Knowing
By Allie Roepe
@allisonroepe
The lights overhead glare as my vision begins to narrow. After three and a half hours of pushing, sheer exhaustion and defeat have overtaken my body and mind. The nurse coaches and encourages loudly in her Southern drawl, “Look-a-there! There’s her head!” It is both motivating and grating, her cheers and prompts to keep at it. The doctor finally enters the room and firmly informs me that the baby’s heart rate is dropping and we are out of time. A superhuman strength I have never felt overtakes every ounce of my being and I give one final intense push. I can feel Shelby’s slippery body finally follow her head as she comes earth side. The room becomes still and I realize she hasn’t made so much as a whimper.
My body begins to shake from the epidural as I vaguely notice the doctor firmly patting her, attempting to coax a cry. Instead of terror in this weighted moment, I feel an immediate calm. I know in my bones my baby is just fine. After the medical team examines her, Shelby is finally placed on my chest. Instantly, effortlessly, I know her. The knowing is deep inside, unlike anything else I have ever experienced. My confidence in her deepens, blossoming into an easy and relaxed comfort as I press her closely against my chest. Elation mixed with a calm sense of love truer than I have ever known. We are kindred spirits. She is mine.
As a baby and toddler, she was my sweet sidekick. She rarely protested or tantrumed and her spirit was joyful and serene. The silence from her traumatic birth echoed as an unexplained speech delay which caused her utterances to be jumbled and indistinguishable until age four. However, my ability to understand her only strengthened. “Ba-la-ma-boo!” she babbled in her own language and I innately had the ability to anticipate her every need. I drove 45 minutes to the county intervention offices to have her evaluated at the urging of our pediatrician. The stern county worker scolded, “You’re making things too easy for her. Her expressive language would be further developed if you pushed her to communicate more.” I vacillated between worry that something might be wrong with my baby and a secret pride that our connection was so deep, it was literally unspoken.
Today, five years later, I don't always know her. The deep knowing in my heart is still there, but the day to day knowing feels farther away now.
She has one foot still firmly planted in young girlhood—she only tames her unruly hair when forced and still requests that I tie her shoes. “Can you just do it for me, Mom?” The other foot stretches towards a new stage of life—the dreaded "tween" years. I’m sure those years will be marked by attitude, emotional volatility and a deep desire for independence. Independence from me.
Caught in the chasm between each growing stage feels long, blurry, confusing. I should have known this next one would be no different, yet I didn't expect it to start this soon. I've been startled by how unprepared I feel. Even after eight years of motherhood, I still feel brand new to this whole thing more often than I'd like to admit.
Shelby’s days are now brimming with her desire for autonomy. When I remind her to brush her teeth before coming downstairs for breakfast, she barks back “Mom, I got this!” Her tone is urgent, exasperated. Her words sting. I see her desperately trying to gain more independence, detaching more and more often. She attempts to pour her own milk, the heavy gallon jug shaking as she barely clutches it. She noisily drags her white Ikea step stool that I carefully monogrammed for her nearly six years ago across the kitchen floor to reach her own drinking glass, toast her own waffle and attempt to chop vegetables for dinner.
Her developing skills are impressive at best, comical at worst. She insists on showering without my supervision—"Mom, my privacy!" she shrieks if I dare peek around the curtain—but forgets to fully rinse the hair conditioner, leaving her strands greasy and limp. She begs to slice mushrooms and peppers for our pizza night and pulverizes the poor vegetables until they're nearly unrecognizable. With each task I allow her to attempt independently, she beams with pride and her confidence grows. I have to fight my urge to hover, to micromanage each thing, and allow her to learn. Something inside me aches, watching her, though I know these moments are important.
I still glimpse the deep knowing from her early years. Tiny bits of our unspoken connection here and there that I'm careful to grab onto and sear into my memory. We steal away for a lunch date, just us—a rare treat. "We never get to do this, Mom." We sit on high stools at the sushi bar and spend the hour discussing what she's learning now in school (subtracting three-digit numbers), her favorite thing about her teacher ("She's just really nice and fun to us, Mom"), and taking silly selfies. It feels light, sweet, natural.
That night, I carefully tuck her in. I arrange her multitude of stuffed animals in their rightful positions and fold her comforter over her gray blanket just so. As I softly position her unicorn sleeping mask on her forehead, she begs me to stay and cuddle. I'm exhausted from caring for her and her baby sister all day and the temptation to refuse is overwhelming. I am fatigued with every inch of my being and I'm so desperately ready to just be done. But I seize the potential for connection and honor the part of her that is still in little girl world. I lay down next to her, my head heavy on the pillow. She gently takes my hand as I breathe in her smell and listen to her quiet breathing. I am instantly transported back to when she was three; when we didn’t need words to understand each other. I remember anew just how well I truly know her.
After eight years of motherhood, I know that so much of raising our babies is the limbo between two phases—wanting one to end so badly but then trying desperately to cling onto it as it slips away. Shelby has never been a very affectionate child and she was born with a deep sense of independence that I envy. But I am still her home. She still desires to hold hands. To tiptoe into my bedroom in the wee hours of the morning and climb into bed next to me. During each of these moments lately I am acutely aware that they are numbered. That one day, sooner than I'd like, they will become fewer and farther between. She will no longer need her tiny Ikea stool to reach the counter and she won't need to tell me that she's got this—I will just know.
Guest essay written by Allie Roepe. Allie lives and mothers full time in a small suburb of Raleigh, North Carolina. When she's not chasing her three kiddos, you can find her trying to savor motherhood by capturing it through both film and the written word. Her writing and photographs can be found at craftedphotography.co and on Instagram.
Photo by Lottie Caiella.