Sunday, April 17, 2011

Inside and Out

Wesley is nine months old.

He has been on the outside as long as he was on the inside. It's strange to think about. So much has happened in those two sets of nine months and it's interesting to realize they were both the same length, and that after a year and a half, life is in such a very different place.

These have been the first counted weeks and months of my life, where each week seemed so important I counted it individually...4 weeks pregnant...12 weeks...tell people...40 weeks...hope he comes in time for birth at the birth center...will he come on his grandmas' birthday?...indeed, 40 weeks 6 days, hello little one.

Then after his birth, we counted weeks until so many months went by it stopped making sense. We are still counting months and seeing rapid changes from week to week.


Clicking time off in this manner, and being so focused on the nuances of Wesley's development has had a strange effect on time. It seems like worlds ago that I was pregnant. Even further back, I found out I was pregnant, yet it was not so long ago. I can remember so clearly what it felt like to live in Fairfield, but at the same time it feels like a faraway land.  I remember being suprised by how long pregnancy felt. We packed a lot of change into those nine months. The past nine months has gone by somewhat more quickly, though things are quite different now than from when Wesley was born.

During my final month of pregnancy, I transitioned into feeling ready for the baby, excited to have the experience of birthing and to share it with Casey. Similarly, as this nine month period comes to a close, my mind has recently shifted and I feel at home. I feel comfortable with our little family. I feel ready and excited for the transitions and transformations to come. 

Playoffs 2010, Season Start 2011
In the past nine months we have gelled as a family. I am finally in synch not only with being a mom, but with being a fellow parent. The second part was in some ways harder for me. I knew we were both doing well as parents, and we worked well as a team, but I felt strange. It was foreign to be so connected to someone else when I was used to being so closely in synch with only Casey. It was shocking how little time there was for Casey and me to have focused attention on one another, it felt odd. But recently, my feeling of strangeness just disappeared. I feel a synergy among us which gives me a feeling of vitality. I am part of both a dynamic duo and a dynamic trio. Maybe that's what it means to be a family.


When we first found out I was pregnant I was an MBA student in a small Iowa town. We held our special secret privately for three months and then shared it with family and friends at Christmas time. We ventured across America and lived at Casey's Mom & Step Dad's house for nearly five months while we lined up a new setup for our little family. By the end of the nine months we were living in Petaluma, I was 40ish pounds heavier than at the start, and I was excited to give birth and meet our baby.

The past nine months has been a continual process of rapid growth and change for Wesley and for us. So many roles and perspectives shifted. My body shrunk back. My mind cocooned with an infant and then opened back up again with new inspiration.


It baffles me how much Wesley has accomplished in his nine months in the womb and nine months out. In the first nine he went from tiny cells to a functional human. In the past nine he's gone from a sleepy fragile newborn to a vibrant baby who pushes furniture across our room, who decimates chard in the garden, and who loves to play.


I can see that having a child has altered my perception of time. Though at some point I will start counting in years and not months, these past eighteen months have shown me how time passes quickly when you have children. Perhaps it is because they, in their rapid development, are clear demonstrations of the ever-changing, transient nature of life. Perhaps it is because as a parent I have begun to reach the age of the adults from my childhood, that my parents are now grandparents, and that the generations shift more quickly than one imagines as a child.

Nine months in, nine months out. The mirror of these two spans of time amazes me...My mind keeps reflecting back and forth over my pregnancy and over the time since Wesley's birth...precious spans of time.

1 comment:

  1. Does this mean you are ready for another baby? ;-) 9 months was when we got the itch because it was, at that time, our favorite age. They are starting to become their own little person and it's so fun!

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