origin
If I were not there at the birth of this boy, I don’t think I would believe that this is the person who was inside of me. If I didn’t have one image in my head of his body curled up under my left leg on the birthing table, I don’t know if I could correlate my swollen belly to the baby I hold.
Maybe I haven’t known enough births, maybe I have a disconnect with my own body. But still, after 40-plus weeks and seeing the baby come out with my own eyes, I can’t believe that I grew and housed a human, this human.
Henry is a baby, not a scrawny infant, and in a way he’s merged with all babies. He’s cute, he’s soft, he wears really cute clothes and hats (thanks, gift-givers!). He’s removed from the abstraction of birth. He’s been named and clothed, his hair has been combed. He’s gained 1/3 of his weight since he was born (from about 7 pounds then to about 10 pounds now). I rarely see him without his clothes on. When I do, when I give him a bath, I have flashbacks to that birthing room that night he was born.
It makes me think what I suspected when he was inside of me: a uterus is a sort of purgatory, a place where there is a soul sometimes but it hovers, not quite inside the body. It’s not that I’m a visual person and I needed to see him for myself. I really do think that his spirit lodged with his flesh when he began to breathe. When he was being born it really felt like he was born.
