in recent weeks, several unrelated events brought babies to my forefront.
- my dear friend leila gave birth to a beautiful little girl.
- one of my co-workers came to work with her 8-week old.
- another co-worker just found out that he and his wife are expecting twins.
- dooce, one of my favorite bloggers, is having another baby.
- they used a doll instead of a real baby on House (the TV show) the other night and didn't even TRY to convince the viewer it was real. it really distracted me with its plasticity and not-a-real-baby-ness.
it seems wherever i turn there is another newborn.
i live in a society where birth is still a mystery to some degree. i mean, we have all the facts and information. but we don't really experience it, until we do.
does that make sense?
i guess i feel that in other cultures where families are closer to each other, that birth and death are less of a mystery. you experience these things first hand, not through made-for-tv-movies.
today as i was reading leila's exquisite descriptions of being a new mother, i felt a deep longing that i've never really experienced before. i guess i felt the pangs of wanting a child.
it felt so different to other 'wants'. i think this is because it's not something i have direct control over. it's not like wanting a vacation, or a new job, or a puppy.
i think that being a parent is the most natural and important accomplishment of ones life. simultaneously terrifying and beautiful, challenging and miraculous.
i hope that one day i will get to experience it for myself. and until then, i'm going to bask in the surprise/joy/awe/delight of my friends who are experiencing it for the first time.
2 comments:
oh Gol you are so sweet. i usually look at your blog every day, and i've missed this refreshing "beverage" in my life. i also hope you will experience this, this awesomeness and terribleness. childbirth stories have been fascinating to me since i got pregnut, and i've been wondering how explicitly and whether i should write about mine.
REALLY recommend "Ina May's Guide to Childbirth" by Ina May Gaskin, because even though in lots of ways my own experience was unlike the ones described in that book, it helped me prepare mentally for what childbirth is like.
the first week of Marzieh's life i was really ga-ga over her; now i'm so tired and just feel like a moo-cow so much of the time i don't think i can say i'm quite as ga-ga. i know this will change, but dude it is FULL-ON.
I, too, was distracted by the blatant use of the doll on House.
As far as the mystery goes, I watched the birth of three of my siblings, and yet I still don't feel that I know what to expect!
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