Have you ever aged 10 years in 10 months? I have. Have you ever locked yourself in a bathroom and wept? I have. Have you ever had a screaming competition with a baby? I have, and lost.
Our daughter was a beautiful, healthy and happy baby. For about two weeks. Then the crying started. Fussing, crying, grunting. Continuously. We were optimistic at first. “It’ll only last four weeks, or eight, or 16. Maybe in six months it’ll all pass.”
My wife eventually had to go back to work three days a week for 12-hour shifts which is the norm for an RN. We were both dreading it. Our daughter, like most babies, wanted the boob on her mother’s body, not the boob trying to bottle-feed her—aka her father. The day when Caitlin went back to work was the day my hell began.
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Our poor daughter was always uncomfortable it seemed. She was continuously grunting and crying and taking only half-hour naps, if that. She consistently refused the bottle, which led to hunger and more crying. For some stupid reason the RNs at the hospital only get a half-hour lunch. So I’d pull up to the hospital precisely at the lunch hour, Caitlin would get in, put Ashlyn on her boob, and they’d both scarf down their lunches. Sometimes we’d talk, but most times I would close my eyes and recline my seat and be silent, trying to calm my nerves. Caitlin would be completely unaware that earlier that morning I’d been screaming at our infant daughter, or had punched the floor in anger and injured my wrist (I eventually learned to punch doors instead of floors), or left our crying baby on the floor while I shut myself in the bathroom and bawled my eyes out. The half-hour scarf session would end it seemed before it even began and back home we went.
Sometimes I’d get lucky, and the loud vacuum cleaner I placed next to her baby swing would actually lull her to sleep for a full hour.
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Sometimes I’d get lucky, and the loud vacuum cleaner I placed next to her baby swing would actually lull her to sleep for a full hour. Sometimes bouncing on the yoga ball for what seemed hours on end would soothe her. None of the gimmicks we spent money on claiming to ease colic worked. Not the vibrating belly wrap, not the colic homeopathy, not much of anything. We were hopefully optimistic that if Caitlin eliminated just the right foods the colic would stop. My wife lost all of her baby weight in record time, because she reduced her diet to basically a couple of pieces of grass a day. What we found ultimately was there was really no rhyme or reason to our daughter’s crying. We just had to wait it out. I have to say however, we were brave and determined new parents and would still go out to restaurants with Ashlyn. It’s just that we’d never be able to sit down and eat at the same time. One of us would have to be standing and rocking the baby while the other wolfed down their meal. I perfected the one-arm swing while Ash was in the car seat. I’d brace myself with my opposite arm on the table, bend my torso to about 45 degrees, get a nice wide stance and lock my core while using my other arm as the swing. After a few minutes I’d pass the car seat to my other arm and continue. Caitlin would eat her dinner first and then we’d switch. Mmmmm, good!
A miracle happened on Father’s Day 2009. I will remember it always. My daughter didn’t cry (much) and she took the bottle from me all day. I cannot describe to you my relief and happiness that day. Most days I would have to use an eyedropper to get the smallest amount of milk in her mouth and hope she would swallow it. Eventually she was old enough to eat rice cereal, which was a bit easier. After the success we had on Father’s Day, I mistakenly got my hopes up that we were in the clear, but the next day proved that it was just her Father’s Day gift to me.
I’m sure for any parent, trying to soothe an inconsolable baby can be a short journey from frustration to insanity.
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I’m sure for any parent, trying to soothe an inconsolable baby can be a short journey from frustration to insanity. Especially if said baby came from your own loins. For me, as a man, and as her father, it was truly maddening. The man in me is supposed to be able to solve any problem put in front of me, right? I look at it, analyze it, take it apart, repair or replace the broken part, put it back together and wallah–fixed! Nope. As a father it was even more difficult because this living, breathing child is my responsibility and I can’t just walk away. I can’t take her to the baby store and drop her off and pick her up on Thursday, pay $400 in parts and labor, and be on my way. She relies on me and her continuous discomfort is the absolute insult to my ego—proving to me that I am failing miserably at being a parent. It really wasn’t until a full year after she finally stopped constantly crying that I was able to see the growth opportunities I’d had and spiritual lessons I’d learned.
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For the fifteen years previous to becoming a father, I had a dedicated spiritual practice. I studied many different paths, meditation techniques, healing modalities, energy healing, and a lot of other new age bullshit. I experienced and learned a lot. I healed a lot. I grew my spiritual self as well as my ego. Eckhart Tolle says in his book A New Earth, “Look carefully to find out if your spiritual search is a disguised form of ego.” Before having children I wouldn’t have understood this as much as I do now. In my years of practice, I’ve learned that most of what is out there labeled as “spiritual” or “new age” or “self help” is really just the regurgitation of the same thing over and over again. There are hundreds of authors who are writing books full of the same information, much of which they’re just exchanging with one another and re-packaging. Many authors themselves write more than one book saying the exact same thing in they’ve said in previous books. They just word it a bit differently each time. It’s rare to come across a true master teacher who embodies original thought and living wisdom. I have been lucky enough to encounter a few in my life and am eternally grateful. The truest master teacher in my life, however, has been my daughter. The day she was born is the day I was thrown into the fire.
The truest master teacher in my life, however, has been my daughter. The day she was born is the day I was thrown into the fire.
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When you are in the fire, surrounded by the intensity of your own fears, when the walls grow spikes and start to close in on you, that’s when the work is done. Who are you in the throws of the battle? Sure, I could sit by a creek in the park and meditate and achieve some very high-altered states of consciousness. Big Fucking Deal. I could even come face to face with some of the darkest shadow aspects of myself, dismantle the energy around them, transmute and reintegrate them—but all having done so within a very safe space and where at any second if it got too intense I could retreat. In parenthood there is no retreat. You are all in or you are not doing it right. So when you are thrown into the fire—who are you then? I was an absolute train wreck of a mess. Where was my zen Buddha self when my child was sitting on the floor looking at me screaming and crying, “daddy my belly hurts, please help me?” What happened to my peaceful and serene self I’d spent so much time with at the creek when my baby girl was screaming at me, “daddy I’m so hungry and tired can you help me?” Well, the answer is I don’t know. My anger and fear grew to such an overwhelming monster that they took control of me and I raged and I wept. If you would’ve walked into my living room at a particular moment, you would have seen me three feet from a screaming baby, screaming my head off right back at her, trying to be louder than her, punching the floor, yelling, “STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT!!!” And then 15 minutes later that baby would still be on the floor crying, but you would find me in the upstairs bathroom weeping.
A few years ago I met a man who shared an experience he had with his colicky daughter. He was holding her trying to console her. His arms were getting tighter around his baby as he was tensing up in fear and anger. Soon his daughter stopped crying because he’d squeezed her too tightly. Once he snapped back into consciousness and loosened his arms she started breathing again was fine, but he’d immediately realized how close he came to harming his baby. As he told this story it was obvious the mountain of shame he felt. If another person who hadn’t had been in his position heard his story, they might severely judge him. I felt the biggest amount of love and compassion for him, probably more than I’ve ever felt for another man. I wanted to hug him and hold him up and let him weep in my arms because I was him too. As men we work hard at being big and strong and stable. Our children have the magical ability to crawl inside of us, find our deepest and darkest and most hidden vulnerabilities, yank them out of us, hold them up in front of our noses and say, “daddy look!”
Fuckers.
Originally published on lostballs
Photo—rabble/Flickr