Finding our Way

The last two weeks have been a process of recovery, relearning, and rejuvenation. I have rested to allow my body to heal from giving birth; having an uncomplicated and fast labor, the thing I’ve felt the most is exhaustion. It’s an amazing toll on the human body to birth a child. My every muscle aches from the work of it. Additionally, my body is creaking and moaning from the back-lash of nine months of pregnancy. My lower back is protesting its short but traumatic journey back to its original position having been stretched to an awkward sway for the last eight weeks or so.

But aside from the physical ailments of this third-timer feeling the significance of another three years of age on an otherwise healthy, young, pregnant body, I am actually feeling quite fantastic. The difficulty of having two now instead of one is far outweighed by the wonderfulness of being a parent for the second time and actually feeling like I know (a little) what the heck I am doing.

When I first gave birth ten years ago, I was surprised to discover I loved the act of giving birth—painful and difficult as it was. Once my baby was born, however, the other aspects of motherhood remained a mystery as I placed my birthdaughter for adoption. Though my milk came in heavily and stayed for weeks in abundant torrents, I did not know the joys and challenges of breastfeeding.

When my first daughter was born three and a half years ago, I nursed for the first time but was surprised by how painful and difficult it was and how sad it made me. I nursed anyway; I nursed my daughter for over two years and it got better, easier. But all the joy of motherhood (including breastfeeding) was couched in anxiety and fear and quite a lot of sadness for at least the first three to six months. So much was going on emotionally and cognitively in my life at the time that I could not, or did not experience any of the euphoria of breastfeeding new moms report.

This birth and the first weeks of being a mother of two have seemed filled with all the joy and euphoria that was absent from my first two births. It is hard to describe how happy I feel now: like Jada polished off this family, this mother in a way I could not have predicted. My heart feels full of irrepressible love. There is a store house of joy in my lungs that presses forward and outward each time I breathe.

As the four of us drove to buy bagels this past weekend, I found myself grinning like a fool out my side window. I giggled to myself and could not explain the ridiculous joy I felt. I think it had something to do with the fact that Jada seems to like the car and I could just cry from the relief of this news. Twila so desperately hated the car for a full twelve months that I thought very seriously about any trip I considered taking. If there was a forty-five minute drive in front of me, Twila would scream—scream at the top of her lungs for forty-five minutes. I arrived absolutely everywhere feeling like I wanted to lie down and die just to hear silence in my ears.

But Jada stares wide-eyed out the window and then falls asleep when we drive and I can’t describe how much we all needed that from her.

So as we enter week three of this new life, with a different looking family, and as I attempt my first day t home with the girls by myself, I feel positive and hopeful. Now is the process of finding our routine, our dance; finding out how to shower, when my time to write will be, how to entertain the three year old on these cold and snow-blowing days, and how to give the second child the attention, affection and love she deserves. By going slow and being patient with each other and ourselves, I am confident that we will find our way.