Surprise! |
Fresh out of the oven |
The first, docile, “I want 100 more of you sweet babies”
days, the hours of screaming colic, the blow outs, first smile, rolling over,
sitting up and all of those other moments, good and bad, that make up that time
that you spend with your baby. I have felt that special, “I never understood
how much a mom can love their baby so much until now” moment and felt like I was
starting to get things.
It wasn’t until late last week, however, that I felt like I
had finally arrived as a mother.
My baby girl was sick- fever, cranky, not sleeping. That was
not too bad- but then she started to get night terrors. From what I read, they
are sometimes triggered by fevers, but are still uncommon in babies. And let me
tell you- watching a baby with a night terror is terrorizing- to the mom.
Brief explanation: she ‘wakes’ up, screaming and crying,
like something is attacking her, but her eyes are tightly closed. She trashes
and kicks, and though you pick her up, rock her, bounce her, sing to her, she
just doesn’t respond.
Within 5-20 minutes, if you can get her to wake up, she will
be totally fine, cooing and laughing, obviously no memory of what has occurred.
But those few moments of night terrors, watching your baby writhe while there
is nothing you can do?
My precious girl when she is not sicky |
Awful.
So, Saturday night, as I rocked my darling girl, I just
prayed and thought to myself how very much I wish I could protect her little
body. I wash, dress, change, tickle, and feed her, but there was nothing, aside
from a little Tylenol, that I could do for her inside.
I held her tightly in my arms, just wishing I could take
away her pain and onto myself, so she could be free. That was it! I realized:
I KNEW that I would rather suffer than watch my baby suffer.
I am a real mom now. Officially.
My babies both had them. My oldest boy's terrors went on until about he was three years old and got to the point where he would run away from us while "trying to find mommy and daddy". It was awful. The best thing to get them calmed down was to just hold them and sing and eventually they would either wake up or go back to sleep. They grow out of it but I know how you feel.
ReplyDelete