Except for the repeated psst-whirr-mmm of the window air conditioner, all is still. My husband is sleeping soundly in the other room, unaware of my lumbering exit from bed.
It’s 3 a.m., which means time for second dinner — or first breakfast. I’m sitting in the middle of the couch, shoveling cold Pad Thai leftovers into my mouth, letting noodles fall down my chin and slide onto my pregnant belly. I plan to save those belly noodles for dessert.
Wide awake and ravenous, I am simultaneously delighted for an excuse to eat leftovers in the middle of the night, and grumpy because I tried falling back asleep at least 800 times before resigning myself to fridge raiding and couch warming. Pregnancy insomnia is a real butt-kicker.
The noodles in my belly mix with the flopping, rolling creature inside me. He kicks me in the ribs and performs some sort of a barrel roll that makes waves across my stomach. I wonder who he will be — this baby who already keeps me company in the dead of night. I marvel at the life growing inside of me, and I watch and wait for morning.
***
He is better, sweeter, and so much more amazing than I could have ever imagined.
He also cries far more loudly.
The iPhone screen assaults my bleary eyes: 2:07 a.m. I see this hour regularly these days, but it still feels like an out-of-body experience. Somehow, I make the eternal shuffle out of my warm bed to the side of my baby’s crib. He is arching, wailing, begging. I cradle his little body next to mine, and we settle into the rocker by the yellow bookcase. He drinks from me, calms. And when he is back asleep, although I know we’ll do this again in just a few hours, I linger with him on my shoulder for just a moment.
Peace, for now.
As he breathes deeply into my shoulder, I imagine the man he will someday become. I picture him: grown, independent, with his daddy’s charming smile and a few blonde curls. The strength of his little body bursting to its full potential. I know he will someday be his own person, no longer only identified by who his parents are or how many months he’s been alive. No longer fitting on my lap or needing his mama’s nighttime cuddles.
It is at the same time relieving and sad: we won’t do this forever. So we rehearse this scene again and again, each fragmented hour melting into the next.
***
Awake again.
AWAKE. AGAIN.
My life feels like a record stuck on repeat; the same refrain playing all night long for months. Cry, nurse, cry, nurse, cry, throw a pillow at my husband because somehow he can sleep through all this noise, cry again, nurse.
I go to my son almost methodically. The nighttime wraps around us both like a thick, swirling blanket. All I see is blackness; all I feel is baby. I rock back and forth, back and forth — the rhythm of the rocker marking one slow second after another.
Where does my arm end and his body begin?
Where does the night end and the daylight begin?
***
Nearly two years later, that baby and I meet far less often at nighttime. He’s made peace with his crib, and I’ve made peace with my bed. It’s a happy arrangement.
But tonight he stirred after midnight, and then I had to use the bathroom. Hours later, I’m still awake and warming my old spot on the couch. I’d give anything to have Thai leftovers in the fridge, but instead I’m eating crappy pretzels straight out of the bag and praying to get sleepy. Pregnancy insomnia is still a butt-kicker … but I know now it’s only a foretaste of what’s coming.
Already, I see daylight creeping up over the pointed, city rooftops on our street. In just a few hours, I’ll be wearing a baseball hat four sizes too small for my head and a glove that barely fits over my swollen fingers, sweating it out in the August heat as I play catch with my favorite two-year-old. He will yell, “home run!” and dart around the yard in hilarious circles. I’ll cheer him on, weary yet thankful he is happy and growing, with a personality bigger than I could have ever imagined. My days with him are long but beautiful — my love for him grown out of the bond we once forged in the middle of the night.
But as he still sleeps, another baby is practicing jujitsu deep inside my abdomen, demanding my attention. Separated from my arms by only by a layer of fat, a placenta, and a cheap bag of pretzels, she feels at once so close and so hidden. I long for the day when I’ll meet her on the outside, hold her to my chest, and see her in the daytime light.
Yet I know she will be less protected on the outside: more in danger of her brother’s baseball throwing and semi-aggressive cuddling; more exposed to the crazy ride that is life in this world; more vulnerable to the darkness that comes by night and the type of darkness that can come even by day.
So, I mother her here — in the safety of my womb and the stillness of the early morning. She and I are just beginning this tired, wild dance of mother and child, and we will have much to learn in the days and nights ahead. For now, I surrender to the nighttime– letting it invite us to one another– and I watch and wait for morning.
