Baby Seal
The part of parenting I hate the most: the times I’ve had to force you to receive medical care against your will. You are terrified of the medical world and understandably so. We’ve suffered traumas there from day 1. And again at 7 months and again, twice just in the last 2 months. And I don’t know how to process it. Or how to help you process it. I hate that there comes a time in the hospital visit when I have to become the bad guy, switch from being your safe haven to the one restraining you so the doctors can give you the shot/ blood draw/ IV/ catheter/ nebulizer your body needs. I sing our song in your ear, trying to meet your cries, not knowing if they’ll make their way to you. I pray you will forgive me.
You were born so brilliantly aware of yourself and your surroundings, unlike any baby I’d ever encountered. It felt like you were an adult trapped in a baby’s body, shocked and frustrated by your sudden lack of agency.
I wish that I could just offer you more agency- the self possession you are so set upon. I had imagined, before you were born, that I would be able to. That I’d be the kind of parent who would teach you that you own your body and I’d teach you that with my words and actions and modeling. But that is not what is going on here, is it? What am I teaching you in these horrible moments when you are protesting like your life depends on it and I say, “I know it’s scary, Baby, but it’s safe, it will help you feel better. Almost ‘all done.’ I know. Almost ‘all done.’” And on the inside I am thrashing and screaming too.
It’s 4am and I can’t sleep. I can’t shake the image of your little face squished up against the nebulizer mask yesterday, kicking and screaming with all the energy your sick little body could muster. I can’t shake the sickening feeling of wrestling you. I turn on my light and pick up my book to try to convince my mind that everything is fine.
I’m reading Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals by Alexis Pauline Gumbs. I read:
“The mother Weddell seal will push her baby into the water against her will. She will force her child’s head into the water while the baby coughs and sputters and struggles and squirms. She is new here. She does not know that she can breathe underwater. Until she does. And then everything changes…. As the Weddell seal grows she will shed her fur, become sleek. She will feel completely at home in the ocean she avoided. She will see and feel things no other mammal has felt. But right now she is coughing and spitting and clinging to what she has known. She feels like she is drowning, but she’s just meeting herself again for the first time.”
“The tough love of the Weddell seal mother teaches a lesson between what is cute and what is necessary. What has been and what could be. And I am grateful for all of my mothers… who would shock me into knowing my capacity, trust my lungs more than I thought I could. To breathe in ways I haven’t breathed before. To learn my blood in ways I didn’t know.”
I pray, God, that these experiences help my baby expand, not contract. I pray that she knows that she is held with so much love and respect, that her well-being is all we want, that we would never ever intend to do anything to hurt her and we are trying our very hardest to lessen the hurt. I pray she knows she is safe in our care and that we are making the best choices we can for her as her guardians. I pray we are earning her trust, by the way we are with her before, during, and after these spikes. I pray she continues to feel at home in her body and doesn’t lose her voice. I pray that I learn how to navigate these new waters with integrity and self compassion, to hear my intuition clearly through the hailstorm of medical chaos. I pray that I expand from these experiences, not contract. May this make me a stronger, smarter, bigger mama. May it grow my capacity for hard times. May I find ways to soften and receive the good times into my nervous system too. As the Great Mother pushes my head under water, may I learn to surrender and trust her too. I’m learning how to breathe underwater- it’s scary but I have it in me.
It feels so vulnerable to share this. Will people think I’m traumatizing my baby? That I’m lying to myself if I think I’m doing the right thing? That they would never do what I did? I guess that’s my inner critic/fear talking: Maybe I did do the wrong thing, maybe I am screwing up my baby and our relationship, I have no idea what I’m doing I’m just as terrified as she is. I’m new here. I am doing my best to honor and serve my baby with the utmost respect and love. I am humbly asking for grace from whoever reads this. Myself included.
It can’t be a coincidence that I picked up that passage. My baby’s comfort object is a plush baby seal. (Harp, not Weddell, but still.) She clung to him yesterday at the urgent care as she does in any challenging moment. Thank you seal spirit for being our talisman, our guide, and our comfort in hard times.
— Ellie L.