Birthday Aftermath

Hannah’s birthday’s come and gone. You can see some photos from her party, as well as a whole lot of other snapshots, on my Flicker photostream.

(If I may digress, I would just like to say that I love love love Flickr. I can’t believe it took me this long to discover it. If you’re on Flickr too I’d love it if you’d be my friend on there. Because, as it turns out, I love sharing the photo love.)

Back to the topic at hand. After Hannah was born, during the four days I spent in the hospital, I read a book about premature babies that the midwives lent me. One of the things that this book mentioned was that moms of preemies often have very mixed feelings on their child’s birthday. Even though years may have passed, and your child is perfectly healthy and normal, the occasion can still bring back all of the not-so-good parts about having a premature baby.

Whoa Nellie, is that ever true. Hannah has now celebrated four birthdays, and on each of those days I have been a total basket case. I imagine that all moms feel some mixed feelings on their kids’ birthdays, watching these little people grow up at a rate that is really far too quick. But now that I’ve had another baby I can say that it’s really a different thing to reminisce about a birth that went well, and a birth that did not go so well. Which is why on the anniversary of Hannah’s birth I am an emotional lightning rod, feeling again those feelings of fear and failure that I felt when she made her entry into the world.

After Hannah was born I thought that having another baby, and having a good experience, would somehow heal me. It would cure those feelings of inadequacy that I still carry with me when I think about Hannah’s early days. It’s surprised me that I feel exactly the opposite. Because now I know, I understand, just how much I missed out on. Just how much of my new motherhood was consumed with struggle and doubt. I feel like somehow Hannah was cheated out of what she should have had, the easy babyhood that Jacob has enjoyed.

There’s no answer, of course. I know that I did the best I could when fate dealt me this particular card. I know that it’s not my fault and I couldn’t possibly have foreseen it. And I know that Hannah is a healthy normal 4-year-old who bears no marks from her early arrival. But also, I sort of don’t know any of these things. And this is what motherhood is, this burden of love and joy and heartache that we carry with us for our children. Willingly and gladly we carry it, for that is what mothers do, that is the deal we’ve made with the universe.

Although, we might be just ever so slightly more willing and glad if we were carrying the burden after, I don’t know, a lovely massage at a relaxing spa. I’m just saying, is all.