Let 'Em Be

Back at this again. No idea how long this blogging streak will last, but I've promised myself that I will get back to writing for ME, so this is it.
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Even before I got pregnant, I knew I wanted a drug-free birth. The prospect didn’t scare me in the least. It’s what women are built to do, I figured. So I took a hypnobirthing class. I practiced visualizations that would help me manage the intensity of the contractions. I got a doula. I was determined. I was ready.

And then Henry wouldn’t come out.  40 weeks and 5 days into my pregnancy (that’s almost one week past my due date), he’d just barely descended, and I wasn’t dilated at all. I’d gone in for the every-other-day amniotic fluid check and fetal nonstress test that are standard when you’re past your due date. 

“Are you leaking fluid? Has your water broken?” the ultrasound tech asked in an excited voice as she viewed the screen. 

“Nope. Nothing. Why?” I asked, a bit alarmed.

“Your fluid is gone. Get to triage now. You need to be induced.”

This was not what I’d signed up for. But I wasn’t too worried. I figured contractions would start at some point, and I’d resume Plan A and have my drug-free birth (well, Pitocin-induced, drug-free birth). But 16 hours into it and with only the teeniest of contractions, I told my doctor I wanted a C-section. Me. The Committed Hypnobirther. I was asking for the highest level of medical intervention possible when it comes to childbirth.

As I lay on the operating table, all drugged up and trying my best not to be terrified about the fact that I was about to undergo major surgery, Dr. Bicalho must’ve done one more pelvic check because she leaned into my face and said, “Kathleen, good call. He is still so far up there, I’m not sure he’d ever have come on his own.”

I recalled my doula’s words during one of our prenatal sessions: Most pregnant women have a vision of the kind of birth they want. But children come into this world with their own intentions. In that moment, it seemed Henry’s intentions were to stay nice and cozy in utero and screw up all my plans.(I know -- what a horrible thing to say. He was born healthy, after all. But I found that gratitude for a healthy child and grief over a lost experience could co-exist.)

My birth experience was my first lesson in relinquishing control. Our children do not come from us; they come through us, said the poet Khalil Gibran. Henry’s birth was just the beginning of the attitude readjustments I’ve had to make since becoming his mother. As an infant, he had reflux, and he and I slept terribly as a result. When he started daycare, he was sick at least twice a month for the next 14 months, and I took every sick day I had, putting me in precarious positions with my employers. Nothing that many other mothers haven't experienced, but this stuff threw me for a loop.

And then came the clinginess.

A very gregarious baby and toddler, Henry (now 4), started to become very clingy in new situations right after he turned 2. Especially in group situations. I first noticed it when we started music classes. He’d cling to my neck, often facing away from the group, sometimes peeking around at them or the teacher. I’d sit there and clap and sing along with most of the rest of the class and their parents, all the while wondering why my kid wasn’t running around in circles or dancing in the middle of the group like some of the other kids. When it was time to get up and march, he wouldn’t let go of me. I had to hold him AND dance around in a circle with the group. It was exhausting and often maddening.  Once, he cried that he wanted to go home. At least once, I left the class in tears. 

When we visited the homes of our playgroup members, he’d behave similarly, sitting on my lap for up to a half hour before he’d finally mosey over to a toy. I started telling myself to get used to it. If we were going to someone’s house, I needed to be ready to hold him on my lap for the first 30 minutes. It was part of the deal.

But by the time he was 3, he seemed more comfortable venturing into group situations. Gradually though. Henry’s always been Mr. Ease-In-Slowly. As you’ve probably surmised, he’s not the kid who bursts into a room at full speed or dances around by himself in the middle of a crowd. 

Recently, though, the clinginess has come back. Several days in a row this month, we hit the park, as we usually do on the weekends when the weather cooperates. He usually runs toward the slide or sometime stands next to me, surveying the scene, but then quickly takes off for the jungle gym. 

But not this time, and not the next day, and not last weekend either. The first two times, he stayed right next to me. He didn’t want to play with his little friend Laura, who’d come in with her mom from Oak Park to hang with us. He didn’t want to go down the slide or climb up the jungle gym or do any of the park things he usually does. He wanted to stay right by me. Last weekend, he ventured out on his own only when I promised to be right there next to whatever he wanted to climb on.

And then there were the birthday parties. Since he started preschool in August, he’s been invited to at least 15, all attended by his little preschool friends. Henry is a social kid who doesn’t usually gravitate toward any particular classmate; he likes them all. Which is why I was puzzled when he wouldn’t leave my side at nearly every party. The worst came at The Little Gym, where two of his friends have hosted their birthday parties in the last 6 months. The Little Gym requires all party participants to remove shoes and socks. 

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Henry screeched upon hearing this request.

“What? What’s wrong?” I searched his little face. He looked terrified.

“I don’t want to take off my socks. I DON'T WANT TO!”

Since he turned 3, Henry has shown a strong preference for having his feet covered. About the only time I can get him to forego the socks is when we’re at the beach. I’ve chalked it up to mild sensory issues. It doesn’t interfere with his day-to-day, so I’m not worried.

But this was extreme. No amount of encouragement, soothing or persuasion did the trick. Several of his friends came out to ask him why he wasn’t playing with them. It didn’t matter. Henry spent both parties on my lap, watching through a window as his friends bounded over balance beams and leapt across the floor. I could sense the internal conflict he was experiencing: He sooo wanted to join them, but his fear – whatever the source -- of running around in his bare feet trumped that desire. 

I struggled to contain my impatience. I wanted to hang out with the other parents, unencumbered, for an hour. I had not signed up to hold my 37-pound, writhing four-year-old on my lap for an hour – a four-year-old who interrupted me every time I tried to partake in the conversations around me. I felt my blood pressure rise. 

“Why is my child so neurotic?” I wondered silently.

But he’s not neurotic. At least not any more than any other preschooler. He’s Henry. He’s careful. Cautious. Playful. Independent. Highly imaginative and prefers to direct activities rather than be directed. Can focus on a task for quite some time all by himself (god bless you, Henry, for I know not how I would get things done if you were always asking for my attention!). But some of his tendencies present themselves so suddenly and so intensely that I’m thrown for a loop over and over.  And I have to continuously remind myself that Henry is who Henry is. He came with his own intentions. And the more I become upset or try to push him beyond his comfort level, I—his number-one source of security and comfort – will make him feel all that much more insecure.

The truth is, I am very much like Henry. I am slow to warm up to certain experiences. I don’t like diving in head first (literally or figuratively). I was never the physically adventurous kid. Many times, I felt the tension – no, the pain – of simultaneously wanting so badly to join my friends in something fun but instead cozying up in the safety of the sidelines. I was the kid who climbed backward down the steps of the tall, twisty slide because once I got up there, I was terrified of sliding down. And I hated that about myself. So it’s the last part of my personality that I want Henry to inherit. I want him to be unafraid and adventurous. But here we are. Like mother, like son. And I remind myself that his – our – tentativeness in unfamiliar situations is our way of processing, taking it all in and carefully deciding how we want to experience a particular moment. Which is far from a bad thing.

So I find patience. And I immerse myself in gratitude – for Henry.  For all that he is and all he will become. He is my child. He came through me, not from me. And my job is to honor every part of him by simply letting him be.