Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Teaching

Today I went to school. And I wasn't a student. And it was kind of weird, but good. And I tried to be "business." But I think maybe I was more "art girl meets black sandals because she doesn't know if it's professional to wear flip flops." And I put my foot in my mouth with some line about how Garrett was important because he took nine months to make. Which, after the snickers, I followed up with something horrendous that sounded something like, "Well, that's not what I meant. He only really took a second." Because I was talking about science. But my perverted high school class only thought of one thing and started telling me they felt sorry for me and oh my poor husband and blah blah blah. So yah. I'm probably going to be asked never to return. I'm probably fired. Most likely.

Friday, August 18, 2006

Overwhelmed

Im not one of those mothers who said that when her baby was born she instantly felt this overwhelming matchless love. Thats not to say that I wouldnt throw myself under an oncoming bus to save him or that I dont love him more than life itself. Its just to say that I felt that tremendous unparalleled love when I first learned that he was growing inside me. When I first saw the positive pregnancy test I was wracked with an emotion I almost cannot express. Despite the fact that I was in denial for weeks, how could this finally be happening, I felt the most amazing adoration swelling inside my heart. It was a love unlike any other, tainted by fear that this, too, would end in heartache, flanked by relief, swollen with joy and filled with pride. I didnt even know his name. I didnt need to. Just knowing that he existed, buried deep inside me was enough. I didnt need to give birth to him to realize that matchless love. I knew it when I saw him sucking his thumb on the ultrasound, when I felt those initial bubbles that became violent wiggles by the third trimester and when I first saw his heart, taking up most of his teeny, tiny body, beating fiercely on the screen. I knew that devotion when I saw the positive test. Deep down, somewhere within my subconscious, I think I even knew it during all those months of infertility and when, at last, I thought my firstborn would come through someone else and be given, miraculously to me through adoption. When my heart was waiting for him, I knew. I knew it when I was afraid and I knew it when I was so numb that fear was absent.
And because I prayed through my anguish and my pain and my fear, carrying him began to feel like a little bit of heaven. It was a secret paradise, a hope that only I had access to. Of course I love his ten tiny fingers and ten tiny toes more nownow that they belong to a face and a name, but sometimes I almost think that I have dreamed him into existence. And sometimes, when I remember them putting his warm, fresh body on my chest, I feel terrible that I didnt have that initial, overwhelming wave that I hear every mother talk about. Doubt crowds my memory and I find myself wondering if I am a bad mother because my heart wasnt swelling to hefty proportions as he stared at me, seeing life for the first time. But I remind myself that ours was a different journey. And as he peered, intently, into my eyes, I stared back into his. But I wasnt seeing him for the first time. Because in those eyes was every prayer answered, every tear nullified, every wish granted. And the love I felt for him wasnt overwhelming. It was comfortable. It had always been, at least, for as long as I could remember. As he gazed at me, I stared back. Our eyes met, and they told our story.

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Third Anniversary

Third Anniversary
Today is my third anniversary. My wedding seems like it was yesterday and like it was fifty years ago all at the same time. It feels like I can remember every detail and yet every detail seems to blur into a whirl of dancing and dreaming and toasting and laughing and vowing to be there--through it all. I know that "it all" is yet to come. We'll have heartache that will put any previously experienced heartache to shame. We'll look back on any pain we've been in thus far and laugh. And hopefully through the real pain, the real suffering, the reality that one of us will bury the other, we'll stand strong. All I know is that I love my husband 45 billion times more than I did the day I married him. And, as he coached me through the birth of our son, I knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that my love for him was returned. Because he looked at me like I was his hero for bringing Garrett into the world. And as I sit here and write, with my three week old on my lap, I know that it just might not get better than this. It might not get better than the real-life-fireworks-exploding-just-like-in-the-movies-love that I share with my spouse. It might not ever get better than this little tiny family I have for myself. And if this is as good as it gets, I have been incredibly blessed.