A few weeks ago, I got to hold a newborn baby in the hospital. I got to watch as the purply little fingers changed to pink with time and much flexing. I got to feel the arm flails and kicks that were exactly the same out in the world, as they had been for months in utero. I was amazed, not just by the darling baby, but by her parents as well.
Have you ever seen a woman after she has given birth? There is never a time that a woman will look more beautiful. I know, it sounds lame, but that is for real. Radiating from the face of the mother is something so spectacular, that it makes her look different. She will look like herself as she was meant to be. The expression is not particularly smiley or proud, but it is as if all the crinkles of life beyond that moment are relaxed and the only thing left to read on her face is love.
And when the baby moves from arm to arm of goo-goo-eyed family members, the tie between mom and baby is still there. It is so strongly present that it seems tangible, as if I could reach out a feel the string between their hearts. Its not fear or anxiety that keeps them linked, but just that they haven't quite become two people yet. Coming into the world doesn't immediately sever the oneness, as we think it does through physical actions, instead the becoming two separate people part is a gradual process and in some small way a never-ending one. The very stuff of our being is borrowed from our mothers, are we ever really distinctly apart from them?
And then there is the partner. The one who is thrust into something so immediately and so completely without the surge of hormones and god-designed biochemistry of attachment, brought on by child bearing. The partner doesn't have a baby, but they HAVE a baby. It must be strange. I can't truly fathom or appreciate that world, because what do I know of it. Yet, I can't help but see it again in my head- the face of dads with new babies. Amazement. Its a look that says, "I knew it would work. It just doesn't seem like that should have worked. But it worked. And now they are here." My grandmother (due to a speech problem) often uses an adjective- "numbfounded". It is the perfect word for the face of someone who has just seen a miracle. It is there when they answer the nurse's questions, or stop to take a bite to eat, just this faraway look of wow.
When I was six, my mom had a little boy. I went to see them at the hospital and can only remember going out into the hallway so they could take my mom's IV port out and me not get squeamish. I came back into the room a little worked up (at six I knew needles hurt, I had no concept of what child birth entailed), expecting my mom to be reacting like I had after my kindergarten booster shots. But, there she was, a portrait of calm, delicately adjusting the blankets surrounding our brother.
It was another 13 years before I went to the hospital to see a new mom. This time my eventual sister-in-law. (Looking back, I can't believe she was okay with me, her brother's girlfriend, coming to see them. But I am forever grateful that she did.) It was so quiet in the room when we got there. Neither parent was talking, they were just looking at their new baby. We held the baby with such stiff arms they quivered under the seven pound bundle. And as they watched us holding their daughter, I saw those expressions, I just didn't know how to label them.
The next time I was in the hospital with a newborn, it was my turn. My husband took a picture of my son and I just after he was born. It is my most beloved moment, and in it, is that look that I have only recently begun to decipher.
Less than a year after I had my son, my sister-in-law had another baby, this time a boy. It was present there to. The looks on both their faces, not weakened or diminished by multiple experiences. Even with their other children present and the light-heartedness of their questions and musing. Love. And amazement. Love. And amazement.
Most recently I met my niece and as we made the nine hour drive back home afterward, my mind was swimming with all that had been stirred in me. I kept seeing my sister's face as the baby cried and with a fountain of patience and tenderness, she just cuddled and talked to her new baby. I kept hearing her husband say, "She was amazing. She was incredible." Desperate to make meaning out of all I was feeling and thinking, I began plotting this blog post, but all I could truly nail down was- there is nothing like a new born baby. And there is nothing like their parents either.
I also keep coming back to this quote from Call the Midwife:
This post is inspired by and dedicated to: my brother, my nieces, my nephews, and my son.
