bed? Homemade cards? Or just lots of hugs and good wishes? I hope if you don't see all your children today, you at least hear from them, and that they are kind and thoughtful and remembering that this is your day...Don't forget to call your own mother, if she is here on Earth with you. No matter your differences or past grievances. Today is a new day. Today is Mother's Day...

Every day is Mother's Day

"

My husband's father used to tease him when he would ask how come there's no Children's Day. "Every day is Children's Day,"  he'd say.

I wonder what he would say if he knew that I believe every day is Mother's Day.

~

This is not just because I have three wondrous children who lay out life's rich pageant for me every day.

~  

It is because of what and who motherhood has made me. It is because of the lessons in selflessness, tolerance, patience and boundless love that motherhood has taught me. It is because, in learning to interact with the people I cherish most in the world, I have become a better person in every area of my life, every day of my life. Through them and with them, on the pottery wheel of motherhood, my misshapen soul  has been molded into an expression of life I might otherwise not have known.

Happy Mother's Day to me. And Happy Children's Day to Chris, Emily and Benjie. 

It is, after all, their day, too. ~

Bringing Up Mommy: One more trick-or-treat

DEBRA-LYNN HOOK
BRINGING UP MOMMY
MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS
-------------

Looks like my family might have one more trick-or-treat in its repertoire.

He's 13, he's the youngest of my three, and he wants to be an Avatar.

I don't tell him that visions of the blue people from the 2009 movie have given me a two-Advil headache ever since he announced his choice. Or that I have a co-dependent relationship with Halloween costumes in general.

He needs a bow and arrow, he tells me. No, he needs a spear. He needs his skin to be blue, and kind of glittery in the face. He needs slanted eyes and pointy ears.

He tells me what he needs.

What I need is therapy to find out why I believe Halloween costumes are the measure of a mother's worth. Just as in past years when all three children simultaneously requested the most complicated costumes from my inadequate hands, I still don't know how to sew on a machine. I refuse, like my mother before me, to buy store-bought costumes and masks, or to send my children off to the dress-up box to do-it-yourself.

And yet, I want the perfect costume, the perfect fantasy - the perfect childhood moment - which leaves me every October, and then some, quietly agonizing, then apologizing, while they dream about the number of Reese's Cups they will collect in their pillow cases.

I tell myself this year I'm not going to reach for the stars or even the perfect shade of Avatar blue. I will, in chance moments, saunter around the costume and fabric shops, until I find adequate-enough supplies. I will, in perfect harmony with human limitations, accept my Singer-less self by joyfully, calmly, stitching whatever needs sewing by hand.

Mostly I will find happiness in my intimate attachment to this hallowed of all childhood-pretend days, which threatens to disappear from my repertoire, like sippy cups and tire swings and the blue stool in front of the bathroom sink.

"When did Emily and Chris quit trick-or-treating?" he wanted to know the other day about his older brother and sister, who are 22 and 18.

"I think they were 14 or 15," I said.

I don't really know the answer for sure. But if 14 or 15 will keep him trick-or-treating one more year, that's what I choose to say. That's what I choose to believe, much like I believe I will one day quit being a perfectionist mother.

One more trick-or-treat.

One more fantasy costume in a reality-show world.

One more opportunity for me to enjoy all of Halloween, including the lead-up, including the pure privilege of putting together a costume that means one of my children is just that, my child for whom I am responsible.

One more Oct. 31, patting the ears in place and the blue paint not too thick, then hurrying him out the door to join the Batmen, Dorothys and ghosts of the world.

One more pot of chili simmering on the stove, waiting for him and his friends to come flying back in the door, some of them flying for real on Harry Potter brooms.

One more watching in the living room, while he and his friends dump their candy in separate piles, and then begin trading Milky Ways and Three Musketeers, Mary Janes, candy corn and pennies.

One more year of me sidling into his room midday while he is at school, to steal my favorites from his pillow case, and hope he doesn't notice because, I justify, he has too much anyway.

One more opportunity to hear him, in the still-sweet voice of a boy still young enough to look past the imperfection of his mother: "Thank you, Mom, for doing such a nice job on my costume."

One more childhood moment.

Unless he decides next year that 14 isn't too old either.

And I will gladly be imperfect again.