Unhinged

A lot has been said about parenthood. For me on the threshold of parenting I am undergoing a removal of layers. Like a front door being re-furbished, some layers are dissolved with a solvent others are scraped.

The Last Four Days
Over the last four days Joaquin's moods have swung wildly. From a newfound content to full throttle screaming within an hour. Just yesterday, he sat placidly on his own in a bouncer chair as I cooked french toast, brewed coffee for Daniel and cleaned up last night's dishes, a first. What followed was a five alarm crying fit for no apparent reason. Joaquin was freshly diapered, nursed, napped. Check. Yet in a fit. Later in the afternoon upon waking, nursing and crying in the San Francisco U.S. passport office, a visit to the fountains of Yerba Buena Gardens found Joaquin waving his hands and feet in the air.

Today, after four days of such behavior I reached the end of my sanity. The baby screamed in the morning. I left him with Daniel as I headed to a chiropractic appointment. When I returned, Joaquin was nestled into a sling on Daniel shoulder asleep for a two hour nap. He woke, played, and sat by himself again as I dug and planted iris bulbs in the backyard. Almost immediately, the full throttle screaming began again.

Joaquin's fussiness and crying began to get to me. I reached out to another mother I know. "He won't ride in a stoller, he hates the carseat, he only likes one particular carrier, he fusses", I griped. My friend Elizabeth offered to give Joaquin a ride in an umbrella stroller that her previously reluctant baby had taken to at the age of 3 months. We planned a walk at three.

The visit to Elizabeth went like this: fussy tired baby is put in BabyBjorn carrier (which he barely tolerates), baby grudging sleeps the mile walk over, wakes, rides in umbrella stroller briefly, fusses, get fussier, won't/can't nurse, turns to full blown rage, ends visit. I have to leave Elizabeth's with a screaming baby. She is apologizing to me.

Now I am completely demoralized. I am wishing I had gotten a border collie instead of this baby. I want to be enjoying myself. This is supposed to be fun. I am eating so carefully, yet still the milk causes Joaquin to twist and torque in pain. I watch Joaquin pull away from my breast and cry from hunger. That's it- I am giving him formula. I am trying so hard to avoid foods that make him squirm and scream.

On the walk home Joaquin now in his favorite mei tei carrier settles right to sleep. Once home he nurses as if there have not been two, three attempts to give him the milk he screamed for. I abandon this baby on the couch to Daniel's care. Daniel places the satiated baby in a bouncer where he sits silently while Daniel prepares dinner. I fume. I am so upset I cannot eat.

After dinner we decide to try the 'Baby Brigade' movie at the El Cerrito Speakeasy. I am no longer angry. Baby nurses easily and rides peacefully in the car as I sing favorite songs to him. Once in the theater he nurses to sleep.

It is the best of times, it is the worst of times.

I am stripped raw by emotion. I am a person who does not fall apart in front of others. I keep my cool. I don't let the dangling grey matter show. Yet Joaquin who is an extension of me like a new organ I have grown, melts down wherever he sees fit. It forces me to reconsider how I interact with the world. How I choose to present myself and hope to be perceived.

Joy gives to frustration, rage to content. The triggers I believed I knew about myself, the inner balance I maintain break apart as the layers that formed my exterior collapse when the underlying structures are unhinged.

After birth, I felt fresh scrubbed and raw like my spirit born anew and washed clean. Today I feel raw with my eyes wide open and nostrils flaring stinging from the sensation of life.

looking like an angel