Don't Smoke Crack While You Are Pregnant

I went to my room tonight and changed into my pajamas. And when I turned around, a tiny girl with an impish smile stood looking up at me. She held her bottle in one hand and rocked herself up on her toes. She asked for her pj's in a language only intelligible to our family, refused her nighttime diaper, then agreed to put on her diaper, stuffed her little legs under the covers and pulled them up to her chin. I lay down beside her. My arm found her little body and awkwardly tried to find its place around her belly. She sucked on her bottle. The sucking stopped. She breathed heavily through her nose, imitating my breathing rhythm, held her breath for a moment and the sucking resumed. Her head turned away and she pushed my arm off her belly.

For the first twelve months of her life my daughter could not fall asleep unless she had darkness, silence, and a tight swaddle. The toxic substances coursing through her tiny body while her cells developed and her neurons made connections seemed to leave all sensory receptors frayed at the ends. A pin drop seemed to explode against her eardrums like a firecracker. A light touch to her skin was fire through dry leaves. My daughter could not snuggle with me. My daughter did not burrow into my lap like an overgrown kitten. My daughter was irritated rather than soothed by touch.

But tonight, after she had pushed me away, and after she had finished her bottle and chucked it across the room, she turned toward me, pushed her head under my chin, and pulled my hand around her back. She breathed deeply. She fell asleep.