Spring 2000
Dear Friends,
The night that I delivered my first born daughter, we settled into our rooming-in situation with my husband on a cot and little Michelle in an Isolette next to my bed. After the nurses had stopped fussing and left our new family alone for the first time, I noticed my husband dosing off so I focused my gaze on this perfect new child we had created. From her angelic face sleeping so peacefully my eyes traveled up towards the ceiling as I noticed for the first time a bunch of balloons that had been brought by a family member. The horror of the situation struck me like lightning out of the sky. Were these people insane? Who in their right mind could have left balloons hovering over my precious child? My God, what if they deflated during the night, and fell, covering her face? And what's more, how could my husband fall asleep and not notice this potential train wreck waiting to happen?
Ok, I may have been a little hormonally challenged, but that my friends was my first taste of a mother's instinct. I don't know where it came from but the feeling was so strong I still remember it vividly 12 years later. It was that same sort of horror both my husband and I felt when a kind and well-meaning pediatrician told us we could probably move our four-month old out of our room into her own. There was no way we were going to follow someone else's time table when it came to parenting our child.
I still get those feelings now, even though my children are old enough to make their own breakfast, when certain issues in their lives come up that just don't jive well with my mothering sensibilities. I throw it out, I follow my gut, I do the right thing for us.
Experts, studies, and theory will come and go, but a mother's instinct will always hold true. We may need our hands held by other mothers, we may need to argue our case, we may need someone to show us how to tickle our baby's lips until she opens wide enough to get a good latch.
But don't ever forget why we know what we know. We're mothers.
