It fell off sometime around the middle or maybe it was the end of week 2...the shriveled up remnant of the tie between my unborn child and me. I kind of always thought it would be a momentous event: "Call the papers! Call the masses! Owen's umbilical cord fell off." But, it was a quiet moment. Sometime around 230 in the morning. It was just me, and I thought, "Huh, so this is how it happens." I open his onesie to change him and there it sits on his belly...no longer attached. I saved it in a little box so white boy could see it in the morning.
I was told by more than several people that once Owen was born it would all be worth it. That all the pain all the madness that came with labor and birth would all float away when he was placed on my chest. Well, I didn't get that. I didn't get the first moments to hold him to see if I could feel the ebb of pain and turmoil as they left my body. It wasn't for least 45 minutes, as I laid there to get stitched up and wheeled out and smashed on that I finally got to see what my son even looked like. Sure, white boy held him to my face for the inevitable first family photo, but all I could see was a blur and all I could really focus on was the smell of vomit that permeated my hair and face.
If I could put a number on how many friends and family members I "interviewed" or birth stories I listened to, it would be on the upwards of 30s or maybe even 40s. I tried to get a grasp on what exactly all of this was going to look like. How I would feel. How I would begin to cope. And with those stories came the cold, hard reality of "once you get home." It was a reality I wasn't ready to deal with...despite what I thought. At 35, I honestly thought I was ready. Ha! Nope.
But, more importantly, as the nights with him got longer, the bouncing him so he would burp got bouncier, the spit up rags got wetter, I was waiting for that feeling. I was waiting for that "mother/child" tie. The one that I was supposed to feel when they laid him on my chest. The one that would come naturally because I carried this human for 10 months. The one that would make it all worth it...and instead I got tears and curse words.
In place of the sappy motherly feeling, I found moments of regret and moments of remorse for my former life. Was the tie that bound me to him gone? Was it all bound up in the shriveled up remnant of our physical cord? At week 3 and coming upon 4, I am still waiting. I know there are always going to be moments when I have to lay him on the ground so I don't shake him. I know there are always going to be moments when I have to whisper "I'm sorry, son" because the previous words were too dark to utter to anyone...least of all an innocent little one. Does this make me mean? Does it make me a bad parent? Does it make those moments of wishing I weren't a parent wrong? I think it makes me human.
I am far from perfect. Far far from perfect. But, I care about this little one. Sometimes deeply. Other times...out of responsibility. And, one day, I know that I will be caught off guard by that overwhelming feeling of deep deep love. I haven't felt it yet, but that's okay. Fantasy was always something I read but not always something I believed.
The tie that binds me to Owen is growing daily. The physical cord might be gone, but the indelible tie that binds him to me is forming... slowly--ever-so-slowly, but forming nonetheless. This road is certainly not smooth, but one to definitely be remembered.
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