And Now We Have Everything: On Motherhood Before I Was Ready

by Meaghan O'Connell

I should have known to be suspicious of the supposed inherent reward of unpaid labor that can be carried out exclusively by the female body (breastfeeding: an unpaid internship you don’t get to put on your résumé), but I kept hoping it would come true.

Breastfeeding was not the most incredible experience of my life, and my baby is still mortal. He still gets sick. I went to great lengths to do it, for reasons I can no longer relate to. Or none other than this: I so desperately wanted to do the right thing, and I had no idea what that was yet.

Maybe under the stress of new parenthood, whatever adult personality I’d concocted was being stripped for parts, and I would be left with only my teenage core.

want more time. I want to lose weight. I want to be beautiful. I want a day completely to myself, though I don’t even remember what I used to do with them when days to myself were a thing I had.

I knew, though, that if I listened to every bad feeling, it would take over my mind. I’d never do anything else. I would be pulling the car over every time I called out to him and he, an infant who couldn’t say words yet, didn’t answer. You’re being ridiculous, I would tell myself. He’s fine. I’d keep driving, then think, But what if he is dead? And then for the rest of my life I’d think about how I sat there with my gut feeling and ignored it.

I didn’t know before that when parents talked about “checking on” their children, they meant checking to make sure they weren’t dead. And when they talked about their love for their children, maybe that was what they meant too. It was love but keener, with sharper edges, softer undersides. It was love wrapped up with desperate terror, inextricable.

He could endure my mistakes. He was vulnerable but resilient. Human. Wasn’t that the problem, in the end? He was going to walk around in the world where there were a million different ways to die. One day something would kill him. And I loved him too much for that. And yet. What else is there to say?