Miracles and Motherhood

When I cracked open my eyes this morning, I thought, "It's April.  It was almost a year ago that Marie whirlwinded her way into the world.  This MUST be a joke."

For the next three weeks, I'll be joyously heartsick about her being a year old and about her being alive. . . While we will never question why we were so showered in blessings a year ago, knowing that friends of ours have lost babies in similar circumstances, we will appreciate every blink, every breath, and every smile from our Marie.

This is one of my favorite poems by one of my favorite poets.  This month, I'm sure I'll share many other thoughts about miracles and motherhood.  I cherish them both.

Notes from the Delivery Room
by Linda Pastan

Strapped down
victim in an old comic book,
I have been here before,
this place where pain winces
off the walls
like too bright light.
Bear down a doctor says,
foreman to sweating laborer,
but this work, this forcing
of one life from another
is something that I signed for
at a moment when I would have signed anything.
Babies should grow in fields;
Common as beets or turnips
they should be picked and held
root end up, soil spilling
from between their toes -
and how much easier it would be later,
returning them to earth.
Bear up...bear down...the audience
grows restive, and I'm a new magician
Who can't produce the rabbit
from my swollen hat.
She's crowning, someone says,
but there is no one royal here,
just me, quite barefoot,
greeting my barefoot child.