Just Add Water

What's going on with the babies now

I just talked to my friend Karen today, and am really glad that I did. I'd been feeling a little blue, hormones and lack of sleep running me ragged. My baby boy has been crying a lot, and resisting taking any naps. That part is not fun. But Karen helped me to see the really amazing, fun, and beautiful things about my babies. These are the things that I see every day, but am sometimes not amazed by because of sleep deprivation and hormonal malaise. For instance, my little baby girl started turning over today. Both babies laugh and coo and smile big jack-o-lantern smiles. My baby boy makes fists, and he tries (and sometimes succeeds) in grabbing things. When he concentrates, his lips purse together and he looks just a little bit cross-eyed. Baby girl likes to have "conversations", and sticks her tongue out. They are beautiful and fun. Thank goodness for friends who help me to remember that at the end of the day.

How does it feel?

Shortly after I had the babies, the questions started coming.

"How does it feel?"
"What is it like?"

I have no easy answer for these questions. I think that for me, what I felt first, and most, was a sense of the surreal (not unlike when I found out that I was pregnant). I have no frame of reference for this experience; here, I'm off the map.

One friend asked me if I looked at my babies when they were born and fell in love with them immediately. My short answer is no, I didn't. I looked at them with wonder, these little miracles that my husband and I had worked so hard for. I was, and continue to be, amazed by their tiny perfection. But in love? I felt like I had given birth to two tiny little strangers. All that I thought that I'd known of them, their movements in my belly, their physical weight that I carried with me daily, their images from our monthly, then weekly, ultrasounds, became part of my pregnancy experience, and no longer relevant. When our children were wheeled into my recovery room, I felt that it was time to start again, a new process, of getting to know my babies.

So, how does it feel? It feels wonderful and strange. I often feel like I don't know what I'm doing. I love watching my husband hold our children. I'm frequently brought to tears by any number of things, from this enormous feeling of protection that I have for these little people, to my amazement that they are here in our lives. Now it feels like love, but a different kind of love then I've experienced before. I don't really have words to express it yet; perhaps I won't ever.