terça-feira, 9 de julho de 2013

About Fear - The 9 Month Journey So Far

I want to register some things about the first months of Cora, about her little baby months before I forget. I already forget. First of all, I remember the FEAR. I felt so much fear with this tiny little creature in my arms, sooooo fragile, so brand-new, so needy, so baby!! And the responsibility scared my very bones. I was so tense and tired and weepy those first few weeks. My body ached, my belly ached from the surgery, my head was in all sorts of places - some dark ones too, because it was all so LONELY, being a mommy. For all the help one can have, it is lonely, for the changes going on in your soul are so indescribable, so far away from everything you used to know...It's like being bitch slapped into maturity. A very harsh awakening, at least for me it was. My body is softer and squishier, but the edges are worn and sharper. That's how I feel. I look at pictures of myself and have no idea who that person is. I've had so little time to feel like ME that I've lost me somewhere along the way. I think this might be a permanent thing and that whenever the time for this comes around again, I will have to reinvent this idea of me. I don't think the old me will be anywhere in sight. This is so very, very adult and abrupt, it's absolutely frightening. It's frightening to come home from the hospital all cut up, puffed up like a balloon, shocked still from the birth experience, not getting anywhere near enough sleep and expected to deal with it enough to care for the little creature. I remember when the fog started to clear, when things started becoming a bit less heavy, and I could smile and enjoy her presence...I was in her room, in our chair and I started feeling the joy of it and it made me want to laugh out loud, because things had been just plain awful until then and I hadn't had the courage to realize it, because that would just be impossible to deal with. Once it felt better I was able to realize what had happened and breathe a biiiiiig sigh of relief that it was showing hopeful signs of getting better. Amen. 

Now she's a big baby - a moving baby, dancing, singing and playful baby. it's SUCH a different roller-coaster ride now, completely different from my drooling spaced out inch-worming baby. I am grateful for that, because as much as it is still all-me consuming, it does get easier and our love affair does get stronger.



Us at the hospital
Me yellow. Me petrified and very much that little baby I hold in my lap.


Us a month ago. Less scared, but still a bit. And it's ok.