by Linda Byler
“BUT LIZZIE, JOSHUA, AND Emma are looking for us,” Mam protested, looking troubled as she gazed at her daughter.
“But, Mam. I feel so alone with my baby. I wish you wouldn’t go.”
“Stephen is here. You’ll do fine. There’s nothing to it. Just make sure the formula is not too hot when you put it in her bottle.”
It was Saturday afternoon, and Mam had come up the hill to say they were going to Allen County to church services at Joshua and Emma’s house. Mam knew Lizzie would be all right, although she wished she could put a stop to her fits of crying. When Mam said that, Lizzie said nothing, only nodded her head in acceptance, and Mam hurried down the hill to prepare for their weekend in Allen County.
The truth was, Lizzie thought Mam was not doing her duty. She should stay right here with her and Stephen. Joshua and Emma could have church without them. But, no, off they went, just like that. It made Lizzie mad. Then she felt guilty for becoming angry. Then she started crying again. This was the third day of mostly crying, and Lizzie felt absolutely at the end of her rope. She had given up even trying to be happy. There was no use. She shuffled around and heated formula, sterilized bottles and pacifiers, cried, and listened to Laura scream.
Stephen came home and tried to help, hanging his clothes on their proper hooks, making small talk, trying to hold Laura on the rare occasions when she didn’t cry, and, in general, struggling to keep his small family afloat. Lizzie sat on the sofa and cried as Stephen came in and leaned against the wood stove, his arms crossed in front of him as he watched Lizzie, softly sniffling on the couch with Laura beside her.
“Now what’s wrong?” he said, kindly.
“Mam was here. They’re going to Allen County to Joshua and Emma’s for church services.”
“But … what’s wrong with that?”
“They don’t have to go, Stephen. They could stay here with us,” Lizzie’s voice caught on a fresh sob.
“Lizzie, we can be alone. You’re going to have to get ahold of yourself and stop being so terrified.”
“I’m … I’m not. It’s just that she … she cries so much.”
“But Mam said some babies do.”
“I know, but when she cries all the time, I feel like I’m a horrible failure. What am I doing wrong? Why does she cry?”
Stephen laughed, running his hands through his hair.
“She’s quiet now.”
Crossing the room, he sat beside Lizzie and pulled her against him, holding her gently.
“You’re not a failure. You’re doing the best that you can. Maybe she’s just a grouchy baby and that’s simply how she’s going to be.”
Lizzie sat up and looked at Stephen.
“You mean, you think I’m doing the best I can?”
“Of course. You’re doing a great job. She takes the bottle well, she’s clean and dry and warm, and sometimes she sleeps and sometimes she cries, just like babies do.”
Lizzie looked at Stephen, then dubiously down at Laura who was wide awake, looking around with her small bright eyes.
Lizzie laughed, then sagged against the back of the couch.
“I wish I could take a pill to quit this awful crying and sense of helplessness. I feel like a boat that weathered one storm, and before it’s really recovered, another storm starts battering it.”
“You’re probably overtired, and once you sleep more regularly, you’ll feel happier.”
Lizzie sighed, then resolved to try harder. Stephen always had a lot of common sense when he spoke about matters like this. She would try and get her rest and see if that stopped the crying.
But now, when she did lie down at night, or during the day, she was so tense and nervous about having a new baby that she couldn’t sleep anyway, or not for a long time. She had never known that a person could get so tired and still go on living. She doubted very much that she would ever fully recover. In fact, she believed she would always shuffle around like an old lady and never truly feel strong and laugh for real.
But she and Stephen did survive the weekend without Mam, although Lizzie struggled every hour, trying mightily not to resort to endless unexplained tears. It was like a summer rainstorm that showed up at the most unexpected moments. Dark clouds threatened to overtake her sense of stability, the well-being and genuine happiness she was accustomed to feeling most of her life.
The worst part came after Laura finally settled down for the night, tucked into the small wooden crib in the corner of their bedroom, covered cozily with soft pink and white blankets. Lizzie lined up her bottles in the kitchen on the counter top and placed a small saucepan on the stove, ready to heat the formula during the night. Then Lizzie would climb into bed, feeling as if she would melt into the mattress and never be able to get up again. She was so tired, but there she would lie, her eyes open wide, staring at the ceiling. Meanwhile, every snuffle, breath, and whimper from the crib seemed to be amplified 10 times.
She was completely overwhelmed with the responsibility of caring for this tiny, pink human being, who depended on her for her every need. Lizzie was worn out with diapering, bathing, feeding, burping, and deciphering what Laura wanted every time she opened her sturdy little mouth and yelled, which, in Lizzie’s opinion was far, far too often. Lizzie was sure she was doing something wrong.
So, much like she had done when she was four years old and had gotten Snowball, the kitten, Lizzie lay and worried about her baby. Sometimes babies spit up and choked, or simply died in their cribs. What if that happened to Laura? Or what if Laura cried and cried and cried, and nothing, not one thing Lizzie tried, would stop her?
Lizzie tried to pray, to ask God to help her, she really did, but that only brought more tears. She only felt more pitiful. Probably God was very kind to young, scared, first-time mothers, so she cried because God was so loving. Stephen’s breathing, slow and steady, was a source of comfort for a reason she couldn’t explain. Probably because he was a rock-solid human being that could help if everything spun out of control, even if she still had to go down the hill for Mam’s advice.
On Monday morning, Stephen’s sister, Mary, arrived with his mother while Lizzie was sweeping the kitchen floor. They tied their small black horse to the hitching rack and breezed into the house, bringing a whole new world of optimism with them.
First of all, Stephen’s mother, Annie, grabbed the broom from Lizzie and, in her forthright manner, told her to go sit down. Young mothers should not be sweeping their kitchen when the baby was only a few days old, she said, clucking her tongue while Lizzie sat down, bewildered. No one had told her that, so she smiled to herself and figured it wouldn’t hurt to listen to her mother-in-law.
“Where is she?” Annie asked, looking around for a crib in the living room.
“She’s sleeping in her crib,” Lizzie answered.
“In the bedroom?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, you don’t want her in there. You should have a small crib out here, so she’s with you during the day.”
Bustling into the bedroom, she came out with Laura, clucking and exclaiming about her complexion.
“Lizzie, she’s really cute!” she said, beaming happily.
Mary smiled, talking to the baby. Lizzie sat back against the cushions, a real bubble of happiness beginning to well up inside. She was thrilled that they made such a fuss about her baby. Knowing that Mary would stay with them the whole week made everything seem more secure and possible. Actually, there was hardly a reason for her to cry at all. Stephen’s mother continued to fuss and ask questions, and Lizzie completely forgot about herself, or how she felt, as Mary gathered the laundry and tidied the house.
“You know, you need to keep babies very warm,” Annie chided, as she wrapped the soft, white, thermal, knit blanket securely around Laura again. “They don’t stay warm on their own, the way we do. Maybe that’s part of the reason she’s fussy. Maybe she’s not warm enough. Mary, check the fire. See if there’s more wood.”
While Mary did
the laundry in the basement, Annie made coffee and put away the things she had brought, including shoofly pie and some of the fresh sausage from the hogs they had just butchered. Lizzie felt very cozy, knowing that having a baby was a special event, especially since Laura was Annie’s oldest son Stephen’s baby.
That day, Lizzie had her first, deeply restful nap since Laura was born. Mary kept Laura in the living room with her while Lizzie slept. Lizzie awoke feeling so refreshed and happy, she couldn’t believe it.
Mary was holding Laura, who was sucking peacefully on her pacifier, her eyes wide open, when Lizzie walked into the living room. Lizzie was surprised to feel a genuine rush of affection for her little bundle in Mary’s arms. Reaching for her, she bent to kiss the soft little forehead, and held her tightly against herself. Suddenly she realized that she was perfectly normal, and she genuinely liked her baby. What was so bad if she cried? All babies cried.
Mary proved to be a good maud, cheerfully going about her duties, laughing about everything, which was like a good spring breeze to Lizzie’s battered emotions. Mary did laundry, cleaned, baked cookies, ran errands, folded clothes and put them away, anything Lizzie asked of her. Lizzie felt quite queenly, sitting on the recliner asking her maid to do things for her.
When Stephen returned from work in the evening, Mary had supper ready for them. Lizzie’s appetite returned with full force. It seemed as if Laura knew exactly the time they sat down for supper, and she would begin crying from her little crib.
But now, that was all right. Lizzie knew it was something she could handle quite well, in fact. Laura was either hungry or had to be burped or just wanted to be held for a while, which made Lizzie feel very capable and very motherly. Mary thought she cried an awful lot and was most certainly a grouchy baby. One day she peered in over the sides of the small porta-crib in the living room, lifted the blankets, and said, “She even looks grouchy when she sleeps!”
Lizzie looked over Mary’s shoulder to see why she said that. Indeed, Laura’s eyebrows were drawn down in an expression of displeasure, her little mouth puckered into a pout. Mary giggled and Lizzie laughed softly.
The glad day arrived when Emma came from Allen County, and Mandy came all the way to the farm in her horse and buggy. Lizzie wore her best everyday dress and bib apron, taking special care in the way she combed her hair and put on her Sunday covering. She felt very thin and pretty that morning, weighing less than she weighed on the day she became Stephen’s wife. She was so excited to see her sisters. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes finally looked the way they were supposed to, now that all the crying had stopped.
Mary had baked chocolate chip bars, and the coffee was hot, waiting on the back of the gas stove. She bustled about the kitchen, tidying the counter top, while Lizzie watched from her position on the recliner. It was almost uncanny the way Mary resembled Stephen, with the same dark, nut-brown complexion, sun-streaked, dark brown hair, and large heavily-lashed eyes. Today, Mary wore a pale-colored dress which made her appear even tanner. She was thin as a reed and ate more than Lizzie did, which only assured Lizzie that there was a difference in people’s metabolisms. Some people just burned calories faster and more fully than others.
“Here they come!” Mary said, from her vantage point at the kitchen window.
“Do they?” Lizzie asked, jumping up, rushing to the window. Sure enough, Mam, Emma, Mandy, Susan, and KatieAnn all came walking up the hill, along the little pathway worn down through the grassy field.
Mam was carrying one of the twins and Mandy the other. Emma carried her baby while KatieAnn held on to Mark’s hand. Lizzie watched and fairly skipped to the back door to open it for them, exclaiming in delight that they had all come together for a long anticipated visit.
Emma cried as she hugged and hugged Lizzie, but that was all right. Emma always cried when a baby was born to someone else. She thought, as did Joshua, that babies were the greatest blessing there ever was, and they had always wanted a large family. Mandy laughed and looked at Lizzie and told her she looked very skinny—for her—and her face looked nice, and did she have on a new covering?
Lizzie cried with Emma—only a little bit—then laughed with Mandy while Mam stood by and wiped her tears. Her nose became red the way it always did when she cried. KatieAnn and Susan took off the children’s coats and laid them on the bed in Lizzie’s bedroom, knowing their mother and older sisters would be incapable of thinking about normal things for the next five minutes, at least.
Then Lizzie walked over to the small, wooden porta-crib and held Laura out for her sisters to see. She had put her in the prettiest sleeper she owned, a pink and white one with two small appliquéd hearts on the shoulder, and wrapped her well in a pink blanket.
“Oh, oh, oh, my goodness!” Emma exclaimed, fluttering her hands, clearly beside herself. “Lizzie!”
Mandy, in her self-contained, quiet way, said quite firmly, “Lizzie, she’s the cutest baby I’ve ever seen!”
Then Mam’s nose became even redder, and she laughed and cried at the exact same time. Lizzie had never felt quite so important to her Mam and sisters as she did at that moment. Not even on the day she got married.
They all took turns holding Laura, while KatieAnn and Susan entertained the other children with Mary’s help. Everyone chattered and exclaimed and talked all at once, and no one truly listened much to what other persons were saying. After the initial frenzy of seeing the baby and saying the most important things had died down, they had coffee around the kitchen table, savoring the chocolate chip bars, and talking at a much more normal volume and speed.
Mandy’s twins were walking now and beginning to say whole sentences. They looked just like two little girls exactly the same age, except they were different in every way. One was dark-haired and dark-eyed while the other had blond hair and blue eyes. John and Mandy had been blessed with another little girl, named Sadie, who was nine-months-old and as blond and blue-eyed as the one twin. Mandy was a very busy young mother, very capable and sure of herself, now with three little girls. Joshua and Emma had a third baby, too, a little boy named, Isaac.
They listened sympathetically as Lizzie recounted the horrors of her hospital stay, her baby’s crying, her own helplessness, the mean nurse, and her roommate who successfully nursed her red-haired baby boy.
“But, Lizzie, I don’t even know what you mean. I have never once in my life felt that way,” Mandy said.
“Not even with the twins?” Lizzie asked, incredulous.
“Never.”
“Me either,” Emma chimed in.
“Well, why? Why would I be the one to have those awful blues?” Lizzie asked, becoming anxious all over again, her eyebrows raised in bewilderment.
“You were always like that, Lizzie. Always.” Mam chimed in.
“I didn’t cry about stuff, Mam.”
“No, but you think ahead too much. You worry about things, not taking it a day at a time. Remember how you acted about Snowball, the kitten?”
“I did think about that, really I did, Mam.”
“Well, if you’d relax and quit thinking about situations that could happen, but very likely never will, you’d be much better off,” Mam said wisely.
“But you can’t help the way you are,” Lizzie answered, a bit miffed.
“You can learn from this, though, Lizzie,” Mam assured her.
“Well, I won’t have to worry, because I don’t plan to have another baby. Not ever.”
Lizzie said this quite forcefully, much to Emma’s consternation. Mandy was aghast. Mam’s nostrils got bigger, and her eyes snapped behind her glasses. No one said anything for awhile.
“Lizzie, you wouldn’t do that,” Mandy said finally.
“Not just one,” Emma said kindly.
“Do you have to have a whole pile of babies?” Lizzie asked. “Does it say anything in the Bible about how many babies you should have?”
Mam shook her head back and forth slowly, swallowing a mouth full of
coffee. She raised her hands in the air and brought them back down on her lap, the way she did when she laughed.
“I don’t know, Lizzie. I just know that babies are a blessing, and ‘blessed is the man who has his quiver full,’—meaning children are the arrows—which is a verse in Proverbs. There’s no real law about how many babies each individual family should have, but among the Amish, especially, we’re expected to have children.”
“Why?”
Emma and Mandy looked at each other in their superior, “that poor thing,” kind of way, which made Lizzy cross her arms and stare at them rebelliously.
“Tell me why one baby isn’t enough.”
“Lizzie, just wait. You’ll want more children as Laura becomes older.”
“No, I won’t.”
“What about Stephen?” Emma asked gently.
“He didn’t say anything about having more children,” Lizzie snapped.
“Lizzie, there’s another verse in the Bible about women reaching salvation through childbearing,” Mam said flatly.
“I thought our salvation is through Jesus on the cross. You know, grace, and that we can’t earn it,” Lizzie countered.
Then Mandy, in that wise, prophetic way she always had, said Lizzie probably didn’t need to think about more babies now. And then Mandy went on, “Did you know that the other day we had a cow with a twisted stomach, and the vet could do nothing, not one thing, and the cow died?” They all returned to the living room, the subject changed to much safer ground. Lizzie’s happiness was restored as she thought about a dead cow instead of having more babies.
“Wasn’t that quite a loss?” Lizzie asked.
“Not really. She was not a good milker, and we’re butchering her, so we’ll have ground beef you can buy from us for a good price,” Mandy answered.
“Oh, goody! Then I can make meat loaf and barbecue sandwiches and vegetable soup and lots of good things for Stephen’s supper,” Lizzie said, smiling.
The rest of the day passed in a happy glow, with good advice from Mam about being careful not to give Baby Laura more than two ounces of formula before burping her. She also told Lizzie to hold Laura’s head up when she gave her a bottle, although Lizzie still felt inferior watching Emma and Mandy peacefully nursing their babies, relaxed and at ease with the whole deal. Oh, well, sometimes life just was that way, and you had to do the best you could, even if it meant giving your baby formula from a bottle.