Mushy Musing

When HR was first born, in the time that followed the explosion of manic joy that were his first few days, I had some pretty massive postpartum blues. I remember being so frustrated, and so sad, because here was this gorgeous guy, he was all I wanted for so long, and I couldn't properly enjoy being his mother because I couldn't stop crying. Luckily it went away before it became a real problem, but I'll never forget that feeling. I know it's normal for new mothers to feel that way, but I don't know if the way my thoughts came to me at the time were normal: a constant loop of sounds and phrases, a bit from a Beastie Boys song here, a movie line here, I heard them over and over again. Bizarre city. In retrospect, I'm pretty sure sleep deprivation was more to blame for that mess than the hormones. But one thing I couldn't stop hearing was Mike's voice, the way he spoke to the baby those first nights in the hospital. "You're such a good baby," he would say. "You're so cute, baby." Hushed and reverent.

I heard him saying this in my head constantly, and it made me weep with the power of how much he loved our baby already, even if he couldn't quite believe he was ours. I guess I'm thinking of this now because I'm going through another hormonal time (my body's finally back to its normal business) and over the weekend I was watching my husband dance with our baby in his arms and it knocked me right out, how lucky we both are, HR and me. It made me get misty in that familiar way, but this time I could put a name on it. Awe. Gratitude. Still a big big feeling, but it didn't swallow me up. I could just bask in it, you know? It's still scary and out of control, but that's the nature of love. I think what hit me is that it took a year but I had finally grown into the enormity of what my life had become since we got to be parents. Also: every child should have such a father, every mama should have such a partner. We're a lucky family. Yeah, that's about that.