misplaced mama

Happy Happy Birthday One Year Old.

This time last year your dad and I were sitting on our meticulously clean bamboo floors (I was nesting back then and never again do I suspect those floors will be as clean as they were those days before your arrival). I was crying. Your dad was massaging you through my stomach. I was at a crossroads back then, too. Would I continue standing there wondering and worrying and stressing about why you had not been born yet, 14 days past your ‘due date’? It was hot. Summer in the desert hot (no evening swing on the porch with lemonade or a jump in the pool cools this kind of heat). You really don’t know heat until you’ve stood in an asphalt parking lot around 2pm in July in Phoenix. It was hot and I was heavy with baby. I had done it all at that point: castor oil belly massages, evening primrose suppositories, blue and black cohosh, and lots of good old love making. I had even taken a robeezo type piece of fabric and tried to hammock my belly, hoping you’d spin around from you posterior position, the reason why I thought you were sticking around in my womb.

But I had finally put it stop to all that induction nonsense. Or I should say you did. Your dada and I were hanging out on the floor and he was rubbing my belly. We were talking to you, asking you to please come on down, safely and peacefully, and we’d catch you in our arms and love you forever. And you then just told me off. You were so loud and so fierce that I was sure your dad must have heard you when you said,” I’ll come when I’m ready. Please leave me be, Mama.”

And I stopped. I listened to you a bit more and you told me that you were almost here. To have patience. Everything was fine. And for the first time, perhaps ever, I truly, truly trusted. It became apparent to me that you would pick the time and date. And my efforts to force you sooner than ready, obviously annoyed you. I am glad you have a loud voice and I am grateful for all my teachers who have told me to listen.

And for now that is your birth story. The rest of the story isn’t as profound for me, yet. Actual labor was sweet, juice, wet, achy, tingly, expansive, tight, loud, quiet, easy, tender, messy, deep, circular, heavy and light.

I know I promised by your first birthday I would have the words that would match your birth neatly typed and spellchecked, bound and presented to you bound in a emerald color ribbon. But this is all I have for now. The rest will come when I finish learning lessons from those 6 hours we hip rolled and spun together.

Here are some moments from when my stomach cuddled you:

2/28/2005 Warm. Quiet. Serene. You feel so nice. Your presence has been that of a polite visitor and I love having you inside me. I can’t wait till I start to feel what your movements will be like, using the inside of my flesh as your swimming pool wall, pushing off and floating around this watery womb. Little fish, little fish. You are such an ocean. I keep seeing the ocean. Some nights my dreams are so waterlogged I feel sea-sick in the morning. Are you a pirate? A mermaid? A brilliant tangle of coral reef?

3/1/2005 Baby Bee II, Your sisters sleeps soundly in bed next to us so I can steal a few moments to be alone with you. Today is warm and clouds float together like puzzle pieces in the sky. I think I am finally feeling your movements. Slight and sweet. I am beginning to understand that there is actually a person inside me. My child. What a job to have. I can see your long legs like your sister. Long fingers and toes, too. Enjoy your time swimming like a mermaid in my inside universe. I will try my best to create abundant space for you. I will breathe to you and I will keep waiting for those movements when you limbs bounce off my skin.

We’ll camp together, explore and run through nature, talk to trees and Mia will hold your hand and you will be our baby.

3/8/2005 You really feel like a feather. How stinking cute.

3/28/2005 My diet has not been so great. Easter treats in the house. Cadbury Cream Eggs have never tasted so good, though. Also delighting endless amounts of grapefruit, fried egg and cheese sandwiches, and ice cream. Always room for ice cream at night. Why is it that it is the only thing that relieves this heartburn?

I am trying to find the mother inside of me, the true mother.

4/25/2005 You are like a rainfall tapping. Pitter patting against me inside out. Rhythmic. I slowly understand your needs more and more. Rest. Relaxation. Stillness. Food. Barely stretching kind of stretching. You like child’s pose. And lotus. You’d rather me float in the water that take a hike up a hill. Unfortunately we will have to compromise. I’m not much of a pool person and warrior hikes of mountains frees me from my skin. We’ll do a little of each.

You really are a peaceful heart. We will do our best to offer you an existence filled with natural beauty. We will be conscious of where we live and the attention we pay to surroundings. I know you are a gift from the moon, a mystery. But you are a true motivator and luck seems to be filling our life because of you. We are transforming. We’d like to offer you a deeper sense of breath and time.

(Then comes weeks of bowel records, in somewhat of detail. Remind me someday to speak to you about the joy of organic dark roast enemas).

6/30/2005

BabyBee II, Oh how this has moved quickly. You could be here any day now. I am so big with your powerful form. I know you will come down and out of with grace and ease.

I don’t fear what my body creates. I don’t fear what my body creates.

I am stung and stretchy and open.

You are soft and resilient.

You are like the suns rays stretching from my bump of a belly.

7/1/2005 Some days are easier than others. Some days are just really rough. I feel raw and salty and moody. I feel fat. I feel depressed. Then I feel really joyous. It’s a bit too much, this rollercoaster. I cry then laugh then dance then yell. Shit. This world is so not made for a tempermental pregnant women. Mia needs so much from you. She is nursing all the time. I get some strange looks in parks. I am large and pregnant and nursing you, 21 months old. I am enjoying our final days as just a pair, though. Soon enough we will be a triad. Just mama and Mia. But she is busy busy and sometimes I just want to sleep or be lazy and it’s hard to stay anchored with a toddler running the show.

I hope to savor these babies’ years. They are so short. Soon you will be born and sprout like wheat. Golden.

7/2/2005 Birthing tub is ready. I sit in it daily (without the water heater on). I watch Sesame Street with your sister, both of us floating in the tub, drinking tea and juice.

Bottom line: I am so nervous about being mama of two.

Even more bottom line: I am bursting with joy which means I am not in labor. Yet.

7/7/2005 I thought today you’d be born. I really did. It doesn’t feel like you are dropping or getting closer. I am just getting bigger and your movements are wild. Spastic.

Why we birth at home:

-trust in nature and women and babies and life -peace and solitude -freedom. To move, to be me, to eat, to cuddle, to walk, to dance, to moan. To monitor myself. No wires or weird smells or strangers. -Time is not an issue. Nobody watches the clock in this home. -I make a statement to the universe: This body I believe in. I am relaxed in.

7/17/2005

6 days past that damn due date. I know you will come right on time. How rude to call you ‘late’. You come when you are ready. Just know I think I’m ready. Hint.

I trust you baby. I trust you and goddess birthing pure love. I trust my heart and other muscles. I trust my yoni will spread open wide, slowly and artfully. Your soft pink head will journey out into water? Air? You choose. You’ll leave your dark pond soon.

I will guide you. Up to my heart space and you and I will be the first to meet and we and I will take a deep breath together and we just are love.

Sound fun baby bee? Come on out love, we have something called chocolate here.

Watery Moon Baby you are perfect.

7/19/2005 Dear love, it’s getting closer to the change of signs, approaching Leo and leaving Cancer. We are waxing fuller and soon the moon will be a whole pearl. I wonder if that is when you’ll be ready to come to this home. I will open up like a soft, flexi-gate to pull you through to Earth Ville.

7/20/2005 Baby Bee II, last night we were honored in a most amazing why. Three midwives (in the literal sense) paid honor to me for holding you. We ate cheese and chocolate and they danced and chanted blessings around us. It was just a small piece of what type of family and community you will be born into. We are so not alone.

And the last entry, not dated says:

“Don’t fight it, ride it.”