Fourteen Years Later, I Still Don’t Know What to Do With a Baby

“So what exactly am I supposed to do now?”

It was warm and sunny on Saturday, October 13, 2012. Normally, on Saturdays, Feng worked at home in the morning, I’d make lunch and then we’d go downtown together to browse Lonely Planet guidebooks at Chapters or grab a coffee at Starbucks.

Except this Saturday, I hadn’t slept in 48 hours and people were calling me “mum” because I no longer had a pregnant belly, I had a baby.

Yes, we had come home with a baby, the same way we come home with groceries or new clothes. I’d just been discharged from the Civic Hospital after a short 24-hour stay. I was painfully aware that I had no idea what I was doing, but I couldn’t wait to tear off the hospital wristband. I couldn’t sleep in the shared room—there was always a baby crying, and sometimes it was mine.

Feng had parked in the driveway, we had somehow unclipped the car seat and set it down in the entryway. Mark slept through the whole dance.

One of us took him to his room upstairs—can’t remember who. He didn’t wake up. Baby sleeping, that’s an achievement for parents, right? Except he had fallen asleep on his own, so I was hardly going to congratulate myself on my great mothering skills.

Baby parked safely. Step one completed.

Should I check the carbon monoxide alarm? Play classical music? Start him on solids? No, wait, that would be… a while from now.

There’s no instruction manual for the first few hours when you come home with your baby. There’s a huge knowledge gap between pregnancy (nine months of mostly unwanted advice), labour (preceded by nine months of equally unwanted horror stories) and whatever comes after, all those milestones ahead.

But what the hell are you supposed to do right after stepping inside your home with your brand-new baby?

Oh, right, sleep. Everybody says it, often in a singsong voice for some reason, like some ancient wisdom being passed down: “Sleep when the baby sleeps!”

Well, he was sleeping alright, but I wasn’t sleepy. Part of me was refusing to go to bed at noon on a Saturday because it felt lazy, and part of me was high on the whole giving birth thing.

I didn’t need to sleep. Thanks, hormones.

I needed to go pee.

I postponed it. That’s what mothers are supposed to do, right, always coming second to the baby? Okay, honestly, I didn’t want to go because peeing hurt like hell.

Would now be a good time to cut my toenails, now that I could bend effortlessly and actually see my feet? Or was it too pointless a task now that I was officially a mother?

I went upstairs to check on Mark.

He was sleeping.

I came back downstairs, then went up and down the stairs one more time just because I could. I couldn’t believe how easy it was. Over the past few weeks, going upstairs had gradually taken more and more time and effort. I felt so light I could run. I should go for a run, great idea! No, wait, I don’t even run. Damn hormones.

Now what?

Should I just resume life where I had left off? There were dishes to do, stuffed peppers in the fridge and a barely touched apple pie on the kitchen table. I should stress that I never ever cook stuffed peppers or bake anything except, apparently, the night before giving birth. Huh, never made either again, come to think of it.

Well, no cooking now. Not hungry, probably because I wasn’t feeding another body inside me anymore.

A load of laundry. I gave birth in a Metallica tour T-shirt. It could use a wash.

Cleaning. Maybe I could vacuum. Oh wait, no, Feng was sleeping.

Mark was sleeping too.

Mark.

Our baby.

It still felt unreal. To be fair, it had only been hours since I had learned he was a boy. We had been together for nine months, but I didn’t know much about him yet, except that he was very good at kicking and jumping, preferably in the middle of the night.

I called my mum.

“Where is Mark?”

“Sleeping, in his room.”

I texted a few friends. “Where is Mark?” Okay, I was getting annoyed. Sleeping. In his room. Where else? What else? And thanks, I was doing great.

It must have been the hormones. Or the lack of sleep.

I decided to stop talking to people and write instead—a blog post, a few emails. At least no one was going to ask me where I had put the baby and I wouldn’t sound bitchy.

It was such a nice day… should I take Mark outside?

Wait, can you take a baby outside?

I stepped out to get the mail. Funny. There were people walking their dogs, taking their kids to the park, a guy strapping a canoe onto the roof of his car… the world was still spinning, blissfully unaware that there was a new human being at home and that time had stopped because I was waiting for him to wake up.

Oh, he did wake up.

Later, when I was in the shower. I rushed out, half-rinsed, to feed him when Feng called me.

And then at 2 a.m., when I was fast asleep.

At 4 a.m. too, I think.

Ah, that’s what you do with a baby then.

Now can anyone tell me what you’re supposed to do with a baby, fourteen years later?

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to wrap a pair of dumbbells. Yes, the same as mine but heavier, obviously—hey, that’s what he wanted for his birthday!