Nobody Ever Told me This About Motherhood…

Having a child connects you to the future as much as it does to the past

I remember the afternoon I brought my three-day old newborn home. He was asleep, of course. In fact, from the moment of his first squeal out of my womb to when I held him in my arms on the five minute drive home, he barely woke up if not just to cry for a split second before yawning and falling asleep again.

On the drive home, I recall looking out of the passenger window, on high alert for danger. Suddenly, everyone and everything had become a threat. The woman who had popped out of nowhere to strut past the car — had she been following us? The man who drove slightly too closely to the door could have easily swiped the lefthand mirror. And the weather beat down from the sky oppressively, since it was early September. Certainly, my son’s body was ill-equipped to tolerate the intense,stifling Arab heat of Jordan.

The first week of my son’s life, I refused to sleep while he was sleeping. I only slept if I could secure a pair of eyes or two on him to make sure he wouldn’t succumb to the dangers (if not overblown threat) of SIDS. I was smart, and married into a huge family who are committed to playing a very big role in Troy’s life, so thank God those early days were a bit less chaotic for us than for some families. But still, my anxieties could not be quelled. One evening, while I was pushing him around in his stroller in the house to try to get him to sleep, I apparently was still asleep and talking borderline whacky to my husband.

“No, no no no! I have to do this! I have to make him sleep, he’s going to die, no!” I shrieked at my husband. Naturally, I’ve no recollection of this. My husband simply gripped my hand, led me back to the bedroom, and ordered me to sleep while he continued to push Troy around the house in hopes that our son too would soon drift off if not to a brief slumber.

That wouldn’t be the only questionable episode. During my sister-in-law’s khutbah, (Arabic for engagement party), I drank so much that I would have made my 21-year-old self shy. Apparently, I had rambled off to my husband some very dark things that are under zero circumstances true just to get some kind of fucked up rise out of him. I jumped in front of…