Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Little Man has a sibling. I know! I'm as surprised as anyone. It's the weirdest thing... I was just trying to catch up on some stuff, you know, dishes and whatnot, and suddenly, kaboom! There was a newborn baby in the house, all wiggly and cute and asking to be fed, diapered, held, you know -- mothered. And I looked at myself and said, Oh, hey, I'm a mother! I could take this on! And so I did. And so there was Littler Man.

OK, it didn't happen exactly like that. But it sort of feels as if it did. Actually, there was a tremendous amount of effort involved. And I don't mean the regular baby-making kind of "work." I mean the sort of expert work performed by teams of fertility specialists; and also the emotional work performed by people who generously, incredibly, donated their own embryonic children to us. Some of those embryonic children took one look at the inside of my uterus and said "Um, no. Thanks, though" and left. One of them, though, hung on for a bit, checked it all out, listened to the sound of my voice, muffled as it was through all those internal organs, the breathing and the heartbeat and the gushing of blood through my veins, and said "She sounds nice. I'll bet she'll be OK for me" and took a leap of faith.

For which I am tearfully grateful, even though I sometimes wonder if either he or we are crazy. Are we ready for this? A whole 'nother baby-raising time, after Little Man has already graduated into schoolkid-dom, all making his own snacks and deciding on his own hairstyles and writing his own poems? And at 4:00 a.m., when Littler Man wants to be fed AGAIN after JUST FEEDING an HOUR BEFORE, I do wonder what in tarnation I was thinking. But then we get up in the morning and sit in the chair by the window, and it's quiet and there's a funny early morning light, and I hold him against me with his feather-soft head just under my chin, and his heartbeat humming against mine, and he snuggles all comfortable-like against me, palpably content, and I nod.

Yes. Oh yes.

4 comments:

Kath said...

Yes. Beautiful. As is everything you write - And that Littler Man made an excellent decision - he really knew just what he was doing showing up in your family. Love this, love you -

xxoo
K

fishea said...

Hi There- it is Amy F. Thank you for sharing! I love what you wrote. The same wonderful gift from another, combined with technology, gave me the love off my life. She is almost six and sitting next to me right now. If I look at her face, I can still see her as a baby. A flood of memories overtake me when I think about her infancy. First, I think I still may do well with some therapy for post traumatic stress disorder as she had colic. Most of all, however, I think of how I looked at her with such fascination and adoration. I just could not stop looking at her. Although, she has a loving family, I will never forget glancing over at my mother ( who stayed with me for a week when she first came home) and recognizing the same fascination and adoration. I never saw quite that same look in anyone else. All mothers are so special as are all babies. The connection between a mother and child is like no other. I wonder what I will say when she is a teen? Congratulations!

Little Girl::Big Glasses said...

Oh gosh, congratulations. I haven't been around lately and I just spent a lovely time catching up with you and the Little Man, and now Littler Man, and wow. Please don't take this wrong, but I forgot how impeccably you choose words...they just roll around like lemon drops and...congratulations, that's all. On everything.

daydreamymama said...

Thanks, LG, Amy, and Kath! It's such a tremendous change, I'm going to be struggling to find the words for it for a long time I think....