Since giving birth to my son two weeks ago, I have had much to think about regarding trust: how it works, whom we choose to trust, how we trust them, and when.
The nature of my trust in my husband, for example, has been taken to a whole new level. First I had to trust him during my labor and delivery, the most intimate and powerful experience you could possibly go through with another person. I had to trust him not to judge me, not to be afraid of my pain, to take care of me and my needs no matter how rudely I stated them. (Although I’m proud of the fact that I said “please” every time I asked for water, throughout my entire labor and delivery. Always courteous, that’s me.) The same went for my mom, who took care of me during those six hours like she has not done since I myself was a child and completely dependent on her for very different reasons.
Since then, my own reversion to a childlike trust of those around me has grown. I have quickly learned to depend on my husband and our parents to fulfill pretty much all my needs, since I am tied down to a small hungry mouth roughly 10 to 15 hours of the day. My husband makes all my food, and sometimes even feeds it to me. My mom picks up more food and diapers for us and takes me for short walks while my in-laws hold the baby and coo over him while I sneak in another nap or do some work.
And all the while, I have to trust that they will come and get me if the baby cries, that he will be OK without me for those few minutes while I shower or sleep, that another person can meet his needs as well as I can (short of feeding him of course.) If I didn’t, I wouldn’t sleep, and I wouldn’t be clean.
It’s a tradeoff: paranoia, or clean hair. I choose the latter.
But the biggest shift in trust lines for me has of course been with my son. The absolute trust he puts in me just by default is staggering. He already knows (or at least I hope he does, on some level) that when he cries, his needs will be met almost immediately. He knows that when he sleeps, he will be held close or placed nearby, ready to be picked up at a moment’s notice. When he needs a diaper change, he will be clean (even though he doesn’t really appreciate the process just yet, he appreciates the end result.) When he needs to eat, no matter if it’s only been ten minutes since his last meal, I am right there to oblige.
In many ways, it reminds me of taking care of my dad, who was ill for a number of years, except in reverse. Whereas my dad became less and less able to meet his own needs, my son will become better at it with each day. But the trust is the same, the ability to ask and the expectation to receive, the acknowledgement of need and the provision of strength. In that sense I suspect I am better prepared for this job than many new moms, as I know what it means to completely subsume your own needs in the face of another’s, and yet how crucial it is to make room for yourself so that you don’t lose your mind.
And so no matter that I got roughly six hours’ sleep spread out over about fifteen, that I still can’t leave the house for longer than a half hour, that I am breastfeeding and typing this with one hand. Despite all this, still I continue to write, because that is what and who I am. If I don’t have that, if I can’t carve out that small space to take care of myself, then my trust in myself will ultimately suffer. And without that most basic of trust relationships, all the others fall apart.
So two weeks in to my son’s life, this is how I survive: I lean on others. I make it a point to take a shower every day. And when I can, as often as I can, I write. In this manner, we will prevail.