Oh, how you've changed.

Becoming a mother for the first time is scary in a lot of ways, but one of the less talked about ways is that it can be a problem for other people in your life. Your life changes drastically, and so your interactions with others change as well. I understand that well, and understood it before I had Essie. I never said to myself, "Oh, motherhood will never change me. I'll still be the same old Keltie!"

What I was most afraid of? That it wouldn't change me. That I'd be the same old Keltie.

Being pregnant was overall very odd for me. Just when it was getting real and fun and far less tiring I was suddenly an early mom. I didn't get a lot of opportunity to get past the 'this can't be real' phase before it was incredibly real and twice as terrifying. I looked definitely pregnant for about, oh ... two weeks? Tops. Nobody ever gave me their seat on the subway or patted my belly.

So I don't feel as if I changed much as a person during that time. I hadn't made room in my brain for the reality of Shaughnessy since I thought I had more time to get used to her being inside of me. She was a concept, and a pretty major one, but not part of the world yet. She was yet another oddity about my physical being that I was contending with, I guess.

The circumstances of her birth were kind of equivalent to being thrown into a pool when you can't swim. And the pool water is freezing cold. And not very clean. I had to learn to swim with a quickness. Once I was discharged from the hospital I had to do all kinds of things that I wasn't thrilled about doing, but having a kid takes choice away from you completely. You don't have a choice about taking care of your baby. YOU had it, you silly thing, so you have to take care of it. I had to pump if I wanted her to have my breastmilk and I had to get out of the apartment every single day to go see her and take it to her (something difficult for my agoraphobic self, even if it doesn't sound like such a big deal.)

Now that she's home I have even less choice. 'Sleeping in' doesn't actually exist any more, even if Andrew is taking care of her while letting me sleep. On a very visceral level I'm so attuned to being her mother that the sound of her crying or making any other baby noise will wake me and I'll be on high alert even when I'm trying to get myself settled back to sleep. But when I do have to wake up to her cries or whimpers for a bottle or a diaper change it sucks as much as waking up to a strident alarm clock. It feels shitty to rouse yourself from comfortable sleep. There is no choice though, and so I do it.

So on that level I have changed. I have a giant new responsibility and I'm doing what is necessary to fulfill it and changing my entire previous lifestyle to accommodate it. The nice thing about babies is that the longer you work at it the greater the returns. She's started smiling at us now when she sees our faces, which is pretty awesome at a time when you're feeling sad about having to be awake.

I've also changed in some ways that I was worried I wouldn't. I worried I wouldn't love my baby enough, which is so obviously not the case that I feel relieved every time I think of it. She is heart-splittingly lovable and I can't decide if it's that I have an exceptionally awesome kid or it's a built-in failsafe kicking in deep in my brain. Whichever; I don't care. I love this kid. I spend all day with her and it's all about her needs coming first now, not mine. It's not painful in the way I feared it would be, though. I worried that I'd be the mom sitting there staring at her wailing baby trying VERY hard not to smother it with a pillow and yes; there are frustrating moments so far, but no murderous instincts. I know that there are tantrum times coming down the road that I'll have to contend with. For now, though, I'm just happy that I've turned into a mother, one who loves her daughter when she's unhappy as well as being smilingly adorable.

So, um ... I've changed. I'm finding that it's hard to put into words how I've changed, I guess. I am embracing the all-consuming aspect of it right now in a way that might be surprising to anyone who knew me before Essie was born and had heard my many reservations about motherhood back when I was contemplating never having children. She's here, though, and I am now throwing myself willingly into the water rather than being forced in. I'm taking all the pictures I can, talking about her all the time, noticing other babies more as a result and maybe squee-ing a bit over them. I'm not trying to retain my concept of what I was before she came along; rather I'm excited about watching what I grow into now that she's here.

My hope is that if you love me, so are you.