Tiny Stargazer

I started writing this post towards the end of October, as I began to stir and emerge from the blur of the first few weeks. I remember turning the page of my calendar and realising with a physical shock that the month was almost over. I’d barely noticed it had begun.

We did go out, several times, during that period. But all I was really ready for was to curl up on the couch with my baby in my arms, to watch sunlight dance across the deck, bold Spring light, against the immense blue of the sky, the intense green of the trees, to let my body recalibrate, readjust, my mind rest. I lived from one moment to the next as I cannot remember ever having done before, letting day melt into night melt into day. And all the while in such a state of elation. A counterpoise perhaps to the weeks of restlessness that had come before. It was more than a month before my mind started to turn outward again.

Our little son is now several months old. He arrived late in the evening of our second day in hospital and I sat up all night cradling him, breathing him in, falling and falling in love with every tiny wonderful detail. The moment he emerged was as though a cloud were lifted: an immediate intense joy, that has been present ever since. A little like the warm heady rush you get from a drink stronger than you anticipated: everything a little sharper and brighter, your body alive with an energy you could never summon alone. I remember waiting, watching, for it to fade and recede, being aware that others could sense it in me. Gradually, over the course of weeks, I stopped waiting; I feel it still.

I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you to have a normal delivery, my obstetrician said a few days later, on a postnatal round. The wee stargazer had other ideas.

Stargazer, medical slang for a baby presenting in the occiput posterior position. It brought to mind the words of Oscar Wilde, one of those moments where everything suddenly feels exactly as it was meant, or always going, to be.

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere’s Fan

By the time I came to, the pink of Spring was over. The magnolia next door was the freshest of greens, our plum and apple were in leaf, the toons had been and gone. The next wave of colour had arrived and the shadows of the trees were long on evening walks. And still I was happy just sitting with my baby in the shadows of our lounge, watching the light filter through layers of green, the deck dappled puddles of blue. But at the weekends K and I began to recover what the past nine months had robbed us of: long walks outside, unhampered by that pervasive exhaustion that pregnancy had brought. Rapidly I realised that sleep deprivation feels different. Not that it is not hard. But different from the stale depressing depletion of the previous nine months. I never want to forget how alive I felt on those first trips out: to Duder, the Hunua Ranges, our favourite place to eat. It was as though I was feeling it all for the very first time again: the cool damp of the bush, the rustle of the poplars, shrill shouts of birdsong, a warm delicious breeze. I felt my ribcage re-expand, making room for everything that had become so distant and small. The pink gave way to a green studded with white and gold: maanuka, daisies, buttercups, jasmine, wisteria – many more. And then the rain arrived.

I started writing this post in October, I picked it up again in November, and here we are now at the turn of the year, the last days of December. I’m writing as my baby sleeps in his frontpack carrier, snuggled into my flannel shirt. My marsupial boy. The summer solstice is behind us, henceforth the days will shorten. The fourth trimester is over, and we have fallen into some kind of rhythm, although everything changes still every day. Finally, after weeks of heavy humid grey, a few days of sun. The jacarandas are magnificent, the roads a riot of blue and white agapanthi. Hedgerows are dripping in bougainvillea, pavements scarlet from the Pohutukawa. I have great hopes (- as always! – ) for what lies ahead. Hopes, but also a degree of dread and fear, even a sense of grief already, too. I’d like to make an effort to document these days, this season of life.

Before O was born, I tried to picture what this early time could look like. I imagined us going on long drives and walks together, spending afternoons under the shade of trees, or on picnic rugs at the beach. As he grew older there would be playgrounds to explore, cafes to visit with cabinets full of snacks, treats to save up and savour. We’ve not done too badly. The main wrench in the works has been a great dislike for car journeys: he is quite capable of screaming so hard he can barely breathe for 40 minutes straight. But we’re working on it. Another setback has been the wettest start to summer that I remember in all my years in Auckland, days and days of constant bleak rain. But hopefully we are finally starting to leave that behind.

I knew I would love alone time with O, but I hadn’t realised how much I would also enjoy my time with others: mamas from our antenatal group, friends with babies, friends without. We’ve been going to a really lovely mama and baby yoga class, and doing our own practices at home: I’m delighted at how much he loves hanging out with me on the mat, he gets so excited to join in and play. Every day the weather allows we venture out on an adventure; slowly pushing the boundaries of what is comfortable, for him, for me. Our nights are long and fractured, seemingly one thing after another preventing a good stretch of sleep. But the flip side is hours of reading, cuddling my baby in the crook of my arm, watching dreams light up and flicker across his little face.

Motherhood so far has felt a little like a game. I don’t mean that in a flippant way, but specifically with regard to the mindset approach. I am constantly picking something up and putting something else down, mentally calculating what will fit into the next available gap. Anything I wish to get done has to be chunked into five, ten, fifteen minute bites, juggled with naps, wake windows, portions of the wake windows where baby can be put down, breaks in the rain, sudden bursts of sun, hunger (- his, mine), traffic (- a greater consideration than I ever could have imagined!), exhaustion (- mine, his). It turns out that years of training as a med reg have prepped me very well for this extreme type of energy-deplete multitasking time-management, where the odds are stacked against you and the stakes invariably high. The satisfaction derived from a run of well-filled chunks of time is a kind of stockholm-syndrome-esque high that I suspect only medics will really understand.

Motherhood has felt like a throwback, too. To a less complicated way of living. A peeling back of all the layers accumulated over the past two decades: the complexities of emotional relationships with other adults, the more intellectual pursuits and pleasures, all stripped away. I have such simple love for my baby, such happiness at getting to spend all day just hanging out with him. Our day-to-day is real and tangible. There is no overhanging abstract thought, debate, theory, none of the delayed gratification that I spent years working toward. I can’t say I won’t miss elements of this, but I’m enjoying the change.

Of course we are just muddling along, trying to find our way. I wouldn’t want to give the impression that it has been otherwise. In the past, I would turn my phone off each day after work, only turning it back on again during the morning commute. Six weeks after O was born, I realised with a shock that I had not turned it off once that whole time. In those early days I would trawl the internet in the middle of the night, usually in search of reassurance, and find myself free-falling into ever murkie depths – a deeply unsettling practice that I knew I had to stop. We have had a rough time with sleep from the very beginning, and some nights I get so little that I feel lightheaded and teary all day. With my closest friends and family overseas, despite some really wonderful channels of communication, I occasionally feel deeply achingly alone. And every now and then I remember something from our former life, as it were, and am pierced with a sharp stab of longing. At one stage in those early weeks, with tension high, I realised that all I wanted was a hug – that physical touch somehow so different to anything words could convey. As every new set of parents must, I imagine, we are learning how to navigate a new phase in our relationship, how to adjust to a constant that is – for now – forever changing.

So here we are. My Christmas cards made it into the post, are winging their way towards you. The hectic sensory overwhelm of the holidays is over and the new year has started. My sister and her partner, who had come over to visit us then go travel, have now left Auckland on their own adventure. K and I have some exciting plans of our own in the works, but I am looking forward to a period of calm in between. As always after a long break, it’s good to be back in this space again. Here’s to the next season of writing. The focus of the blog will necessarily evolve, likely in ways I can’t yet predict. But for anyone who enjoys the ride, always very glad to have you following along.

xoxo, and Happy New Year!

– Z(+O)