Parent in Love #4

..................

Last night's sleep schedule:

8:30 PM - midnight: Scheduled solo sleep shift; baby and husband in the living room. Woke up at 10:30, however, panicked - WHERE IS THE BABY???? Frantically pawing through pillows and bedsheets, convinced she should BE THERE. Can't calm down until I check the clock and verify that this is my sleep shift alone. This keeps happening every night for the last four nights.

midnight - 1:30 AM: She feeds, midnight to 12:45. Long, drawing sucks, accentuated by occasional pleasure aaahs. I let her fall asleep on my chest, half reclining against the oversize pillow, watching her grimace, smile and yip through her newborn dreams. I pray she won't start fussing the minute I lay her down. Then I remember the diaper - damn! That's going to wake her up all over again. But she slumbers through the whole change, and I am beginning to believe in miracles.

1:30 AM - 3:45 AM: She sleeps. I wake up sometime during the shift and remember my own dream: I stand on a sunny beach and watch the magnificent waves of the Pacific Ocean lap at my feet. They grow larger and larger, until they are as tall as buildings, then small mountains. The water turns from shimmering blue to threatening gray. One of the waves rises like a dark beast and becomes a hand, its gargantuan fingers towering a mile towards the sky, then falling and merging with the roiling waters. I think, this is a tsunami, and scamper to higher ground as the water washes over the parking lot. Oh, I think, my car is gone, under the ocean now. I climb again, onto a rocky ledge, confident the water won't reach this far. A small country church is ringing its bells in alarm, warning the people of the onrushing water. I take a sweeping look and think it is still beautiful.

3:45 AM - 4:30 AM: She feeds. This time I'm convinced there will be an hour of fussing; things have gone too smoothly so far. She falls asleep, then wakes and remembers she is still hungry. Her eyes wide open at first, scanning, looking decidedly worried, then yielding to the pleasure of the feed, the eyelids slowly begin to droop until she is fast asleep again. I do my slow slide twenty minutes later, armed with a pacifier in my left hand, propping her tiny head in the crook of my right arm.

4:30 AM - 7 AM: She sleeps! She SLEEPS! I do my worried wake-ups every hour to check if she is still there and breathing.