Three surprises. three things I had to experience to understand. Because San and I worked with a wonderful midwifery group in South Weymouth, not only was I assisting in the room, I was also able to deliver Amarinda along with our midwife. It was the most profound experience of my life. I remember thinking, “The universe has now delivered me something, uniquely, that I will value far beyond my own life. My capacity for love has expanded a thousand-fold. The world now holds something fragile in its hands”. It was exhilarating and terrifying.
When Amee’s age was still measured in weeks, not months, and it was still warm outside to be bare-skinned, we were upstairs on the big bed in Whitman, Massachusetts, snuggling. I bent over her, and we were nose to nose, staring into each other’s eyes. I snuzzled her and she reached up and put her hands on my face, my mouth, and I had this strong sense of connection on a level that was more just mammal than specifically human. We could relate to each other on a very visceral level far before we could relate as people.
At some point, the big first date night out as a couple, post-baby swung around. I think my parents, who lived just a few towns over, came over to babysit, and Sandi and I went out to dinner with plans to go to a movie after. A time to be “just the two of us”, a chance to “just be a couple again”, like that was something to be re-captured. As if that was a portal you could back through. Halfway through the “date” we realized that the two of us had been a family of two, but now we were a family of three. Irrevocable. An overwhelming feeling of not being complete, missing someone who was now on the team, not truly a whole family.
Follow the Child 