This Is What We Do: The Anxiety of Being a New Parent

This one captures the anxiety of being a new parent about as honestly as I’ve ever written it, from timing Desmond’s breaths with an iPhone app to the spiral of 4 a.m. Google searches I know I shouldn’t have made. Seeing that mother in the waiting room, clutching her purse and fighting tears, was a gut-punch reminder that this particular brand of worry never fully leaves you, it just quiets down until something brings it right back to the surface.

It’s always something.

Recently I took Des to the doctor for something normal and routine. There was another mother in the waiting room who was at the doctor for an appointment with her five-year-old daughter. It was not routine and was something quite grim and serious, but what I never eavesdropped enough to learn. The little girl was taken to an examining room and the mother sat alone. She was clutching her purse and fighting tears. When the nurse called her name to come back and see her daughter, she jumped at the nurse’s voice, and jumped even more at the chance to see her baby. I didn’t see either of them again.

When Desmond first came home from the hospital, I was worse off than a new neurotic parent with a firstborn. To be honest, I wasn’t so bad with Scarlet. Sure I checked that she was breathing several times a night, but eventually I calmed down and trusted her strength and health, and our instincts to know if something seemed off. She was and is such a healthy and robust kid. Desmond truly is too, despite a rougher start. When he came home, I checked his breathing every five minutes, no lie. I even put a timer app on my iPhone to check his breaths per minute. Just like the nurses had done at the hospital. I was nuts. And I thought I’d never relax. I thought I had subjected myself to a complete life of unease and worry. I kinda did..

..however, I also subjected myself to a complete life of joy and happiness as well.

I don’t time Desmond’s breathing anymore. I am amazed at how well he eats and sleeps and how fast he grows. However, the other day at the doctor, with the woman and her sick daughter, I looked at her face and felt like I was looking into a mirror reflection. The twisted pain and raw fear – I know it so well. And it’s not just Desmond’s birth experience. It’s Scarlet as well.

She’s had a cold/cough for weeks now, and every time she coughs, I seriously feel murderous. When Desmond gets a little congested from the air-conditioning, I fret at 4:00 am, thinking he has a cold and how terrible it is for a four-week-old to have a cold and how could I have let it happen and..and…then I wake up the next morning and he’s fine. But something in me can’t relax anymore, and I don’t know if I’ll ever get it back. It’s always something. From big stuff to small stuff, it will happen again and again. If it isn’t a cold or cough, it’s something else. Something you should NEVER go to Google for.

As you can tell by the random string of things I’ve thought in the last few days, clearly, I’ve already visited Google and I’m regretting it:

Is it safer to circumcise him or not circumcise him??

If I give her a Cinderella doll, will she develop an unhealthy view of the female body and develop an eating disorder down the road??

If I let him get to the point of hunger that he’s crying, have I just depleted his precious brain cells? I mean..what if I like…had to go to the bathroom and made him wait two minutes to eat???

Should I call the doctor about her cough or not? I know most things are viral but in those slim antibiotics-needed cases, wouldn’t you want to be prepared??

If I nurse him on the wrong side, will I create a foremilk/hindmilk problem which may cause excessive weight gain??

These are the insane thoughts that keep me up at night. Only, maybe they’re not so insane. They’re human. Parent human.