I'll take the stairs: muffin-topping, motherhood and moving on

The topic of "readiness" has been coming up for me a lot lately. Becoming a mother has proven to me that there are some things you can never be ready for and no amount of advice or well-intended preparation can make you feel truly "ready" when that which you've been waiting for finally arrives. Not all things can be studied and then assessed before the time comes to put your skills to the test. This is true of labor. Contractions were described to me as "really intense menstrual cramps" and I found them to be quite unlike cramps. They were unlike everything. And moments that could be imagined or given shape by what we see in the media would prove to be all together different when it was me under the lights, facing what seemed to be the unending, impossible feat of pushing another human being out of my body. I discovered a new 10 on the pain scale that Fourth of July day and felt the rush of hormones that made said pain disappear the instant my daughter was placed on my chest. What could one possibly do to be "ready" for childbirth and instant motherhood? What course could teach the physical pain involved in that process and in your recovery? What device could simulate not only having a baby to care for but a body that was being held together by a growing baby, now torn apart and needing to be put back together? My tendency to judge myself or others as being "ready" or "not yet ready" for anything has softened as I know that readiness, or the lack thereof, does not mean you can't figure it out when you get there. Nothing is a greater motivator for preparedness than immediate, urgent need.

My daughter has been the great eraser of what used to be in my life. Since she has come along, my time is spent in a different way than it has ever been spent before, and when actions of the past are entertained, they are done with her in mind (which changes them). I have welcomed this change because I understood it was part of the deal. Still, there are things I have clung to as evidence that I could maintain some semblance of myself as I understood myself to be. I wanted to be back into my pre-pregnancy clothes very quickly. I wanted to rub a magical serum into my skin to ensure stretch marks would disappear completely. I wanted to do lots of yoga. I wanted to know that I could be a mother and still be "me." It doesn't work that way, as it turns out. What I have discovered in not having those little things I want is that I am being given more completely to the many things I do have now that I can't have the same body, the same clothes, the same schedule that I had before. Even the articles of clothing that I have gotten back into don't fit the same. My body has shifted and it takes more than gaining or losing weight for my clothes to embrace me the way they once did.

I have reached out to other mothers for encouragement and inspiration and have found myself disappointed at hearing that "it takes time", or that stretch marks don't just disappear, or that certain things won't ever be the same again. At times I would have preferred they lie to me and tell me at a certain day and time I would look down and find myself in the body I once knew...or that it could be achieved by eating Girl Scout Cookies and watching Oprah. Somebody finally said something that got through to me about what this is all really about. She said, "You have a beautiful baby and you would never trade her to have the body you had before." Never have truer words been spoken. Not only did it help me to lighten up and be thankful for the body that built my daughter, it reminded me of the deeper truth which speaks about a lot more than jeans and stretch marks.

We long for what used to be because it is what we know best. We know exactly how to be in familiar surroundings. Comfort and confidence don't come readily when we are thrust into new life experiences that we may not feel ready for. Mental preparation does not always include emotional preparedness. The simple fact is that you can't be where you are and where you were at the same time. I have played that lethal bargaining game too many times -- "Well, maybe I'll just hang on to that part of my past," "Maybe I'll just let go of the really bad stuff and keep the good stuff," "I'll do the exact same thing, I'll just do it differently this time." This would be like putting only one foot outside the door and saying we've moved on. Going to the next level means trading the level that came before it. You may have indeed needed the lower level, but you don't get to stay there when you're on your way up.

Just as I would not trade my daughter so that I could keep from muffin-topping over my favorite jeans without the help of Spanx, I would also not trade the peace I have found, the sense of purpose and importance I feel in my motherhood, the integrity I have in my lifestyle for one more shopping excursion for something besides diapers, for spontaneous 10 p.m. movie nights, for weekend getaways, for one more go at a painful and intense relationship. I like "me time" just as much as the next guy, but if it comes down to a choice between that or my daughter, I choose her every time. And while I still sometimes linger in the stairwell between levels, I know I can't move up and move down at the same time. I know the view gets better when I climb and that the lower levels no longer stock what I'm looking for. I am thankful for the hands that all at once urge me on, wipe clean the steps I have sullied, and move things around to make room for bigger love and better things to come -- the hands that give, that take away and that help me to leave so much behind.