Birth

Reading for pleasure (or reading at all) is a bit of a luxury for me these days. Obviously. But, when I do get the chance I sometimes like to float around the internet and catch up on some of my favorite bloggers. One of them is actually somewhat famous for her birth stories and I stumbled across one of hers just the other day. Apparently we had our newest babies only two days apart. She really got me thinking as I read her latest story. It is a good idea, I think, to write down the story of our children's births. I haven't ever done it before, but they are always hanging around my mind as I watch them grow. I see how they do so much for themselves now, how they learn new things everyday and I remember how it was when they were just like my new little Luke. So tiny. So dependent. So new. I remember how it was when I first fell in love with them and how each one made their way into the world in their own unique way... The girls ask me about it all the time. "Tell me mama how it was when I was born." And, I watch their big blue eyes sparkle while I tell them. They know it's special and it's theirs and they don't ever get tired of hearing it. I think I need to write them all down. I want to keep those memories while they are still so close, before time fades them and fuzzes them all together.

So, I'm thinking about a series of posts... 5 to be exact. The stories of my babies. But, I imagine it wont be easy.

Births are emotional. And, its not just the hormones. I haven't ever really written about it before and I wonder if it isn't because its just too much to think about putting into words. I confess that the end of my pregnancies aren't super complicated. I don't have babies on time without intervention, so usually there is but one emotion: crabbiness. When you're done, you're done. Amen? The feet in the rib cage. The shooting pain that accompanies every sneeze and cough. Being asked all the time why you haven't had that baby yet. The fact that it takes a three point turn to roll over in bed when your leg falls asleep and its time to switch the pressure over to the other one. Its all these magical things working together that help me get past the fear of labor to the point where I will do and endure just about anything to be done with the whole pregnant thing.

And, then it all changes.

That little baby comes into the world and I feel like my ability to feel grows to the point of swallowing me whole.  Loss, gain, love, peacefulness, joy, fear...  all these mix together till I don't feel big enough to hold it all. My skin seems a poor container for so much. The fullness of pregnancy is nothing to the uncontainable flood that hits after. I always wonder particularly at the sense of loss I have after a baby is born. That is the one I haven't ever fully understood. The rest of it makes perfect sense, the fear and the love... You thought you knew what those were. You thought you felt them as much as any human could, and then your heart expands... so much... and with it comes a new little fear you haven't felt before, that maybe you won"t be able to do this job. That you aren't capable and that baby seems so fragile and helpless. "Mother" suddenly seems the best and most terrifying word in the world. And, that, I understand. But the loss? Its not that I miss being pregnant. Its something deeper than that and a bit harder to put one's finger on. Maybe it's just the fact that this little person who was so connected to me, that we breathed together and our blood flowed together, is now a little more separate from me. I am more aware than I want to be that it is just the beginning of many more great and little lettings go. And, it puts a dull achey feeling just at the back of all the joy I feel. They are mine, but only in a manner of speaking. I can't keep them forever and that seems unfair to me somehow. I wonder if they will understand how much I love them and how much we wanted them. I know I can protect them and take care of them to an extent right now, but there is a whole future of imperfect unknowns ahead. And, there is the fact that they are their own little selves and someday they will get to choose how much they want me... Is it just me or does every mother feel like a whole life of possibilities for their baby plays out in their mind in the first few days you see their little face? It doesn't last forever, and that is good. We obviously can't live there. We get swept up in the stuff of it, as we should. Diapers and feedings, watching the involuntary squinchy faces they make, kissing cheeks, check ups at the doctor office, measuring how they grow... Till one day, much sooner than you expected, they are older and you are talking with them and they ask you to tell them how it was when they were born. And, then you stop and let yourself go back.  You feel it a little again while you tell them their story, the one that began in you... It is too much for words.

My newest one is only nine days old today. I remember how it was when my other babies were this little too. What they say, about it going too fast, is true. It does. I realize that more with this baby than I think I did with the others. I have come a long way since our first baby was born. And, maybe all this is just another bit of recovery for me. I know, as an addict, I have made a habit of trying to numb feelings. Where the normal distractions of life haven't worked, I have turned to other things, but a big part of recovery is letting yourself feel again, even the uncomfortable stuff. I have told God before that I am scared of that. Somedays it seems like standing in front of the Hoover Dam waiting for it to come down and blow me over. But, I have learned that there is something very beautiful about letting yourself feel. To be fully and completely exposed to that much and not in control of it, not distracted by other things... just breathing it in. I let myself just stand in the thick of it this time, with Luke. I just tried to feel it all - the whole wonderful jumbled mess of emotion that happens when you have a baby. And, I thought about my other babies and how I want them to know how they have affected me and changed me, how special it was they day we first met them and how much we love them. So, I will write their stories one by one and maybe it will be a treasure for them someday... to read it and learn how precious and valuable they are to us. I think it will be beneficial to me too. It is easy to forget those treasured newborn moments when you are dealing with toddler tantrums and girl drama. I could do with a little reminiscing.