“Good grief,” I growled as I jerked the blanket off of my body and rolled out of bed. Alexis’s crying had jarred me awake for the third time that night. “Dammit, why won’t she just stay asleep?” I grumbled as I shook my fists toward the heavens and stomped toward my doorway.
The bedroom was still dark. Eerie moonlight cast shadows on the walls. Groggily staggering toward the sound of Alexis’s wails, I accidentally bumped my shoulder into the door frame as I trudged past it. “Ow,” I said, rubbing the tender spot with my hand.
It had been nearly twelve weeks since I’d slept more than an hour or two at a time. Since Alexis’s birth nearly three months ago, I felt like a walking zombie. The longer I went without sleep, the more resentful I became. My twitching eyelid was proof that lack of sleep does crazy things to your mind and body. I was a pressure cooker about to blow my top. It didn’t help that it was my last night to get some sleep before my first day back to work from maternity leave.
I slammed my palm against the wall just before my hand landed on the doorknob of Alexis’s room. “Why? Why, why, why, why?” I moaned as I turned the knob.
The soft scent of lavender invaded my nostrils the instant I opened the door. Someone once told me that lavender soothed babies and helped them sleep better, so I’d always bathed Alexis with that particular scented baby soap. I was beginning to think that was all a myth. She wailed from her crib like someone was killing her while I gripped the railing, peering down at the writhing bundle.
“What’s wrong now, Alexis?” I pleaded with her. The tickle in the back of my throat forewarned me of the tears that were starting to form in my eyes. “Don’t you understand that Mommy needs rest? I can’t be a good mommy if you don’t let me sleep.”
She stopped crying and opened those beautiful, blue eyes. She looked at me with wide-eyed infant wonder. Her flailing arms and legs stilled for just a moment. Then she smiled at me and began flailing again, only happily this time, as if to say, “Yay, mommy’s here!”
I grinned back. “You little booger,” I whispered, picking her up and patting her back. Immediately, a loud burp escaped her, and she hiccupped. “Is that better?” I cooed, bouncing her gently in my arms.
She answered with her own tiny coo and laid her head on my shoulder. I plopped down in the recliner next to her crib. I knew she didn’t need to eat. I’d just fed her an hour earlier. Clicking the nightlight off, I began rocking her.
In my twenty-four years of life, I’d never anticipated the overwhelming feeling I would get when I’d cuddle my baby in my arms until the moment the doctor handed her to me in the delivery room. In an instant, my whole world changed as I embraced my little miracle in my arms. On nights like these, the moment we settled down together in the rocking chair, my anger and frustration would vanish as I’d peer down at my precious angel and watch her stare at me with wonder. I couldn’t believe that in a single second I could go from hating the drudgery of motherhood to cherishing the quiet moments of snuggling my sweet girl in my arms.
I sang a few lullabies and within minutes, she was sound asleep again. It didn’t take long for me to doze off as well. It also didn’t take long for my back to start aching, forcing me to wake up again. I imagined my husband taking up most of the bed in our room. Usually his body miraculously sensed when I got out of bed because by the time I made it back, I’d have to shove him over to be able to climb back into my side. God, I despised him sometimes.
He’d wake up in the morning and say, “Good morning. How did you guys sleep last night?” He’d ask that as if I were the only one on the clock at midnight. Hello. He’s the father. He should take a shift every now and then. In the past few weeks, I’d tried to wake him up, but he’d just grunt, roll over and put a pillow over his head instead.
Life with a baby was nothing like what I’d expected. It was grueling, menial work with little reward. No one warned me how difficult having a child really was. Honestly, I wasn’t sure what I was expecting. I knew that newborns didn’t sleep well for the first few weeks, but I had no idea that sleepless nights would last so long. It was really starting to mess with my head.
I was a counselor for Christ’s sake. I should’ve been able to get a handle on the depression that was suffocating me. I should’ve been able to talk to myself like I did my clients and snap out of it. That’s just it. I had always thought depression was a matter of ‘snapping out of it’ until my own depression overtook me. Now I realized how foolish I was to think that.