I didn't deserve a migraine

I woke up this morning with a migraine, and it was the first time I've been sick in any debilitating way since having Graham. I felt the migraine coming on all night (starting in my neck, crawling up the back of my head, eventually settling in my right eyebrow, the right side of my nose, and in my teeth), but each time I woke up in pain I would force myself back to sleep, hoping that the migraine would subside by morning. It didn't, and I spent the first hour of the day squinting to keep as much light out of my eyes as possible and beginning Graham not to pinch me. Graham is working on his fine motor skills, and the first time he pinched my arm this morning it was uncomfortable, but I let him pinch two more times because I thought it might be a diversion from the migraine pain, which peaked about an hour after waking up—I yakked during the peak, and then the pain began to dissipate during Graham's nap, which immediately followed the yakking. So it really all worked out pretty well. Graham's pinching was not at all diversionary, as I hoped:  it just added to the overall pain, making my net pain even greater. Pain is so strange—it's so in the moment, so in the moment that it doesn’t even feel real anymore than I was ever experiencing it.

I didn't deserve to have a migraine today. I deserved one a few months ago. When Graham was four months old, I started claiming that I had become so comfortable and confident with babies that anyone could at anytime drop a newborn into my arms, say, "Take care of this thing," and I would have no fear about it. But Graham's beautiful cousin Eva was born Monday morning, and when I was offered the opportunity to hold her, my muscles suddenly felt like pudding, and I thought:  "Hold her tight, Amy! But not too tight! Well, what's the right level of tightness?! Shouldn’t I practice with an equally fragile doll first?" But while I was thinking that, my mouth said, "Let me sit down," and after I sat, I held her with a good degree of squeeze. 

On Tuesday Graham had a bath-meriting poop (very exciting for a mother with constant constipation concerns), and when I put him in the tub he reached for the faucet and banged his head against the side of the bath. He cried, and I felt awful.

I truly deserved a migraine a day from the time Graham was four months old until Eva was born Monday, and then I somewhat deserved a migraine until Graham hit his head in the bathtub on Tuesday. But since Tuesday I have abandoned my toss-me-any-infant cockiness, so I didn't deserve a migraine Wednesday, Thursday or today. And after today I think I never deserve one again, because I was terrified by how incapable I felt of taking care of Graham while at the same time needing to take care of myself. And as I squinted my eyes to keep the light out and grimaced each time my eyebrow throbbed, Graham looked at me like he was terrified too. I'm sure it was an ugly face I made. And I'm sure it was imprudent to ever regard any human, and especially a newborn, as easy to take care of.

"You deserve a migraine." I think that'd be a pretty cool way to rebuke someone.

***I'm feeling very emotional about Eva and Ashley, and about babies and their mothers in general, and I would like to write a post explaining all the love I feel for them, but I don't know if I'm going to be able to. I've been crying about five times a day thinking about babies and their mothers, and about Eva and Ashley in particular, but I can't really say why. They're beautiful and loving and giving, and each seems to mean everything to the other, but they're so much more to it than that, and I can't quite explain what that "so much more" is. I might try, but I might just get overwhelmed with feeling and go cry instead.