Trojan Horse

Babies ruin your life.

Newborns take all theory - all hiding behind personal preferences and strong opinions; all book learning and evidence of observation and certainty - and they level the playing field. They conform it to the stark, cold (screaming awake at 2 am) shock of reality.

So does breast feeding, birthing, health problems in newborns, acid reflux, diaper changes, placentas, mucus plugs, episiotomies and sleep deprivation ... all of it takes the tendency towards self protection and acknowledging our personal desires and throws us into the domain of not being in charge or in control or in any position to gloat. Babies make us real.

And if we allow them to, they make us tender.




For me - I was lucky, I just didn't know it at the time - it was the very first. The one I lost. The laying on the bathroom floor contracting and bleeding and torn apart, sobbing beyond the point of words, to realize I was perfectly broken. That no amount of talent, way with words, strength, reading, planning or preparing can get you ready for the sense of loss, panic, anguish and pure heart-breaking, sensory-assaulting love a new life brings to you.

Hormones, dearth of privacy, the vast repertoire of advice from older ladies, baby jet lag - it summons the resources of all we have in us to survive and keep our sanity intact. But we don't. Eventually, somehow, we will meet our match in child-raising and we won't.

And what is left in us is a wrestle with grace. A laying down of self-judgment, of others-condemnation. The parents, neighbours, friends, sisters, aunts and uncles, in-laws, girlfriends, exes - all of those that we have watched and said we'd do it differently.

And we rebuild. Having children, my husband says, is voluntary suicide. All that is selfish in you dies. All that is sure in you waffles. All that is left in you is simplicity, the melody of forgiveness. Forgiveness for your self, for others; forwards and backwards. It may not happen in the first years, it may not happen in the middle - but you can be sure that the cocoon of reproduction will change you. And if you let it, you, too, will be reborn.

How you are reborn depends on you. But babies arrive offering the wonder, the life, the gift of letting go.

Babies arrive with truth.



{I've heard someone say that the work of the children is to forgive the parents. I think the work of a mother is to receive grace.}