The Biggest Impact

In a self-improvement class I recently failed, we were asked to write about the moment that had the biggest impact on our lives. This is what I wrote.

“Don’t you want to hold him?”

If he asked me that one more time, I would kick him. Even in the compromising and restrained position, I still could have mustered up enough strength to break a leg free and get him in the head.

The nurse had picked up on my frame of mind and offered him instead to his father. And he was panicked - holding him like one would a tray of food, in sort of half-outstretched arms away from his chest, as if to make sure he wasn’t fully committing to the responsibility. (A sign of things to come.)

He kept looking at me disapprovingly, too. I was the mother, after all. I should want to slobber all over him. Of course I would. Any mother would. But I didn’t.

I was given the aftermath treatment while the nurse retrieved him from Dad to wrap him in fresh blankets and top him off with a baby-blue knit hat. Then, she gingerly set him down beside me on the bed. “Why don’t ya’ll just sit by each other for a little bit”, she suggested. He looked like a tiny doll of a person with closed eyes that were more like two slits between red, flaky, wrinkled fleshy cheeks. And it didn’t move. In fact, it seemed barely alive. This was it? All that pain? All those months? For this? I felt nothing.

Then, we were wheeled back to our room and forced into a whir of activity, with nurses from every direction bringing me baby this after baby that, each with long lists and instructions.

Just when I thought it was over, Nurse Evil #8000 came in with feeding supplies. “Okay, here we go!! Baby’s first bottle!!! You ready?”

I raised my eyebrows to question her sanity, and the bitch snickered. I swear she did. She said, “Aw, you two will be just fine. Have fun!” And she left!! Imagine. It’s like she didn’t care one bit about this baby.

We were alone. Dad had gone to make phone calls or watch TV or who knows what. It was just us. (Second sign of the life to come.) And still, I felt nothing. He drank the whole bottle, never moving or opening his eyes. I fell asleep, too, but I must have had the decency to hold onto him, because when someone came to whisk him off to officially be registered with the human race, neither of us had moved. (Not that he could’ve gone far on his own – I just mean that he wasn’t on the floor in a puddle of head injury blood or anything.)

“You’re taking him away?” I asked, trying not to sound excited.

“Yes, dear, but just for a few minutes,” she said.

“Oh, no hurry,” I said on the outside. “Kidnap him. In the name of all that is decent and holy, I’m begging you to kidnap him,” I screamed on the inside.

I was alone. I could breathe. I felt like my normal self again. I wanted to go home. Well, I actually wanted to turn back time, but going home was second best. And just as I began to feel comfortable again, here he came, still wrapped like a big ol’ sausage rolling around in his shiny acrylic cart.

“Back so soon?” I asked.

This nurse just ignored me - didn’t even have the decency to snicker like the other one. He, on the other hand, tilted his head toward me, opened his eyes, smiled, and then laughed. Laughed! The outside world would say this was gas or some other bodily fluke, but, for me, it was just what I needed. I am still convinced that this kid totally got the sarcasm. He was letting me know that he wasn’t any happier about this situation than I was and, had he been born 50 and Don Rickles, would’ve sniped, “Seriously? Her again? I’m going to need to talk to somebody about this.”

In that flicker of a moment, we connected. I was his, and he was suddenly mine. All mine and just mine. He would become the love of my life, and I would become his mom. Whether we liked it or not.