Mothering Gratitude
My daughter Elea’s first birthday was last Wednesday. I went about my day, as I normally do, enjoying the little moments of mothering. My husband came home from work, we ate dinner, we helped Elea open a few presents. But as the time that she was born drew nearer – 9:37 pm – I felt and heeded a deep need to look at the pictures from her birth. My two girls asleep, my husband watching television, I turned on the computer and started looking at pictures and watching video clips from Elea’s birth day.
Pictures of my beloved midwife Davi and her assistant Rebecca, holding the Doppler to my belly. Pictures of my husband cradling just-born Elea. Pictures of little Elea, in her first attempts at nursing, her sweet wet head so small compared to the fullness of my breasts. A shot of Elea, wide-eyed, laying naked and small on my bed, her body covered with soft brown fuzz.
The photos brought me back so quickly, it was as if I was again in that amazing moment of time when Elea came into our lives – feeling the immense joy of watching a human being delivered from my body and come into life in my arms.
I was totally caught off guard by the emotion I felt looking at those pictures – which was, for some reason, sadness. I started to cry, deep racking sobs – and continued crying for quite a long time. At the time, I didn’t know why. Elea’s birth was as beautiful, easy, and amazing as a birth can be – a homebirth attended by an incredible midwife who was my friend, mentor, mother, healer – all rolled into one. Unlike many, I have no birth trauma from which to recover. The sadness did not make sense.
I called my mother, who is my dearest friend, and shared with her my sorrow. Like only a mother can, she understood.
I was crying because my pregnancy, Elea’s birth, her newborn days – were gone so swiftly to time. In my entire lifetime, I will only experience the sheer bliss of these events a very few times. I felt loss in having such an amazing experience behind me, instead of in front.
I have struggled for years with the futile desire to have time stand still. I rack my brain trying to figure out how to appreciate the beautiful times in life so that when they are gone, I know I really enjoyed them. Perhaps my tears, at remembering Elea’s birth, mean that I have been successful in my quest. I enjoyed those days so much, I felt sorrow that they were gone.
We women have been given an amazing gift – the ability to be pregnant, give birth, and be mothers. It’s easy, when in the trenches – morning sickness, labor pains, two year old’s temper tantrums, not to recognize it as such.
But being a conscious parent means deciding – even if we are experiencing mother-troubles – that such troubles are temporary and unimportant in the long scheme of time. They pass quickly. If we focus on the troubles, then we miss the utter joy of mothering; when we are old, and our children have grown, we will have nothing to look back on but how much we focused on our troubles.
Let us define our mothering not by troubles and miseries, but by the joys. Let us make health care, birth and parenting choices that allow us this pleasure. Find holistic ways to ease morning sickness. Choose a homebirth if you can, with a midwife you love and trust. Remember deeply how it feels when you lay on your back and you see your pregnant belly undulate. When your baby is born, nurse her. Hold her and don’t let her go. Sleep with her under the crook of your arm. Hold her to you in a sling. And when she’s two and a half and screaming “IIIIIIIII WANT SOME JUICE” at the top of her lungs in the closed quarters of your car, take a deep breath and remember that this too shall pass. Just like these short lived days when our children are young.