Mystery

[beetiger]

Everything I feel like I could say here about what I've been experiencing these last two weeks sounds dreadfully Erma Bombeck-ish trite if I try to put it down in text.

I've never experienced anything as purely *right* as having an entire person made of your own flesh and blood curled up sleeping on your chest. I can't describe the kind of ache that comes from having the person you love best in the world draped screaming over your shoulder for an hour and not being able to figure out what to do for him. I'm boggled at the body issues that come up in my mind as I'm relying on my metabolism to provide food for my baby, and trying to trust that process.

This is what they mean in esoteric, initiatory traditions when they say "Here be a mystery". There are things that you cannot share with people that haven't experienced them, not because they are a big secret, but because the profundity of them is purely experiential. Stepping through those doorways as a new mother feels more dramatic than having done it as a Witch, though. My child, perhaps, expects more of me than the Gods do.

I feel very very human.

Comments

[queenofstripes.livejournal.com]

Miss you three, hon. (Yes, three -- sorry, Omaha. :) ) And I realized, talking to my mom today, that the you = me principle extends to her too, since I inherited most of my temperament from her, and that I wish there were any likelihood you'd ever get to meet her.

[hakeber.livejournal.com]

Welcome to Motherhood!

It's most likely gas. Just keep walking with the baby draped and patting on the back. Or sit with baby over knees and try back massage. Or sit with baby draped over your hand and try patting with other hand. Eventually the gas bubble will move. Then try to figure out what you ate that's giving the nublett gas.

Thankfully, as they grow, they get big enough finally for the gas to not be such a problem. Instead of the bubbles blocking the intestine, they move through more freely and instead you just get sound effects.

If it's not gas, but rather the whole 'colicy baby' thing, then all I can say is it seems to pass once they reach three months of age, it's not your fault, and hang in there. The smiles will make it worth it.

This is definitely one of the great Mysteries. What's sad is that not even all the folk who become mothers get it.

Don't forget to take pictures! Babies change so much from week to week. You need to take lots.

[sydb42.livejournal.com]

Hi, I found you through Sythyry's journal (who posted to a parenting community I'm on). I read through your journal and found myself nodding my head in agreement or remembering what that was like of when my daughter was born. I also made it all the way back to Talk Like a Pirate day and, with all the computer geeks I know, that was the FIRST time I'd heard that particular take on the day. ;)

Anyway, I hope you don't mind me reading your journal. On-topic for this post, you said what I feel with my daughter so much better than I ever could. My daughter is 15 months old now, but in many ways it feels like it really was yesterday when she was a tiny baby just brought home from the hospital. In other ways, I can't imagine that she was ever so small. ;)

I remember before I had a child being told "you can't understand unless you're a parent" and being annoyed. But, like you said (only better), there are many things about parenthood you really CAN'T understand until you've been there.

So, welcome to motherhood. :)