Sunday, October 23, 2011

Leaps.


When my friends get married I find it a little weird, but when my friends have babies, I find it downright bizarre. I finally got to catch up with one of my longest running friends yesterday (18 years and counting!), and I got a peek at her lovely baby.

It has been amazing having a friend I am very close to, have a baby. She has had no qualms sharing all the gory pregnancy details with me - in fact, one of my favorite things soon became "TELL me. What's happened to your body THIS week?!"

And so, yesterday I got the D.L. on her labor and delivery.

As she recounted her hours of labor, and then the drama of pushing, and then the horror of the next few weeks of recovery - she had a really rough recovery - I started to understand why one would decide to be "too posh to push."

In fact, I decided that I might be.

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Our conversation was a far cry from some of the mommy blogs you see out there. You know the ones I mean - the new mommies who talk about labor and delivery as the best experience of their life thus far; the ones who gush about how transformative learning how to breath properly is, because when you know how to breath, you don't even feel labor pains. At all!

This is accompanied by pictures of an angelic looking woman, dewy faced, calm lips pursed together in a gentle smile, hair perfectly coiffed, being handed her baby seconds after delivery.

At which point the reader has one of two reactions:

1) Thank you Jesus! Pushing out a baby is easier than plucking my eyebrows! I can do this, no problem!

or

2) Liar.

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As we chatted, my mind kept exploding in these little burbles of shock.

"That baby is her baby."

"She is a mom."

"She gave birth to that baby."

"OHMYGOSHSHEHASABABY!!!"

For some reason, this experience of the girl - THIS girl - that I used to have week long sleepovers with actually becoming a new mommy is something that I can't quite wrap my mind around.

I have congratulated many other friends and acquaintances on the birth of their new baby without batting an eye and I have seen many friends get married, but this, beyond anything, just takes the cake.

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Of course, since I think long and deeply about pretty much everything, I was still thinking about my friend and her baby this morning and all day today.

From my vantage point, it seems as if having a baby is the biggest leap that anyone could ever make. You are being given a life to care for and cultivate goodness in. By all accounts you will love this little being with a vast enormity that defies description, but you will also be called upon to set him loose to freely follow his own path, to make his own mistakes, get hurt, find love, fail, triumph...

It is easier to endure pain oneself than to see someone you love suffer or struggle, and so parenthood seems to be, in some respects, utterly terrifying. The aim of parenthood is not necessarily to protect, but to build up that little life, making him strong enough to endure, tough enough to fight, always ready to struggle. To love much, but with detachment seems to be the call of the parent.

Perhaps this is why, then, that I am still reeling with the entrance into the world of this new little lady, and my friend's step into motherhood.

I am watching, at immensely close quarters, a very big thing. I am witness to a courageous, generous, truly awesome leap in the arc of my friend's life.

It's a beautiful thing.









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