Here Be Dragons

Chapter 1

Let’s Begin Our Journey

Something permanently shifted in me the day I found out we were having a girl. A daughter. Somewhere deep inside me I’d suspected we were going to have a daughter. I’d even bought a couple of pink dresses. But it was the confirmation of the ultrasound technician pointing out the telltale signs and declaring, “Congrats! You’re having a girl!” that changed me forever. I knew two things for certain at that moment: I’d never wanted anything more than I wanted a daughter, and I was terrified to be the mother of a daughter.

Perry and I drove home, excitedly talking about our girl, who now felt officially like a reality. We’d had a long road to get to this point: a miscarriage that turned out to be a molar pregnancy, months of blood draws and eventually injections to get my body back to normal, and then finding out I was pregnant about two months earlier than the doctor had advised was safe for my body. Apparently, there really is no such thing as safe sex, so let that be a lesson to you, children. It really does take only one time to get pregnant.

And then, even after the doctor confirmed I was pregnant, there were concerns about my hormone levels and my ability to carry a baby to term. The nights I lay in bed with my hand over my stomach and prayed God would let this baby live were countless. All that to say, to reach the twenty-­week mark and see an ultrasound of a healthy baby girl with impossibly long legs moving around inside me felt like nothing short of a miracle. What felt substantially less wonderful were all the thoughts and doubts swirling in my head as I questioned if I would know how to raise an emotionally healthy girl. Would God give me the strength and wisdom and fortitude to break the unhealthy cycle I’d come from? Would I be able to recognize patterns and behavior that had caused so much brokenness in me and stemmed from the relationship I had with my mother?

A few weeks after that ultrasound—­as we continued to debate naming our baby Caroline, Olivia, or Kate—­I was sitting in a church service in a small garden chapel. Everyone around me was standing up and singing worship songs, but I’d had to sit down because those aforementioned long legs of my baby girl were engaged in a game of kickball with my bladder and I felt like I was about to wet my pants in front of a bunch of Methodists. I don’t mean to glamorize pregnancy in this way, but this is the truth. Don’t hate the player; hate the game.

In an attempt to distract myself from the tiny foot wedged beneath my rib cage, I picked up the Bible that was in the pew rack in front of me. I was just kind of thumbing through it when I stopped at Isaiah 44 and read,

I will pour water on the thirsty land,

and streams on the dry ground;

I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring,

and my blessing on your descendants.

They shall spring up among the grass

like willows by flowing streams.

This one will say, “I am the Lord’s.” (verses 3–­5, esv)

I knew that God had led me to those specific words to assure me that He saw me and had heard my whispered midnight inquiries asking Him if I was up for all that was ahead of me. I’d spent most of my life feeling all the ramifications of coming from a relationship with my mom that often felt barren and cold, yet there was God promising to pour out His Spirit and blessings on this new life that was clearly in a gang fight with my bladder.

A few months later, Caroline Tatum Shankle arrived. In a move that turned out to be so indicative of her entire personality, she arrived two weeks early and barely made a sound as they suctioned out her lungs, cleaned her up, swaddled her in a blanket, and handed her to me. She just stared at me with eyes that never seemed to blink, like she was sizing me up and deciding if I was up for the job of being her mother. I thought, Honestly, kid, we’ll see. I thought the labor pains were food poisoning from eating chicken spaghetti, and I just pooped on the table while you were being born, so I don’t know that we’re off to the most auspicious of beginnings.

Here’s the thing about having a baby: You are exhausted from labor, a little overwhelmed by everything you just realized your body could survive, and emotionally fragile to a degree you didn’t know was possible. I mean, I ate a McDonald’s McGriddles the morning after giving birth and declared it to be the most delicious thing I’d ever eaten. Why had people been keeping the secret of the McGriddles from me? A subpar breakfast sandwich infused with the flavor of maple syrup brought tears to my eyes.

Friends who’d already had babies had told me to let the nurses occasionally take the infant back to the nursery so I could get some sleep, and this turned out to be solid advice. For twenty-­four hours after giving birth, I had sweet nurses who brought Caroline to me and showed me what to do. They gave me ice packs to sit on and mesh panties that should be Victoria’s real secret. And then, just as I was kind of settling in, they told me it was time for Perry and me to take our baby and go home. Just the three of us. It was harder for me to get a job at Sound Castle Records when I was a fifteen-­year-­old with no résumé than it was for the hospital staff to let me leave their establishment with a human to raise to adulthood.

That first week home went by in a blur of diaper blowouts, swaddling attempts, and my boobs feeling like they might explode. The details of that time are a little foggy from the viewpoint of twenty years later, but I vividly remember one night as I was rocking Caroline in her pink nursery after a late feeding that I hoped would mean both of us would sleep for at least three hours. I looked down at this unimaginable beauty wrapped up in my arms with her milk-­drunk face and knew I’d never loved anything more. She was my whole heart in a petal-­pink blanket. And because I like to worry about things way in advance, I began at that very second to dread the day I’d have to send her to kindergarten. Which led to my thinking about the day she would inevitably graduate from high school, and I genuinely prayed that perhaps Jesus would return before I had to deal with that milestone. There was no way I could ever bear to not always have her with me. How would I ever be able to let her go?

And it was right after I’d had this flood of concerns that another realization hit me in such a way that it almost made me physically hurt.

I knew at that moment that my own mother had never loved me like I loved this baby.

I mean, don’t misunderstand. I knew that my mom loved me. But when I was growing up, we always seemed to be in this precarious dance of wills and resentment, admiration and jealousy. Rather than feeling her unconditional love, I always felt that my mom’s affection was dependent on my being exactly what she wanted me to be, often at the expense of my own needs and feelings.

As I looked at my little girl and thought about my mom, I knew that the only thing I wanted for my baby was for her to find the peace and joy that come with being exactly who God made her to be. I didn’t want her to be a version of me, I didn’t want her to be my competition, and I didn’t want her to ever feel that my love for her was conditional on her ability to be a certain way. And I definitely didn’t want her to bear the burden of feeling responsible for my mental outlook. That was it. It was as if I’d spent my whole life looking for a missing puzzle piece and finally found it.