Silence

Two months ago I knew silence and I knew it well. I was all alone in my 2 bedroom apartment, except for my cat who sleeps an average of 18 hours per day. With my husband away on externships and myself 39 weeks pregnant, there wasn’t much for me to do to busy myself. I had been able to work 8 hours shifts for the last month of my pregnancy but once I was 39 weeks along the back pain and exhaustion rendered me unable to pull any more shifts as an emergency and critical care veterinarian.

Because of this I spent a lot of time at home reading. The silence in my apartment became my only companion, and I had become used to it with Dylan away for the last 7 months externing prior to his residency. You could hear a pin drop in my apartment. Sometimes I would fill the silence with music but mostly I spent time leisurely reading engulfed in the nothingness.

Now here I sit on maternity leave trying to settle my newborn. I still experience moments of silence when he sleeps but his wakefulness is filled with noise. Sometimes he fusses, screaming and crying but most of the time he’s very content, softly cooing.

I used to be one of those people who got annoyed with the sound of a baby crying. On a plane, I always rolled my eyes in exasperation when there was a baby seated near me but now the tables have turned and I’m the one with the baby.

There are times I miss the silence, like when we hosted a small gathering for the Super Bowl and my son was gassy. I spent the first 45 minutes of the game in my bedroom trying to sooth him. Or at 3a after a feeding when he’s wide awake and all I want to do is sleep. But mostly I embrace this noise as our new ‘norm.’ I think that probably only a parent will understand how precious these sounds are. I wouldn’t change it for the world; for after all, silence is deafening.