When the baby doesn't sleep
Navigating our own journeys of descent through the tale of Inanna
There’s a story I tell in prenatal spaces about Inanna, the Queen of Heaven who visits the Underworld and is stripped of…well...everything.
Do you know the story?
Inanna hears the call of her sister, Ereshkigal, who happens to be the Queen of the Underworld. Inanna feels she must go visit her sister and listen to what she has to say even as her close confidantes beg her to stay in safety. They know that when anyone - mortal or immortal - visits the Underworld, they do not return.
Nonetheless, Inanna honors the voice of her soul that says she must go and face her sister. As such, she “armors up” for the journey. She knows that to get to her sister she must travel through seven gates, otherwise known as initiations or challenges, and so she puts on her finest. Her cloak, her crown, her jewels, her scepter, all the pieces that make her feel most courageous and brave…
And then she descends.
At each gate, a guard forces Inanna to sacrifice a piece of her armor, something Inanna did not anticipate.
She arrives deep into the Underworld to meet her sister with nothing. Naked, bare, the most valuable possession her own loving heart.
I tell this story in relation to birth quite a bit, because it’s a beautiful allegory. When we prepare for birth, we gather our tools to give us strength and courage on the journey: breathing techniques, self-hypnosis, meditation, massage, scent, water, music, movement.
But, what happens when all of your tools are stripped away? Or at least some of them? What do we do?
Life’s a spiral and so this story has resurfaced for me almost a year after Ford’s birth - he turns ONE in a few weeks! Ford’s birth was a journey to the depths. I used every tool I could muster and it still brought me to my knees. My hardest labor, me begging God to take away the pain.
It was my own Inanna journey. It was also the reason I stopped birth work this past year and closed my online yoga shop last May…because that experience shattered everything I thought I knew about birth, women’s health, perinatal care, yoga, family life. I’m reminded that the more we learn, the less we know. In fact, his birth was such a growth moment, but I couldn’t see it at the time.
In processing his birth story, my midwife shared that she sees birth as preparing us for a next chapter in life. And, well…this year has not been an easy one. We moved to a new home 10 hours away out of love, and if I would’ve known how hard it would be…I’m not sure I would have done it over again.
About seven months ago and right around the time we moved, Ford stopped sleeping and soon after Eugene would unexpectedly leave his job (a story I can’t tell right now).
Everything is worse when the baby isn’t sleeping, when you aren’t sleeping. We are lucky if we get a three hour stretch at night (once he did five hours straight!) - for months, we’ve operated on one to three hours of sleep patched together throughout the night (and day when I can nap).
All my “coping tools” as they say in the clinical world - my armor - have gone out the window.
My usual practices like waking up before the family, getting a good night’s rest, meditating in the quiet of the pre-dawn, moving my body alone, reading a book for 15 minutes before bed, sometimes even drinking lemon water regularly throughout the day, etc. These are no longer guarantees…
Every mother (and father) will tell you that there is no gloriously long morning routine with young children, yet I’ve always managed 30 minutes of centering in the AM at least. It has/had been essential to my days.
But, no. Not on the menu in this season of my life with this constellation of children. And, that has been really really hard.
Another Inanna journey to the depths.
For months, I’ve sat with “why?” Not in a “why me,” “poor me” kind of way, but what is the message here? What is Ford trying to tell me? What does my sweet green eyed, blonde haired, walking baby want to share with me? With us?
Because that’s how I feel about babies. They are messengers. It’s also why after becoming trained as an infant and child sleep consultant in 2019, I never really wanted to see clients. Yet. Because it’s so much more than just the sleep, you know?
The thing is not the thing.
What happens to Inanna?
She dies.
Ereshkigal kills her with a glance and hangs her body on a hook.
Sounds intense, right? And, it is.
But again, the story is allegorical.
Inanna dies to who she thought she was.
She dies to the person she was to fully realize the person she was/is meant to be. And, that is an initiation that doesn’t come without suffering.
I used to say in yoga classes that we must be willing to feel the depths of our pain in order to feel the heights of our joy. I believe that wholeheartedly.
With birth, there is metaphorical death. Every time.
Society cries “perinatal mood disorders” and sometimes that is true. Yet, more often a woman’s state of perceived dis-ease is a symptom of the massive shifts she undergoes when becoming a mother. It’s called matrescence. And, that process happens with each birth.
Many resist it. I have. I still do.
We need other women to help us move through our processes of becoming and returning, to help us journey into our own underworlds and reemerge even closer to who we really are than we could possibly imagine.
That sounds fabulous, doesn’t it? It is. It can be.
It’s also likely in direct opposition to the status quo, which can be painful.
We are taught to fear what we don’t understand, but like Inanna, the only way out is through.
Ford has been my messenger.
In a time like now where it’s hard to sit in front of a computer for too long, because of tending to babies and/or utter exhaustion, and where it’s all hands on deck between my husband and me…we can fall into old patterns, particularly when it comes to professional life and what we think is a “productive work day.”
But, as I wrestle with the lack of sleep, the brain fog, the not even feeling fully in my body at times, I’ve also felt the need to lay down all those pieces and parts of myself that I fragment and let them finally integrate.
Maybe, I can finally accept the fact that I want to be with my children more than is “normal.” That I want to grow flowers and herbs (a lot of them), and maybe even make a business out of it. That I want to write. That I want to have a career supporting women and mothers.
That I can do all of those things, particularly in a world that would have me pick just one.
Maybe I can finally dare myself to rebuild a version of life that is less focused on what I “should” do, but what is true. It’s my own soul’s call, begging me to trust her. Just like Inanna. I find that many of the clients I have worked with and do work with are attempting to compartmentalize themselves into boxes, too, rather than embracing their multi-faceted selves.
Inanna attempted to compartmentalize herself. She didn’t want to face her shadows, played by Ereshkigal in her own story.
She thought she would get stuck in the Underworld and stay there forever if she entertained some darker aspects of her being that weren’t serving her. It would be too painful…until she couldn’t silence that aspect of her being anymore. At some point, the voice of our soul becomes too loud (you’ve seen Frozen II, right?) ;).
Inanna did finally emerge from the depths. She was brought back to life.
BUT, she couldn’t do it alone. She needed help to return from her journey and to integrate fully into her new life. Inanna had beings that fed her, clothed her, truly cared for her.
Who is that person that is walking with you (aside from your partner), helping you reemerge? Loving you? Supporting you? Encouraging you? Who is that person who doesn’t care about your career path or your accolades or your accomplishments?
Who is that person who is willing to let you unravel completely, so that you may become more fully who you are?
Write to me if you need a person. I am here.
As always, I dearly thank you for reading. I have started and stopped writing this letter so many times, especially as we unpack the journey that is our baby’s sleep and contemplate our next steps in a hard season. Perhaps, one day I’ll write about all the learning I’ve done about infant sleep outside of the “sleep training” conversation, because sleep for little people and adults is so much more than that.
Sending the sweetest of dreams your way.
Jai Ma.
With love,
Leanne
P.S. I will leave you with this quote from Acharya Shunya’s book, Sovereign Self:
“If pain has come to you in a divine universe, then you, the divine one, have what it takes to face and grow from it.”
This, too, shall pass.