The first time I sat in the waiting room, I faced a wall full of Christmas cards and birth announcements.

The second time I sat in the waiting room, Chris sat next to me, reading a book I bought him, which exclaimed in bold letters on the front, “We’re pregnant!” I held a clipboard and grilled him about his family’s medical history. When the doctor turned the monitor screen to face us, Chris couldn’t help but move closer, wanting to get as good a look at our little gummy bear as possible. But he didn’t let go of my hand, and for the first time he was pulled between me and our child.

Once the appointments became regular, they called me back first, leaving Chris in the waiting room while they took my vitals and asked screening questions. He sat patiently, facing that wall of smiling babies, until they called his name.

Spring

I wish we could stay like this forever, baby, I whisper to my daughter as I rock her to sleep. Her soft fuzz of hair under my palm, I remember how wispy and sparse it was just a few weeks ago. I wonder what it will look like a few weeks from now.

As her breaths grow softer and more shallow, I think about how hard we fought to get her to sleep when she first came home, spending hours trying to get the combination just right. Now, as she drifts off before I am ready to put her down, those days already seem like a distant memory.

Since giving birth, all my nerve endings are exposed, so close to the surface they bear no protection against the onslaught of emotions each day brings. For the first day and a half of my daughter’s life, I cried every time she cried. My brain is full. It takes time for the mind to catch up with the changes the heart has gone through.

Even though I’m supposed to let her learn to put herself to sleep, I pick her up and hold her to my chest. I should be preparing her for the week ahead, but instead I am still trying to make up for the time that has slipped away this week. Eventually her pacifier dangles out of her mouth like a cigarette in a black-and-white movie. Her fists are still balled against her sleep sack. When I gently remove the pacifier, she flashes a big toothless grin in her sleep.

Summer

At my six-week postpartum visit, I am teary-eyed in the waiting room. This time the clipboard in my hand is to assess my mental state. When I check in at the front desk and give the receptionist my name, I see her check her computer screen for the type of appointment and her voice then softens, and she asks, how are you today?

In the office, with only a paper gown to cover me, I tell the doctor that I am fine, that these are happy tears brought on by being back in this office, from seeing the heartbeat Doppler on the counter in front of me. She asks if I miss being pregnant.

I tell her that I do. But those words alone cannot express all that I miss. I miss the weekly trips to Dunkin’ Donuts after my appointments, powdered sugar spilling all over my baby bump. I miss the nursery being clean and organized. I miss not knowing what her name would be, how her face would look. I miss sitting up all night while she kicked away and I was the only person who could feel it. I miss not having to ever put her down, to hear the heartbreak in her cry, to reaffirm my love for her.

As I am leaving the office, I see a man sitting alone in the waiting room, waiting for his name to be called.

We plan our days around long walks. I watch the seasons change, another painful reminder of how the earth continues to churn, while, for me, time seems to have ground to a halt. Even the least productive days add up to weeks and months. Like outgrown clothes, holding onto them tight enough does nothing to make them last. As each day grows longer, thicker, and then shorter, cooler, I fight the desire to dig my heels into the ground and refuse to take another step further into the future.

Autumn

When the cold wind comes creeping in, I am overwhelmed by what I know I don’t know. It seems foreboding, the temperature a manifestation of the limited time I have left. Outside is slipping away, daylight is slipping away, our time together is slipping away.

Thinking about not breastfeeding is so emotional. Packing away old clothes and toys is so emotional. Thinking about breastfeeding the next baby, one potentially wearing her old clothes, is a relief and impossible. I try so hard to bring it back to this moment, because nothing else is an option. If I force her legs into pants that are too small, that’s less time we’ll have to enjoy the bigger pants. If I think too much about breastfeeding, the bliss is gone. I can’t let the next few months pass me by in fear of what comes after. So, for now, I try my best honor and be proud of what I’ve done and not mourn it until it’s over.

I walk her through the neighborhood when I can, but it is so different. She wears her fleece jacket with bear ears at the top of the head. I touch her cheeks with my freezing fingers to make sure they aren’t too cold. Somehow she still falls asleep, still can’t resist the lull of motion, whether in the stroller or the car. But it is so different from the summer, when I clipped the fan to her stroller and stood at just the right angle to block the sun’s rays, planning my route around the shade and my schedule around the heat. These days I can see the river across the street through the bare trees. These days I know it’s getting closer and closer to when I can no longer put her in the infant seat that faces me. These days I wonder how I will take the next baby for walks without her.

On my desk I keep a messy stack of the torn-off pages of my daily calendar, and I avoid throwing them away because I don’t want to ever forget how much each of these days mean. I try to take in each one, because despite the ups and downs they are all so beautiful. I try not to miss the ones that are gone, because there is no time to waste on that. All I can do is keep pushing ahead.

Winter

There used to be days when I did nothing but hold her.

At ten months old, she doesn’t want to be held. She wants me, but not to hold her; she wants me to play with her, chase her, feed her, watch while she crawls away from me.

For a while now she has been restless, frustrated with not being allowed to do anything. We put the handlebar of her walker in front of her and she immediately takes off, determined, watching the scenery as she passes, with no control over where she’s going. And then the wheels hit a table leg or a wall, and she is upset again. She wakes up often at night, not slowly but bolting upright screaming. She falls asleep while I feed her but rolls over as soon as I place her down, pressing her hands and her cheek against her crib mattress, wailing. I slide down to the floor, stick my arm through the rails, and place my hand on the side of her head until she falls back asleep.

In the long days of the first months there was nothing I could do with her, but nothing I needed to do with her. Sleep, be changed, be held, and drink milk: Anytime she cried it was for one of those things. Now she cries for all sorts of different things she can’t express. Her wants are not aligned with her abilities, or she is sick, or she is just becoming a toddler. We will bounce her in the air, blow in her face, make funny noises, and she gives a big hesitant smile that is always seconds away from breaking into a scream.

She crawls around muttering “mama” sometimes, and then stops for weeks at a time. She wakes only once at night a few times, then forgets how to do it. Nothing is linear.

I watch her at daycare sitting in a row of high chairs with the big kids, who aren’t so much bigger than her anymore. When she started at ten weeks old, she was the tiniest—“my baby,” her teacher called her. Now there are lots of other babies, and she is one of the kids sitting up and eating. She got bit in the face by another kid last week. The teacher felt so bad for “my baby.”

When I go to pick her up, she is not always excited to see me.

I tell her she is the most precious thing, my brave baby. She still smiles with her apple cheeks, one of them reflecting the perfect dental records of a stranger.

Tonight I held her while she fell asleep, ahead of schedule, twirling her wet curls in her fingers, slower and slower. The teardrops pooled in the inner corners of her eyes. She reaches for me now—I think about months ago, when I tried to teach her to do that by hesitating to pick her up until she lifted her arms. Now I try to breathe on the couch and there she is, crying in Chris’ arms, reaching for me.

Life feels harder the older she gets. You don’t get as many allowances as the mom of a ten-month-old. Everything is basically back to normal, except this child is more of a handful every day. She can no longer be set down or relied upon to sleep half the day. Breastfeeding now feels less like a necessity and more like a selfish choice. I miss having family over every week, having help to go to the store, having Chris hold her while I shower in the mornings. What a beautiful time that was, and it was so hard to see. Of course I saw what a beautiful time it was with my baby. But I couldn’t see what a beautiful time it was with our families, each other, the world around us.

I’ve allowed myself to live in a world of flowers and rainbows for nearly a year, and now the cracks are beginning to reappear. I need to keep the house clean, so that when the baby tears through on her path of destruction, there is nothing in her way. I need to protect her, comfort her, while she is on said path. I need to be ready for the next step when she needs to be changed or fed or put to sleep. I need to have the creative energy, apparently, to sit down and engage with her while she plays. I need to work and feed myself and her and pump her milk, and take care of the dog and pay our bills and work on my writing and record every moment so I don’t forget it. And I need to work out to stay sane, and treat my body well before and after I work out, and get plenty of time outside to recharge my insides. And I should really check in with those friends I never reach out to, who have stopped reaching out to me as often. And I need to plan for her first birthday. And what about those library story times and finding a park with baby swings?

And when I do find that spare time I always crave, how can I ever leave her?

As the first year closes in, I feel nostalgic for every piece of it. I try to push it aside to embrace the moment, because I know in time the nostalgia for this very moment will arrive.

I am afraid to fill out my memory books at the risk of being locked into one answer when a thousand emotions pass by every day. There is no way to summarize any portion of a new, curious, growing life in a few sentences.

All I want is to hold my baby again. And when she’s in my arms, all she wants is to be out. I want her to be small again and I love who she is as she grows. I want to build her a future and I want to soak up every moment. It’s a field of contradictions, being a mother. I am pulled in all different directions even now with only one child. It feels like there are never enough days, but I spend my days just trying to get through.

I’ve surprised myself so much in the past year. I think of the hope, the excitement, every single new thing, and I am afraid to let myself think about the heartache, the loss, the unfairness, the uncertainty. Fortunately my brain still isn’t much for thinking anyway.

Spring

In the quiet moments before bed, I cry as she looks up at me, wide awake and amused. Sometimes people cry when they’re happy, I tell her. You’ll learn someday. I remember as a kid not understanding when people said they were crying happy tears.

It's strange to feel sad about something that’s so happy. Just like it’s strange to cry over my daughter who is supposed to be the one crying. A lot of things are strange. The amount of clothes and diapers we’ve cycled through, the way her hair now starts to hang past her shoulders when we rinse it in the bath, trying to conceptualize the past year and put it into words.

One year ago, we never could have imagined how wonderful you’d be, I tell her. One year ago, we were still waiting for you. Did you know how loved you would be? Did you know my voice?

I’m saying goodbye to myself as a new mom, and I’m adding another degree of separation between my old and new life. I no longer used to be a carefree, childless woman; I used to be a new mom. The rest of it was a lifetime ago, my connection to it slipping away. It’s difficult to figure out why something you wouldn’t change for anything can still feel so hard to accept.

-Maria Lockard

Maria Lockard is a writer, runner, and amateur mother. She studied English and Creative Writing at Virginia Commonwealth University and lives in Northern Virginia.