When my solutions to the list sometimes did not ease her to calm, I learned to carry her and walk, to say again and again in her ear the same phrase, “Mommy’s got you. I’d nursed her to plumpness, become attuned to her breathy cries as she adjusted to life outside my body, learned to follow a checklist whenever she was upset (Hungry? Dirty? Tired? Overstimulated?). On the eve of my daughter’s first birthday, I felt as if I’d survived a gauntlet. I had a child, a ghostly, long-limbed daughter, who was still curved from the womb. I lay there quietly, stunned by facts: I was a mother. In a response that I am ashamed to admit, and one that I suspect was driven by stress, shock and anaesthesia, my first words to her were, “Why is she so white?” My obstetrician laughed as she began the work of preparing to stitch me back up. She was slow to cry and pale when she emerged from behind the tent shielding my stomach. Five years ago, I bore my first child, a daughter.
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