What Child Is This?

It's no secret that after Jackson's birth, I felt really let down and disappointed. Nothing went as planned. My unmedicated vaginal birth turned into two days of failed induction, followed by a c-section with the much dreaded epidural. Nursing turned into pumping my breasts with a hospital breast pump, since I was separated from Jackson and we couldn't come to each other right away. So I'd sit up in my hospital bed with the big cones attached to each breast, crank up the pump and moo like a dairy cow. Pumping turned into frustration, as each pumping session would yield only droplets of milk, not even enough to make it to the collection bottle. Frustration turned into determination and prayer that God would give me milk. Determination and prayer dissolved into defeat, hurt, and anger.

Through it all, I felt so betrayed by my own body.

And then we sprung Jackson from the NICU on a cold, rainy Wednesday afternoon. We brought him home, and he proceeded to devolve into the angriest, fussiest boy on the planet. He'd scream and wail for hours on end, all night long. At times Hubby and I would take turns having our own little mental breakdowns. Hey, the crying wears on a person. Combine incessant infantile screaming with major parental sleep deprivation and you have a recipe for admission into the local mental institution.

In desperation, we'd take the baby for car rides at 2 am. Grandma bought him a swing, and we bought 2 sets of rechargeable batteries for it, so we would never be without juice for the swing. Sometimes the swing was the only thing that would lull him into a slumber, so I'd set the monitor on the swing's tray and put the receiver next to my pillow. Or, I'd just crash out on the sofa so I could be near to him. Even though I knew I wouldn't be bringing home any Mother Of The Year awards, I let him sleep in his swing A LOT.

His crying never gradually went from slightly fussy to more fussy to starting to cry gently to seriously crying. He went from silent to CODE RED SCREAMING in a matter of nanoseconds. There was literally no chance of catching him before he went to the point of no return.

How could this Demon Spawn be my son?

This wasn't the Baby Jackson that I knew. My Jackson was a happy baby. He loved music and puppies. He calmed down at the sound of my voice. He was easy going and sweet. At least that's how he acted while I was pregnant. I thought I knew him. We had a relationship. We had a thing going, we had a deal.

He totally reneged on his part of the deal!

It was emotionally painful for me. I would sit there at night, holding my screaming son and cry. I would look down into his handsome little face that is a perfect mesh of his father's and mine and feel like I didn't know him at all. It hurt! I wanted to know all about him. I wanted to memorize all his cues and prompts. I wanted to feel like he was an extension of myself, without ever second guessing my understanding of his needs. But this never happened, and it broke my heart. I felt like I wasn't bonding with my baby. Everything I knew about him was wrong, and I had to learn him all over again.

I felt like a tiny stranger had invaded my house and begun bossing me around.

Well, as it turns out, that tiny stranger was a stranger to even himself. He isn't a Demon Child, he is just a baby who was sick and in pain.

So now his medical problem has been addressed, and he is, yet again, a different person. Just when I was getting used to the old one! He is comforted more easily and fusses less angrily. He gently shifts from mildly agitated to slightly fussy to getting angry to really crying. I don't know how to read him. He is, once again, a tiny stranger. It's a frustrating challenge, because it's hard to build a relationship with somebody who changes their color so often.

I don't know who this baby is anymore. It sucks.