Learning to Fly
By Krista Drechsel
@kristadrechsel
I lay awake on our mattress, resting haphazardly on the hardwood floor of our bedroom. It is our first night in our new house and even with my earplugs stuffed in my ears, even with the windows slammed shut and the fan blasting, even with the summer rain pouring down on the roof, the whoosh of incessant jet engines crossing overhead is impossible to ignore.
I shake my husband awake. “Did you know they were this loud here?”
“Hmm?” He flops over and rubs the sleep from his eyes.
“I thought this was one of the quieter city zones!” A jolt of panic pulses through my body. I cannot shake the feeling that we have made some sort of horrible mistake, moving here. While we had always been eager to buy a house in the city, the reality of living so close to the airport is a shock to my system, a glaring reminder of how different this home would be compared to anything we had previously known.
He is slow to grasp the apparent catastrophe. “You’ll get used to them. By next summer, you won’t even think twice about the airplanes. And I bet the baby will love watching them, too.” He pulls me closer and drapes a hand over my pregnant belly before falling back into a deep sleep.
For the rest of the night I stare at the empty wall and count the baby’s kicks. I can’t help but wonder if it is the airplanes keeping her up, too, or if she can already sense the fear settling in my core—the fear of not belonging in this house, of not belonging in my own skin, of not belonging as a mother at all.
* * *
“Talk to me about how you’ve been preparing for birth, for caring for a newborn,” the midwife folds her hands on top of her clipboard and eyes me carefully.
I do not tell her the truth: that I have been doing everything I can to avoid thinking about this reality.
The midwife is concerned. I am losing weight when I am supposed to be gaining, forgetting to drink enough water, neglecting the stack of infant care books on my nightstand, skipping my birth classes. For weeks, she has been urging me to find some way to cope with my anxiety—for my sake, for the baby’s sake.
I cannot bear to look at her—I do not need to be reminded of all the ways I am failing my child before she is even born.
“Have you tried meditation?” the midwife asks.
I stifle the urge to roll my eyes. “Yeah.” I shrug.
It’s not a lie—I have tried meditation. I just don’t have much time to fit it into my busy schedule of meticulously weeding the backyard, sealing every inch of grout, and adhering contact paper to every closet shelf.
I tell myself I am nesting, that these things are important—necessary, even. But deep down I know: none of these things will ever help me feel truly prepared. Frantic as I am to hold onto whatever shred of control I have left, these things will not keep at bay the inevitable: I am going to become a mother, and a baby girl is going to change my life forever. No matter how much I try to convince myself otherwise, nothing will ever prepare me for that.
* * *
“You are glowing! This is such a magical time, isn’t it?”
“You look fantastic. I couldn’t even tell you were pregnant until you turned around!”
I am standing in the church pew, wearing the same maternity dress I wear every Sunday, enduring the pre-service small talk. I am tired of the well-meaning comments that this is such a happy time, worn down by the assumptions that being pregnant must be the pinnacle of my life, embarrassed that my friends are looking to me for advice as the-one-who-got-pregnant-first.
“Your due date is coming up, isn’t it? You must be so excited!” a woman twice my age whispers to me with a wink as the band begins its opening song.
I press my lips together, curl them into a smile, nod. “We’re very excited,” I say, but my words sound bland and unrecognizable, even to me.
The congregation begins singing, and all I can think is how tired I am of pretending.
* * *
I do not remember if my husband’s team won or lost their softball game that hot and sticky night after the Fourth of July. I had been too busy to pay attention, pacing up and down the length of the chain link fence and holding back tears behind my sunglasses. Only now, as we pull away from the dusty field, do I let them fall.
When we stop outside our house, my husband turns off the ignition and presses his phone, ringing, to my ear. His mother answers. I let it all out then, everything I have been too scared to say, everything I have been too ashamed to admit.
“What if … what if I can’t do this? What if I am not supposed to be a mom? What if I don’t love her?” I squeeze my eyes shut.
She does not hesitate. There is no waver in her voice. “You already do. You already love her or you wouldn’t be asking. You are already her mother, and you already love her so very much.”
I hand the phone back to my husband and sob tears of relief. An airplane soars overhead in the sun-setting sky.
* * *
I am staring at my phone. My friend has just texted to ask if she can come help me get the house ready before the baby comes.
I tap out a response. “I am doing ok for now, but thank you for offering!” Delete, delete, delete.
I type a dozen more variations of “thanks, but no thanks”, and delete them all. Finally, I draft a mediocre response: “I would love some help, if you’re sure.” Good enough. Send.
The next day, she arrives at my door with a can of soup and a salad. She spends several hours scrubbing the filth from my laundry room floor before helping herself to dishes from the cupboard, heating the soup over the stove, and carrying the pot to the basement, where we sit at the only table in our still mostly unfurnished house.
As she sets a bowl in front of me, I am overcome with gratitude for having one friend who knows I am not okay, who knows I need to eat a real meal, who knows cleaning my laundry room floor is of utmost importance to me, even if it does not make sense to her.
When the soup is nearly gone, she clears her throat. She tells me she is pregnant, that she just found out a few days ago. I jump out of my chair, spill my soup, let out a shriek. I chastise her for not telling me sooner, for spending several hours on her hands and knees scrubbing while battling waves of morning sickness.
Most of all, I tell her how relieved I am to become a mother alongside her. I tell her how, somehow, it all feels so much less scary to be doing it alongside a friend.
* * *
On the very last day of August, just before midnight, I finally meet my daughter. I lift her slippery, impossibly tiny body out of the water and up to my chest, and in that moment, I am born, too. In that moment, I am also coming up out of the water, am also learning how to breathe for the first time.
“Hi, Baby,” I whisper over and over again. We both let out shuddering sobs. She finds my eyes with hers, blue-gray and eager. She does not look away.
There was a time when I had squinted under our dim apartment lights to make out those faint pink lines on the pregnancy test, a time when my legs had given out, and I had sobbed and laughed and wondered if I was dreaming.
But this, clinging to her slippery body, feeling as if I had somehow known her forever—this was the moment I knew I loved her. This was the moment I became a mother.
* * *
She and I lie in the damp shade of the backyard pine a few days after her first birthday, peering up at the late summer sky. I still have many moments of doubting my own mothering abilities, but I have learned to hold onto what is important—that I have loved her all along, that I was always meant to be her mother.
A jet crosses in front of the sun, slung low in the sky. “Look, Baby, an airplane!” I say as I trace its path through the clouds. She points at the plane with a chubby finger and laughs.
It dawns on me how my husband had been right, all along. I have become fond of the airplanes, of the way their hum is now the background music of our days together. Somehow, over the last year the planes have become comforting, familiar, even soothing.
I bring my knees to my chest and rest my daughter’s body along my shins, propelling her tiny frame up and up and up—our own little airplane game. As her delighted shrieks fill the evening air, I understand now that we belong here, that we belong to each other.
I understand now—sometimes, learning to fly just takes time.
Guest essay written by Krista Drechsel. Krista is a wife and mother to two girls and lives in Minneapolis, MN. A lover of all things outdoors, she relishes long hikes in the woods, canoeing with her husband, and exploring new places. If she's not outside, you can find her drinking cold coffee, playing the piano, writing poetry, and staying up way too late with a book. She believes in the power of words to help us feel seen, held, and loved. You can find more of her work on Instagram or Substack.