Je Suis Fatigue

As a soon-to-be new mom, people are always telling you how much your life will change after the baby is born, and how you will have an entirely new understanding and appreciation of what it means to love and care for another person. Interestingly, the parental cult is less forthcoming with the details on how, for instance, your pain tolerance will increase about three-hundred fold during the labor and delivery process. Prior to Lili’s birth, I thought I had a fairly realistic view of pain. Surely having a baby couldn’t be too far removed from menstrual cramps or a few hours in a tattoo chair, right? Wrong. Post-Lili, you better not utter the word “pain” around me unless I’m hearing about your medically induced, 20+ hour, non-epidural delivery, or the time in ‘Nam when a renegade soldier busted a cap in your knee at point blank range.

Similarly, the arrival of my daughter has also dramatically clarified what it means to feel “tired” (which, I would add, is painfully heightened by the fact that I'm breastfeeding and therefore caffeine-free). I’ve always been a decent sleeper, and proponent of the mid-afternoon nap, but I held down a full-time job during my college years and still graduated from a Top Ten university summa cum laude. I bring this up not to brag (okay…maybe to brag a little), but just to point out that one doesn’t graduate at the top of their class while working 40 hours a week without pulling a few all-nighters. However, the level of concentration necessary to parse Greek verbs or write an essay on the archaeology of Herodian Israel at 2:00 a.m. is nothing compared to the steely nerves that are demanded when confronted with a sick, screaming, crabby infant in the dead of the night. I do have to remind myself that Lili, under normal, non-congested circumstances, is a pretty good little sleeper, especially as, for what has GOT to be at least the eight-hundredth time tonight, her big blue eyes pop open the minute the pacing stops and she feels her stuffed up head hit that organic cotton crib sheet. We do what it takes, though, don't we? Over and over and over again, until our necks are impossibly cramped from the imprint of an eight-month old head, or we begin to feel a peculiar affinity for the overnight deejay on the classical radio station. And we will continue to do it, because our new understanding of love--amazingly--blows fatigue right out of the water.