newborn

Isla.

That is the name of the baby a friend of mine is waiting to bring into the world at any moment. I have been thinking a lot about this lovely word, the Spanish for “island,” and have concluded that it’s the perfect name for a baby because birth sets us adrift. She comes and lifts your anchor and you are off to sea, just the parents and that baby in one little boat. Even among partners, within your family, there are times when you’re all in your own vessels, sailing close but separately, a wobbly fleet of love.

That is why no one can quite understand new mothers in those early days or weeks. That is why any and all advice you receive, and there is lots of it, is barely intelligible, as if it were being shouted across some vast space from a distant, unimaginable world. It is. It’s coming to you across the water. It can be comforting or even useful, but the fact remains that no one knows what’s going on in your own boat but you and the captain.

The captain is not you, by the way. Your baby has a plan for you, and you are along for the ride. In my view of things, parenthood doesn’t start with birth. Not all of it, at least. It phases in, like childproofing. Many, many months down the road, your child will do or say something that requires a stern retort, and you will come to as if out of a fog, and think, Oh, shit! It’s starting! But that’s later. For now, just ride. You are there to comfort and sing and feel your way in the dark and bail the ship out of the many fluids of newborn babydom, but you are not calling the shots. Not yet.

Continue reading What I would whisper in the ear of my new-mom self