The Metamorphosis Continues
I thought it might be nice this Mother’s Day to update my blog from last year, “The Metamorphosis of Motherhood”.
Another year down the line…my boy turned three last week. All I can say is each passing year is truly bittersweet. Bitter as each day is so precious…he changes so much so quickly there is hardly time to appreciate each moment. Sweet because as he does I love the person he is becoming, and it gets easier. Now that he can speak just being able to ask what he wants and try to reason with him about him is an absolute game-changer.
One of the hardest aspects of motherhood is the inherent uncertainty of it all. Each child can be different, just when you think you have it figured out you don’t. When you figure out one stage they change. The quick adapting and lack of perfection is baked in, and the humbling that comes with it is healthy I think. And so I try to make peace with my mix of emotions…yes I’d love to be pregnant again but probably won’t. Yes, I’d love to hold a newborn baby of mine again, but love him at three too. Yes, there is never enough time, and we can’t go back in time. The moment is all we have and then it’s gone. Yes, memory fades. Bittersweet, all of it.
Physically the issues I described last year improved with pelvic floor PT…but not to the point of resolution. After three years of trying to figure out what was wrong I was finally diagnosed with two kinds of prolapse…and though mild they weren’t going to get any better, only worse. So I had my second major surgery (the first was replacing my left hip in May of last year) in less than a year to correct it.
I read recently that a woman’s postpartum journey is a journey back to herself…which is once again bittersweet. You go from living your life as one person, then two people…then you give birth and are born again as a mother. The postpartum journey is one of reintegrating who you were before you gave birth….bitter because this journey can be tinged with guilt. I don’t want to go back to who I was…but I would like certain parts back. For most of my adult life, I was hyper fit, owing to a background in ballet. That body took a decade to build, of blood sweat, and tears. In nine months it was all gone, my body feeling uncomfortable and unfamiliar. And so these surgeries were a big step to feeling like myself again…it’s a different body but feels more like mine again. I feel better, which is sweet. The bitter part is I am unlikely after this bit of the journey to get pregnant again and destroy the work of the surgeries. So with my returning sense of self is the loss of living through the miracle of childbirth again.
I felt when I delivered him I had crested a mountain, and the mountain was my life. The moment he came out I was standing at the top, surveying all of it. It felt as if my ultimate purpose had been served. My whole life was building to this peak moment. And every moment after would be descent…ultimately towards death. The desire to go to the peak of the mountain, again and again, will forever beckon…it is one of the most incredible experiences a person can have, to carry and birth a child. To admit it is over and say to oneself “did I feel that enough, did I savor it enough, did I love it enough” is overwhelming. But that’s life, bittersweet. I try to let go and tell myself we don’t know what the future holds. I try to live with the uncertainty of it all.
That’s motherhood. Happy Mother’s Day to us all, thanks for making the world go round.