Below is an essay from Jessica L., a student of Kate Hopper’s Mother Words class at the Loft Literary Center 

Motherhood and the Potential Hazard of Carpet Fibers 

 I sleep with a baby monitor in my bed. The volume is cranked to high; the steady stream of static blasting in my ear keeps me alert and ready to bolt at the slightest stirring of my four-month-old son. Never mind that his room is right next-door. Never mind that I keep the door open and could probably hear his cry perfectly well without the monitor jammed in my face. But I like to be on top of things. If his binkie drops out of his mouth, I like to know about it. If he grunts or yawns or passes a bit of gas, I like to be involved. I enjoy being woken up every fifteen minutes to eavesdrop on his nightly pontifications.

Before I had my son I heard that new moms sometimes suffer from a special kind of baby anxiety; checking their babies’ vital signs while they slept, blow-drying their butts after each diaper change, pushing hand sanitizer on anyone within a three-mile radius —things of that sort. Oh how I laughed at the silly stories in those mommy magazines: “Garlic and Gassiness,” “Can Breastfeeding Cause Cavities?” and “Why Your Baby’s Stuffed Animals Harbor Allergy-Inducing Critters.” What a bunch of hypochondriacs, I thought to myself. I refused to buy hypoallergenic teddy bears stuffed with clumps of emu fur.

And then there were my new-mom girlfriends who had become brainwashed from reading too many horror stories online. If their baby was constipated, fussy, or had the hiccups they immediately blamed it on microwaves or greenhouse gasses. They lived in constant fear of acid reflux and colic. They spent hundreds of dollars on swinging, vibrating, gyrating, Mozart-playing jumparoos and lined them up proudly in their living rooms. Several of my girlfriends with babies were notorious for crashing nearly every conversation with the subject of their baby’s poop. Why it had turned from yellow to green in the last few weeks, why was it mucousy, how long was too long to go between poops? How could these moms live like this, working themselves into a frenzy over the color and consistency of their baby’s poop? Where was their self-respect? I didn’t want to participate in their daily gnoshings about baby excrement. I still wanted to discuss adult things like last week’s Oprah on re-organizing your closet. I vowed to be the laid-back, relaxed mom who never gave my son’s poop a second glance. I would accept and embrace it in whatever shape and form it arrived. I would be the cool, untainted new mom who still drank caffeinated lattes and ordered extra garlic on my manicotti. I would refuse to partake in anxiety-driven consumerism. Let them all suffer from their baby-induced ulcers. I would stand my ground.

 And then my son was born. From the very first moment I looked into his big brown eyes I knew I was in trouble. As he rested in the crook of my arm, I felt a primordial new-mother instinct rise up volcanically from inside and squash the old me like a caterpillar on the pavement. This breathing little bundle, this squirming willow-fingered brand new human being was suddenly my responsibility. I was to sustain him, to nurture and guard him at all costs. I was to keep him safe from pollutants and sharp edges and bullies, to protect him from broken hearts and broken collarbones. I was to be the one he searched frantically for when he dashed through the front door, his knees dripping with blood and gravel, his face streaked with dirt and tears.

As I held him the waning sunlight traveled gently across the whiteness of the hospital bed. Minutes turned into hours. We laid there, my son and I, memorizing each other’s faces. I wondered what he saw, if he could sense the clumsiness of my love for him, the slight tremors of uncertainty pulsing in the pit of my stomach. I began to question the preparations I had made, thinking maybe I had been too hasty in turning down that musical humidifier my mother had offered to buy for the nursery. Maybe I should have enrolled in that infant CPR class after all. I told my husband to drive the car to the local police station and have them check the car seat position before we were discharged. You know, to make sure it was installed correctly. It’s just standard procedure. No big deal. And while he was out, I told him, he should maybe vacuum out the car again. In case there were fibers, you know, that could irritate the baby’s skin on the way home. I had read somewhere that fibers in your car could be a potential hazard. And given my husband’s history with asthma, well…it’s just better, you know, to be on the safe side.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 19th, 2008 at 9:47 am and is filed under Main, Mother Words Essays. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.