Anyone who has spoken with me in the last nine months knows I’ve been counting down the days until I could safely deliver my daughter and no longer be pregnant. Mental health challenges mixed with never-ending nausea, topped with an infinite amount of acid reflux that could make a battery function, had me at my wit’s end as far as my maternal instincts went. However, now, I sit here, holding my beautiful baby girl, and wondering how I ever forgot about the nights.
You know… the nights.
The nights when it feels like the only people awake in the world are you and your baby.
The nights when you long for time to speed up…
…yet feel the instant regret and also want it to slow down.
The nights when online shopping seems like the best way to stay awake.
The nights when the glow of the moon or the beams of the soon-rising sun bring you comfort.
When you glance at your sleeping partner with eyes filled of both appreciation and envy.
The nights when you envision what your baby and life will be like years in the future.
The nights where you’re forced to sit with the uncertainty of what tomorrow will bring.
When you hold your breath, recount how much didn’t get done the day prior and count the bullets on the to-do list of the next.
The nights you endlessly scroll social media, passing by the same posts and reels you’ve seen each of the previous nights.
The nights when you wriggle in pain as your baby latches your freshly providing nipples… or you squint your eyes as you measure out a bottle in the dim kitchen light.
When you fight your eyelids to stay open just a little longer, to hold your baby upright a little longer.
The nights when the only things breaking the silence are your baby’s soft breaths, birds chirping, and the garbage trucks beginning their route down the road.
The nights when you want so badly to lay your baby carefully down back into the bassinet, yet you also don’t want to let go just yet.
The nights when you find comfort in those tiny hands grip yours.
The nights where you reminisce about where you were at that exact moment several years ago.
The nights when you have all the time to reflect on what a beautiful and challenging thing pregnancy was.
The nights when you can only imagine what’s happening in homes all across the globe at that very moment.
Ah, yes, those nights when it feels like the only people awake in the world are you and your baby.
For now, I cradle my baby a little tighter. I dim my phone so as to not wake her from her post-feed slumber. I lean back for a moment, let out a sigh of contentment, and enjoy the glow of the nightlight juxtaposed against the blanket of darkness outside all while trying not to wake the nearby toddler.
Maybe it’s the nightlight, or maybe it’s something else, but — these nights — they don’t quite seem so dark all of a sudden. I may have not remembered them, but I certainly don’t want to ever forget them.
