By Leah Kristie
@leahkristie

Exactly 18 hours after I brought my first baby home from the hospital, I found two bed bugs in my immaculately-clean-and-prepared-for-baby house. The first was in the upstairs bathroom wiggling its spindly, evil legs. The second had plopped itself by the front door like an unwelcome guest. 

I swallowed hard and broke the news to my husband. This was supposed to be a magical morning spent kissing the dimples of my new baby. Instead, we frantically called pest control companies and piled into the car to buy mattress casings. I grappled with the still-unfamiliar buckles on my son’s car seat and winced in pain. My postpartum body felt as foreign to me as the plastic car seat must have seemed to my whimpering baby. He looked up at me in distress, and my eyes clouded with tears.

Throughout my pregnancy, I had a nagging sadness—a fear, really. It played over and over in my mind like this: Once you have your baby, you will be alone. The thought haunted me. Even as I picked out nursery decorations and folded dinosaur onesies, I would picture myself desperately trying to console a crying infant with nowhere to turn. 

I knew it wasn’t a logical fear. I had a husband, family, friends, and co-workers—wonderful people who loved me and wanted to help. However, in the darkest place in my heart, the place I visited only when I could no longer outrun it, I saw myself as a shadow. Easily forgotten. I wondered if perhaps I had never really been known in the first place. 

It was an awful ache to carry, and one I gravely didn’t want to test. As a child, I tried to soothe my fear by performing well and appearing as perfect on the outside as I could muster. I labored to never be too broken or needy—or at least never to show it—lest I thrash around for a life raft only to find none coming. 

I realized, though, that I wouldn’t be able to keep up the charade once the baby was in my arms. I would need help. 

I had changed approximately three diapers in my 30 years of existence and had no idea that onesies can slide down in case of an emergency. However, there was more to it than that. The nurturing magic that was supposed to spring up during pregnancy? It hadn’t happened for me. Even as I feigned happiness over my baby bump, I was desperate for someone to see through it. I’m terrified. Please, can’t someone tell? 

But they couldn’t. How could they, with all the thick walls I had built to live behind? 

As I assessed my situation on that fateful car ride, the worst seemed to be coming true: My son was crying in the backseat, I was crumbling in the front seat, and I couldn’t imagine anyone risking their well-being to come to a bed bug-ridden house to wrap their arms around me. My husband tried to reassure me that the bugs would be gone soon enough, but I couldn’t see past the hour ahead of us, much less imagine a happy future.

Two pest control companies were available to evaluate our infestation right away. This really will be over soon, I thought. However, it wouldn’t be. The first company said there was really no long-term solution unless our attached neighbor agreed to treat her home as well—which she didn’t. The second company gladly agreed to exterminate the bugs with a 60-day, money-back guarantee. Wait—sixty days?

After we saw the second company out, I gathered up my crumpled heart, wiggled my son into a baby wrap, and began to let our friends and family know about our unwanted visitors. We found some bed bugs in our house. We are treating them, but I completely understand if you would rather not visit. With each text, the knot in my stomach grew, and it was more and more of a struggle to press “send.” I choked back tears, pulled my sore body off of the couch, and began to vacuum. Anything to try to convince myself that I didn’t need a life raft after all.

Then something amazing happened. 

A friend arrived on my doorstep with a reassuring hug I will never forget. She actually came inside, held my son, and told me how beautiful I looked as a mom. A mom. For the first time in nine months, I smiled without thinking about it. I stood a little straighter and felt color fill my cheeks. 

Later that day, another friend arrived at our door. I thought it was a fluke. Maybe these people had never really heard of bed bugs. However, it happened again and again and again. They brought food. They comforted me. They told their own bed bug stories! They offered to help clean and even invited us to stay in their homes. 

I began to feel a little lighter. Why? I wondered. We still had bed bugs, and I still felt like an imposter of a mom. As the days went on, though, and more family members and friends entered the messiness of my world, I realized what it was: I didn’t feel so alone anymore. 

When it would have been completely understandable to postpone a visit or send a delivery driver with a meal, no one did. The people in my world—the ones I was so afraid would leave me—had peered into my darkest closet and found me at my very worst. And instead of averting their eyes like I had imagined, they climbed in next to me. I never expected that through being broken and vulnerable, however unwilling, I would be met with the most incredible, humbling love. 

It would still be another six months before we were rid of the bugs and another 18 months until I began to feel some joy and confidence in motherhood. However, I was free in a way I’d never been before. I no longer worried I might fade away into the background. Instead, I felt more … whole. I wasn’t perfect, but that was the best part. I didn’t have to be. 

Eventually, I even worked up the courage to confess the inadequacy I felt as a mom to the other women in my life. Of course I wasn’t alone in this either.

Though I would never wish them on anyone, those unwelcome guests brought something good into our home. With all their baggage, they ushered in and left behind one of the greatest gifts of my life: the grace of being seen in all of my neediness and ache and being loved right there in the midst of it.

Guest essay written by Leah Kristie. Leah is a communications professional turned stay-at-home mom of two. She cherishes slow mornings, the laughter of her children, and healing that springs from unexpected places. When she is not dancing to toddler tunes or making baking soda volcanoes, she writes about identity, motherhood, faith, and the sacredness of small moments.

Photo by Jennifer Floyd.