When I took this image 3.5 years ago, I was trying to do something I had never done: document one of my pregnancies at the very end. I had no way of knowing that this might be my last pregnancy. For that reason, and because of the chaos that unfolded just weeks after this was taken, this image is very significant to me. I look at it and don’t really see myself at all… it’s like someone else’s body from a different time…
So much of life is unexpected, laced with questions, and steeped in emotion. A couple of confessions:
Everything associated with pregnancy, birth, and newborns triggers me. It triggers me in a PTSD sort of way, as our last birth experience was very traumatic; but also in a deep, heart-aching way: a longing for something that’s gone missing, an experience I was robbed of, one that I might not get again. It doesn’t mean that I don’t like babies or can’t be happy for other people! I do and I am! But it does mean there’s an ache inside my secret mother heart that may not ever go away.
“Awareness months,” or weeks, or days as the calendar gods choose to define them, also trigger me. Oh how I want & need to celebrate so many things! New perspectives gained, incredible joy & love experienced, even hardships overcome. But to celebrate those things, I have to acknowledge the full picture, including the struggle it was to get here. I have to confront the past all over, and dig into the mess to some extent to celebrate the redemption. And sometimes… that’s too much for me to do. The fact of the matter is, every day feels like an awareness day of some sort in this life, just by living, and some days I’d rather just live in the moment and be grateful and joyful, without the burden of educating society hanging over my head.
I wouldn’t change who we are, what we’ve learned, or all that we’ve gained. Heaven knows the last four years have been the hardest and most expansive of my life—I am forever grateful for all they have taught & given me. But if you can ever relate… if you are also a mom faced with any kind of awareness celebration and sometimes it’s too much to participate every year or all the time… I see you. 💛
