on becoming a grandmother

It’s a strange thing, becoming a grandmother. Unlike becoming a parent, it’s not something I choose — it happens to me.

Up until now, the show has been mine. I have been the one raising children, making decisions and life changes and a home. I rule. But with this new baby, I will no longer be centerstage. Soon, the moon and stars will revolve around the grandbaby’s family, and I will be bumped to an outer orbit — revolving, watching, illuminating. 

It is confusing. I want this new baby more than anything, and I am sad.

Also, I am incredulous. How can I be this old?

***

For weeks leading up to the birth, I dream about babies. About a two-year-old little girl with a mop of thick, curly hair. About a long skinny boy named Jebriel who weighs 20 pounds. About being pregnant, nursing, and giving birth. The dreams are intense, frequent, and disorienting.

As the end of the pregnancy closes in, I get twitchy. I think about my daughter-in-law constantly. Where is she? How is she feeling? Is everything okay? As long as I’m with her (which isn’t often), I feel calm, but only an hour or two after, and I’m tense again.

My sleep becomes fragmented.

***

The night before the baby comes, my son calls to tell us that labor has started and is going well. They just want us to know in case they need help in a few hours. Make sure your phone is on, he says.

I sleep fitfully, checking my phone every hour. There are no messages.

In the morning, my son calls. All night, labor has been intense, and due to a midwife shortage at their practice, they’re going to need to transfer to the birthing center to get care. While they are away, would we mind running over and cleaning up the house?

Of course, I say. Right before lunch, my husband and I head over to their place. I strip the sheets and plastic from the bed, straighten the living area, and then — another phone call. 

My son says he has a migraine and is fighting nausea. He needs backup.

***

At the birthing center, my son’s eyes are red-rimmed from exhaustion. He looks half out of his mind. Over the dull roar of the white noise machine in the hallway, I hear a low-register wailing, like whale sounds crossed with a tiger’s growl. It goes on and on and on, and then stops. And then starts back up again.

“That’s her,” my son says tiredly. “She’s been doing that since the beginning.”

I surprise myself by feeling so distressed at the sounds. How can he be so calm? How is he not beside himself? She sounds so . . . alone. I have an overwhelming urge to run back there and koala myself to her.

I say none of this, though, and I hope my face reveals nothing.

My son starts mumbling about oxygen levels, then — something about breathing too deeply and needing carbon dioxide — so he sticks his head in my bag and zippers it shut. “You can take a photo,” he says through the leather.

The bag treatment works, and soon he disappears back down the hall.

Between contractions, I send chirpy texts to my girlfriend, and to my daughter-in-law’s mother. During contractions, I pace, hurling whisper-shout commands at the wall like a drunk football fan in front of the TV. 

My husband rubs my back. “It’s like you’re in labor.” He laughs when he says it, but he’s tense, too.

The keening intensifies — I feel like I’m going to explode out of my skin — and then, suddenly, my son’s voice breaks through, “You did it!”

My husband and I high-five and cry and hug, and then I immediately resume my post, this time listening for newborn sounds.

After a bit, one of the midwives comes out to report it’s a boy, and I’m surprised, even though I’d spent the first half of the pregnancy sure it was a boy. A little bit later, there’s our son, glowing, grinning, jubilant.

When we are finally invited back into the inner sanctum, I steel myself. Surely my daughter-in-law will have a bruised face, bloodshot eyes, and no voice. 

When I see her sitting up in bed nursing the baby, and smiling, I’m so relieved she’s in one piece that I awkwardly pat her all over her head and face before pulling myself together. 

***

I thought that when I’d first hold my grandbaby, my heart would explode, but I don’t feel anything, really. He’s naked, and so, so tiny, and he wiggles a lot. I hold him clumsily, like I have never held a baby before. 

He doesn’t look like either of his parents, which confuses me. He’s more blond than I expected — practically a redhead. 

He sticks his tongue out a lot.

***

My husband and I sit in chairs at the far end of the room and watch the goings-on.

Never before have I seen two people in worse shape make such a complete turn-around. The air is so thick with good endorphins that I can practically see them.

My son bounces about, giving the baby his vitamin K shot, eating a burger, picking out a onesie, packing up their things, and talking, talking, talking.

My daughter-in-law is an entire ocean of serenity, so glowy and happy-soft, she’s practically melty. 

We hang out together, visiting about this and that, and placing bets on the baby’s weight. (My daughter-in-law nails it: 7 pounds 6 ounces.)

But mostly we don’t say much of anything. There’s no need for words, really. There’s no space for them.

***

During the post-delivery clean up, my husband and I return to the waiting room, but then my son shows up, baby in arms. Can I hold him for a bit?

For the better part of an hour, I bask in the sweetness. I can almost feel the love tendrils creeping out of my chest and wrapping themselves around his warm little body.

***

The next day when I swing by to collect their dirty laundry (really, I just want to see the baby), the weirdest thing happens. 

As I sit there, the new little person in my arms, doing nothing but holding him, it dawns on me: I am content. 

I am rarely content, and holding my own babies, I was always hankering to do something else. Maybe my contentment is a fluke, a one-time occurance? 

But later that week when I pop in to help out (er, get some cuddles), I snuggle him for nearly two hours, staring at his face, snuffling his head, singing to him — and he isn’t even awake. 

It’s bizarre.

***

Everyone keeps asking me how it feels to be a grandparent. 

This is the first grandbaby on both sides of the family, and on my side it’s the first great grandbaby, and the first great great grandbaby. But aside from the collective creaking that is the sound of our entire extended family aging upwards, there’s not much to say. This becoming just is. 

But I do feel things. 

Gratitude —  for the myriad of ways the new parents have needed and included us. 

Wonderment — at the indescribable beauty of watching my son and daughter-in-law fall head over heels in love with their child.

Startlement — for my dizzying biological pull to care for and protect this child. 

Exhilaration — for the intoxicating discovery that I have the capacity to love in a new way, a way I’ve never loved before. 

So that’s my answer, I guess. Becoming a grandparent feels unexpected and thrilling, raw and disorienting, draining and joyful. 

Most of all, it feels right. 

P.S. I still haven’t picked a name for myself yet, but at this point I’m too busy soaking up the cuddles to even care. 

This same time, years previous: pickled jalapeños, crunch week, chicken birthday cake, colby cheese, cherry bounce, roasted sweet potato salad, for science, another adventure!, kitchen concert, homemade pepperoni, opening, what will I wish I had done differently?, adventuring, oatcakes.