A Pregnant Pause

Five years ago last night, I stood on the Labor and Delivery floor of Exempla Lutheran Hospital in Wheatridge, Colorado, hugely pregnant, bloated, contracting, bleeding, terrified, excited, sick of being pregnant, overjoyed to meet the little creature inside of me, and mostly just unsure about how this was all going to work. Would my body know how to deliver a baby? Would I be up to the physical and mental challenge of delivery?

What I didn't know at the time and what no first-time parent can ever know is that that moment was the perfect metaphor for parenthood in general. A messy soup of wonderful and terrible physical and emotional states that makes one realize the bittersweet beauty of life, the uncertainty of everything, and the depths and dimensions of one's own soul.

Five years ago this morning, I held a perfect little baby boy in my arms. Nourishing him, smelling his intoxicating scent, and memorizing every small detail of his face so that for many weeks after that whenever I closed my eyes (even in my surreal, supreme exhaustion) all I could see was him.

Becoming a mother transformed my life. And, although today will be a celebration of him, I'll always take a moment to think about me, and the incredible journey that he started me on—that night five years ago.

(Picture of my mom and me taken just days before the arrival of my little man!)