First Bath

by Suzanne S. Rancourt

            “Did they show you how to bathe newborns before you left the hospital?”

            I’m from a different generation and a most provincial, rural Maine upbringing.  I was holding my preemie grandson.  He wasn’t dirty and certainly emitted that classic newbie scent recognized across all species as vulnerable, innocent, and precarious.  My grandson’s Neptune eyes offered a wonderment of deep Piscean curiosity, a tad joker, and a wee bit of indignation that he was in a situation where he couldn’t bathe himself.

            “No” his mum replied, “they didn’t.”

Only home from the hospital a couple of weeks, I’d been asked to come and help out where I could while my first born son travelled for work. 

I remember the conversations my mother had with me with my first pregnancy and birth which did not include spinal taps such as hers. There were some incredibly positive things about my mum’s tutoring. 

“Look,” my mum instructed with one of her flamboyant knife hand precursors, “when you breast feed, this is what you do to cover up so you can nurse anywhere.  The baby comes first. Feed them when THEY are hungry.  Hold them when they cry. If someone says you can’t nurse, or children aren’t allowed, then leave because that’s probably not a good place to be anyway.”

I never realized how lucky I was or how progressive my mother was until too late in many cases and just in time for others. I had miscarried a child in the early stages of

pregnancy. I often feel that that was my daughter.  I don’t know how I know this.  I just do. She attempted entrance into this world between my oldest and youngest boys. Myself, her dad and a few others from university, hiked Mt. Katahdin, The Great One, up Wall Face, down Knife Edge. Wall Face was closed years ago due to its dangerous ascent. We were ill equipped hikers at best. Ignorant youths, I suppose.  Perhaps Kataahdin pitied us. We had a future ahead of us, a destiny. Kataahdin, the highest peak in Maine, the final ascent, or the starting point, of the Appalachia Trail, sacred mountain to the Wabanakis Nations, nesting roost of the great Wind Eagle with eyes that shoot lightning bolts. Katahdin does not suffer fools lightly - hiker death data proves. Perhaps the ethers of such atmospheric pressures were too much for her.  Or, she simply cleared the way for another. Or, perhaps, a sacrifice was made. I had no idea that I was pregnant until 24 hours later when the hand of God wrung out my uterus and I spontaneously aborted a small mass of marble like in those twisted Japanese soda bottles.

A women’s body can hold bits of spirit from all those that land in lush uterine gardens and then leave – energetic debris – remains – particulates left behind from water drained – life shriveled.  My mother miscarried several times before my cataclysmic entrance.  The souls that precede those that stick the landing are a bit like those thousands that stormed Normandy, Chosin, Hue, Fallujah – to clear the way – make fertile the Earth- bloody the womb that may, or may not, bear harvest. A Mother’s body remembers each and every death. No blood, no life.

In the kindest and most respectful tone, in sincerest empathy, cradling this miracle peanut preemie bundle, I turned to my daughter-in-law and said, “Would you like me to show you? It can be really scary. We can do this together.”

It is scary to admit when something is scary. It is scary to be a new mum without support. It is scary to be incredibly intelligent, educated, professionally competent, and yet, carry self doubts about parenting for the first time while all those memories of little beings arriving, only to exit, still lap the shores of uncertain motherhood.

In that week or so that I was there, I often slipped my grandson into a marsupial like Snuggly that placed him warmly to my chest, heart to heart. We walked this way along the Potomac bike path – our Ancestral Algonkian lands - I sang songs I knew, songs I made up, called his name repeatedly, welcoming him here into this family, how much we loved him. I introduced myself and spoke of the beauty in spring. The blossoms we were smelling on our walk – Red Buds, lotus, fig tree, kudzu and even the poison ivy. I invited him to hear the bird song we were listening to. The throated lollie of male cardinals, ravens, crows, seagulls, red tailed hawks, the peep of eagles, twitter of sparrows and wrens, squawking jays, quiet robins.  I didn’t lie about how the world was in trouble and needed special people, souls like his to help make the world better.  I spoke of how we prepared for him, and how honored we are to have him in our family. 

“This is how it is done” I said to his mum showing how the natural crook of my left elbow supported his neck and noggin while my left hand curved gently under his bird sized torso, my pinky and ring finger hooking gently his left armpit and miniature upper arm. “You do this to ensure that his head and neck are secure and he can’t slip from your grip and go under.”


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Suzanne S. Rancourt, Abenaki/Huron, Quebecois, Scottish descent, USMC/Army Veteran; author of the Native Writers’ Circle of the Americas First Book Award, Billboard in the Clouds, NU Press; 2023 Poetry of Modern Conflict Award murmurs at the gate, Unsolicited Press; Old Stones, New Roads MSR Pub.; Songs of Archilochus, Unsolicited Press, 2023. Expressive Arts Therapist, and Saratoga County Veteran Peer Mentor, she continues to teach writing, and travel.