Mammas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up.

Or become ugly country singers like this one.

The other day my BFF mentioned through sniffles that her younger daughter had just celebrated her 20th birthday, which signified the “no more children in her household” era. I know exactly why she pines because my younger offspring will turn 20 in April. Sigh. How could 20 freaking years have slipped right through my fingers? 

I clearly remember the night before my second daughter was brutally sliced from my tender abdomen. I lay down for a nap around Wheel of Fortune time, and when I stirred about 9 P.M., mild contractions were threatening the rest of my Tuesday night t.v. schedule. I timed the contractions and casually waddled into the den to alert my husband that we might want to head to the hospital. The birth pangs were two minutes apart, and we were 90 minutes from my doctor. Because the C-section was scheduled for two weeks later, I was unprepared. 

This was, incidentally, the very last time that child was fucking early for anything. 

I packed, made all kinds of arrangements, and called my parents so that they could meet us and plan to take care of my older daughter during my recovery; and we were off.  Once we arrived at the medical center, the fun began. First, I had an epidural—my favorite. The epidural is better than no pain meds at all, especially when you are having a massive opening cut in most of the layers of your guts. BUT.  I don’t care what anyone says. Nothing can prepare you for a drinking straw of steel being rammed into your spinal column or the violence that follows. The first time I had a spinal block, the nurse said, “You will feel a mild electric shock down one side.” I still dream of finding that lying bitch and beating her mildly with a crowbar. 

After the block successfully kicked in, the night duty nurse came by to explain that my doctor hadn’t arrived, so I’d have to hold on. Apparently all nurses who have assisted in my children’s births are liars. It wasn’t that my doctor hadn’t arrived. He was out of the freaking country and wouldn’t be back for days. Still, the nurse kept poking her perky little head in with my doctor’s ETA. After she went off duty hours later, I began to get suspicious. When a doctor I’d never seen before sauntered in about 7:30 Wednesday morning, I knew I’d been duped. I don’t even remember the guy’s name, but a little over 2 hours later, he was sawing open my flesh. 

Aside from the fact that I almost died on the delivery table and actually left my body, which I could see from a freaky aerial perspective, the birth went well. My teeny-tiny precious was screeching mere moments after being slurped out of my midsection. 

And now. Twenty years have disappeared. I can live without ever again having to hold my breath through green-goop-smeared diaper changes or that time I accidentally put a disposable diaper into the washer. Unless you’ve done it, you can’t fathom the destruction that the gel beads inside Pampers ® can cause when they are already full of shit and then quadrupled by 40 gallons of washer water.

I can live without the crying and shrieking and tantrums of yore when my children didn’t get their way or had to wait more than 36 hours for food. Jesus. Some of us had to sleep. How hard was it for them to drag a stool to the counter and operate a microwave anyway? Fucking whiners. 

I can live without the icy grip on my heart every time my daughters suffered or hurt although that will never change. 

But what I would give anything— anything— to have again are their soft, tiny fingers in my hands as we crossed the street. Or their warm, plump, summer-bronzed arms hugging my neck before there was more than one chin. Or their saucer-eyes that gazed at me with more love than the universe can hold. Or the sight of my daughters sleeping, their smallness and vulnerability so apparent under fleece blankets. Or their precious voices saying, “I love you, Mama!” Or the infectious laughter that bubbled up from the bottoms of their pink feet when I played the “five more minutes” game or the “wilting flower who needed water” game. I cherished being their clown, their font of knowledge, their support, their pupil, their greatest love. 

Sometimes I look at my daughters, all grown up, and I wish for just a second that I could have one day with them at each of their most adorable phases when they saw the world with wonder and awe and saw me as invincible and infallible. But they’ve learned that I am not their God, that the world isn’t always kind, that they can’t have everything that they want. How I wish I could’ve prevented those lessons. The truth is, I want my babies back. And I’m not talking about ribs.