To build a life

Aside from the moment of one’s death, I don’t know if there’s anything more spiritually transcendent than giving birth. It’s a sacred process where the portals of two worlds collide, requiring an abundance of vulnerability, trust, and intrinsic maternal strength. As a mother, you can only hope that those attributes stay with you throughout your journey of matrescence. I know I did.

But at some point, I checked out. I saw only what I was lacking inside. Maybe that’s why I took so long to touch this threshold again. There’s this thing I do when I’m close to getting everything I want - I panic and get in my own way about it. I relentlessly self-sabotage to satisfy some internal script that repeatedly tells me I don’t deserve to have it so good. Maybe that’s what happens when you’re born a self-punisher.

All this to say… I wasn’t sure I’d ever get to do this again. Funny how life turns out, isn’t it?

I’ll never forget the potent amalgamation of joy and relief I felt moments after delivering my last child. She didn’t cry right away. The doctor said “look at the cheeks!” and remarked what a big baby she was, and I knew with every part of me she was okay.

And life suddenly slowed down.

My body flush and warm from the analgesics and oxytocin flow. My baby girl’s plump little body resting against my breast. My partner watching us attentively. Our world changing in a blink.

It’s been a little over two weeks since we welcomed our girl, and it still feels so surreal. Everything that’s happened over the past few years just seems to make sense now, you know?

When you’re building a life, there comes a point when you need to stop looking so hard at what’s happening on the horizon. You’re probably already in the thick of something perfectly designed for you. I wish I’d always trusted that. I wish I’d known this darling girl was waiting for me somewhere down the line. Now that she’s here, she’s helped me feel so at peace.

She’s my safe haven… here in human form at long last.

Rebirths

Open door confession time...we're trying to have another baby. My husband has wanted this for awhile, and I finally feel ready now. Ask me two years ago, and I wasn't. If anything, I was terrified. I felt I couldn't give my other children my all while nurturing a new baby. It felt unfair to them. I told myself I would only let everyone down. When I was carrying my son, I felt ready. Things felt right. I was instantly connected to him and I did everything in my power to carry a healthy pregnancy to term. But there were still so many challenges. Before I even got pregnant with him, I became a mom in an unorthodox way. I am the mother to another woman's child, and looking back, I never really had time to process what this would truly mean. I adore my daughter and I wouldn't change our story at all, but I held onto an underlying bitterness and resentment for the load I had to carry, for the loss we both experienced. It metastasized until I hated my own reflection, until I felt undeserving of her love, of motherhood itself. But time, love, and growth, it changes things.

What never does?

Well, probably the fact that it's an all encompassing journey. Motherhood is a hurricane of feelings. It always will be. It's mercurial in every way. We give, give, and give. We're socialized to do this. And then we slowly disappear until we can't find ourselves. Society celebrates the birth of a baby, but they forget about the birth of the mother. Nobody tells you that each time you become a mother, somebody different emerges. Someone entirely unknown to the person you once were. It's transformative in the best and worst ways imaginable. It stretches your capacity love, give, and show up in life. There is never-ending grief. Unbounded joy. Some moments where you shrink, others where you step into power.

If this next baby is to be, time will only tell. As for the beautiful expectant mother in this picture? I can't reclaim her. But I can give her something better...I can give her a rebirth.