I’m 35 weeks pregnant and my days are filled with work mostly. I’m on campus teaching, lecturing in small groups and getting the second years through their cranial course. I have the normal 8-5 and am usually too beat to do anything when I get home.
But the special thing about my ‘normal’ 8-5 is that I have my very own companion with me all day 🙂 I have my baby. I feel you kick, I feel you squirm, I feel you push on my body and I feel my body try to accommodate your growing body.
Deep down in my soul, in the depths of my body and in my wisdom as a mother I know you are OK, I know we are OK, and I trust our bodies together, in synchrony, working on this dance of development and soon delivery.
I get love from all of my co workers, you get love from them every day, they rub you, they meditate on you and they gather excitement from you (did you know you were already having that affect on people?!) They place their hands on my belly, they feel you, they smile, they warm my skin, they comfort you, they comfort me — its very special.
On top of that, we have our family. Our family that without hesitation, anywhere in our day, will bend down to kiss the belly you’re currently inhabiting. They will unabashedly pour their love over our two bodies working together and they do so with such beauty and sensitivity it makes my heart sing.
One of my favorite things is getting the excitement from those around me that are clearly enchanted and impressed with the process of pregnancy and birth. These are the folks that aren’t close enough to me to simply start kissing the belly 🙂 but they drop in on us to share their smile, to get a peak into your day, “is baby kicking?” they want to know, as their eyes glimmer with the beauty of life in front of them.
It is all of these beautiful humans, the women that have come before me and birthed their children, the children that come every day into their mother’s arms, the mommies that are just discovering their new partnership deep in their womb, it is all of this combined that gets me through the days. It inspires me, comforts me, and reminds me that this joyous process is not one I have to experience alone.
Yet as my mother always professed ‘you won’t understand until you have kids of your own’ I find myself stumbling upon the positive thoughts in my mind and being blocked by or stumped by the negative ones. I worry about you, I worry about us. I am sensitive to the world around us in what I can only describe as a ‘mama bear’ type of way.
I know this is only the beginning and I know that the true journey of motherhood is one of letting go and allowing this beautiful extension of yourself to walk their own path in life. I practice daily to let go.
I know, both in a medical sense and in my own spiritual sense, that your journey into this world will be determined by both of our hearts and my job is to settle so this communication can be had.
I want you to know baby, that when you enter this world, you will be surrounded by love. You will be surrounded by calm and you will be supported by women and men who want your journey to be a spectacular one.
We will cradle you in those early days, we will share Rooney’s kisses with you, we will day dream about you and we will marvel at you. In fact, we will never stop doing any of that, but I promise, I will release some of my worry, I will release some of my fear and I will trust where you came from and where you are going.
We are already a dynamic team conquering incredible feats.
I love you more than I ever thought possible my sweet baby. I will rub my belly extra assured today as I know we are a team in everything we’re doing and I know that nature is cloaking us with security in this world.