My first epidural only half worked. One side of my body was marked by a numbness that should have meant a blissful labor, if it would only have extended to the other half. Instead, the pain was concentrated on my right side, sending me awkwardly writhing with every contraction. The nurse watched me with confusion and then rolled her eyes. “It just needs a few minutes. You won’t feel anything,” she said as she left the room.
It wasn’t the first moment I felt foolish during my first labor and delivery. Perhaps it was the result of my own shame and insecurity as a 22-year old single mom, but I was certain the nurses left my room and giggled over my stupid questions. I wondered if they debated whether or not this baby should go home with me. I obviously sounded like an idiot, and I certainly looked terrified.
Thankfully, I wasn’t alone. My mom and oldest sister faithfully stayed by my bedside until my daughter made her dramatic entrance into the world in the middle of the night. But despite their endless support, I still felt alone in so many ways. It seemed there was this body of knowledge I was supposed to already possess, like there was a manual I was supposed to have downloaded at birth. Doesn’t “maternal instinct” imply women possess this inherent ability to labor and deliver and mother? And yet, as those labor pains persisted, my only instinct was to run, except that the partial numbness kept me anchored to my bed.
My sister watched my face contort with the latest contraction. I had taken to biting my tongue, closing my eyes, and trying to hide the pain I wasn’t supposed to be feeling. This would be the first of many such experiences—of trying to ignore the pain and pretending everything was okay. After bringing my daughter home, it would take me days of feeling miserable before I returned to the doctor to discover I had an infection. “Don’t you feel terrible?” the doctor asked me. “What took you so long to come in?” If I wasn’t delirious from fever and sleep deprivation, I might have laughed. I just assumed this is what motherhood felt like.
“You shouldn’t feel anything,” my sister said. “Something’s wrong.” She marched out to get the nurse. My big sister, the advocate. I’m not sure if I felt relieved or annoyed at the time, thinking I could handle it; wishing the pain would stop. As I reflect on the memory now I see a metaphor ripe for the picking. How much of motherhood is just wishing someone would say, “That pain you feel? It’s real. I’ll go get help.”
I can’t remember how many more times they tried the epidural, but I never achieved that promised blissful state. Only tingly legs and concentrated pain as they flopped me from one side to the other, shoving oxygen in my face and watching my baby’s heart rate with concern. No one ever told me what was wrong; they just told me to push.
I think the assurance of “maternal instinct” is one of the biggest lies we tell each other.
Of course it depends on what we mean. If we’re talking about the newfound terror that accompanies our inauguration into motherhood, then I suppose I might concede there’s a shared maternal experience. Teacher and journalist Elizabeth Stone writes, “Making a decision to have a child…it is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body,” and, really, is there anything more terrifying? Never before having children did it occur to me that I might get out of my bed in the middle of the night to hover over a bassinet because I was suddenly plagued by an irrational fear that my baby might no longer be breathing.
Or perhaps I can get on board with a maternal instinct that acknowledges you’re suddenly more like a Mama Bear than you ever thought possible. That sudden protective rage that has mothers prying open the mouths of mountain lions or lifting cars off their children? I might not have believed said stories prior to motherhood, but now I don’t doubt they’re true.
Maybe we can say there’s some truth to the idea of maternal instinct––the thing that happens when you hold that vulnerable little being in your arms and realize they completely and utterly depend on you. That changes a person, though we have to acknowledge that there are a variety of factors that make even these “natural” feelings of love and bonding difficult to forge.
But journalist Jessica Valenti writes that we’re living in the age of the “expert mom.” And that means, “Maternal instinct isn’t just about mom love any more. It’s a built-in expectation that truly loving and committed mothers are the absolute authority on everything having to do with their children––down to the very last dirty diaper.”
When I was pregnant with Hadley, so many well-meaning people told me, “Don’t worry. God gave you this baby. You’ll know just what to do.” And I believed them. I clung to their confidence and tried to make it my own. Until I held that slimy, squishy baby in my arms and realized: I had no idea what to do.
The problem with the idea of maternal instinct is that it reinforces the lie that tells us we can do this on our own. You have everything you need! we assure ourselves and each other. But what about when we don’t?
One of those early weeks of motherhood, Hadley and I sat in the bedroom we shared in my parents’ house. She screamed, I bounced. She screamed more, I nursed. She screamed, I cried, and bounced some more. At one point, I lay my screaming baby down on my bed and crumbled to the floor. I didn’t know what to do. I was exhausted and helpless and felt so alone. I stared at the door, willing my mom to hear our cries, but she kept sleeping. Hadley and I persevered that night, just the two of us. Still awake in the early morning, I brought out my baby (who, admittedly, I didn’t particularly care for at that moment) as soon as I heard my mom. She extended her arms, eager to take her grandbaby, and I dissolved into sobs. I felt so much shame––shame that I couldn’t figure out what my baby needed, shame that I resented her so, shame that I was such a failure of a mother.
My mom held Hadley and hugged me and said the most important words I could have heard in that moment. Not, “You’ve got this, Kendra. She’s your baby. You’ll know just what to do.”
No, she said: “Why didn’t you ask for help?”
I’ve been thinking about that season of my life lately. It feels like a lifetime ago, and sometimes I wonder how we made it through. But then I remember–Oh! My mom. And my dad. And my brother and sisters. And, eventually, a church. God built a village around Hadley and I.
Hadley is nearing 13, and while I wish I could say I feel like an old pro at this motherhood game, I’m more confident than ever that maternal instinct is a lie. Every day I feel like I’m fumbling through parenthood blindfolded and with my right hand tied behind my back. I stare at these miniature humans and feel simultaneous delight and terror. I still wonder how on earth I can be trusted to keep them alive.
I still don’t know what to do, but I’ve learned to ask for help.
I’ve learned it’s not maternal instinct that will get me and my children through these tumultuous years, it’s God’s abundant grace in the form of his people. He has placed me in a family that stretches far beyond these walls, and there’s no reason I have to figure out this mothering thing alone.
(And just in case you need to hear it: neither do you.)
