Remind yourself you are one...

On Wednesday I had another appointment with the midwife. It was the one thing getting me through my flying week. I tend to be quite irritable lately so everyone from the pilots to the revolving door of flight attendants was driving me crazy. There wasn’t much fanfare to the midwife appointment, just going over some lab results, asking questions (for which I can never remember what it is I want to ask until I get home) and then the part that makes it all worth it – hearing the heartbeat.

Honestly the time I got to hear the heartbeat wasn’t long enough. Apparently the orange (it’s progressed to that size this week although I’ve taken a liking to calling it a lemon) “swam away” and before I knew it the appointment was over. Somehow none of this feels real until I have that appointment where I get to hear the heartbeat. I keep thinking all of this will go away any day. That I’ll wake up and the orange will be gone and this will all just have been a dream. I think that’s why I had the initial hesitation to bonding with the experience and with the orange. I compare it to a relationship that you have with anyone new. It takes you awhile to get to know someone before you can have that trust and fall in love. For me I couldn’t just give away my heart to someone I knew could leave my life at any moment.

So every time I get to hear that heartbeat it’s an unspoken language to me. It says, “I’m here, I’m alive.” I often take moments in my own life to feel my own heart beat and connect to the life force that moves within and keeps me alive. So I guess it should be no different that any chance I get to hear that second heart beat I feel more alive and reassured.

My best friend and soon to be doula (horray!) reminded me the other day how cool it was to be chosen as parents. And I believe that’s what we are is chosen. I believe that children are a gift that is given to us but in essence, not ours. It’s a detachment way of thinking that I inherited from my practice of yoga and studying the Bhagavad Ghita. This is a gift given an entrusted to me. It’s my duty to care for it, nourish, love it and ultimately prepare it for the world and then, one day when it’s ready, set it free to grow into its own person.

Although I don’t know how I can raise someone in this life when I’m not even sure I know what the hell it is I’m doing.

I am enjoying this time however, that the orange is with me. I know your children are always a part of you but they do grow up and move on and sometimes you find yourself a great distance apart. But for now I carry you not only in my heart but in body. Throughout yoga, spin, flying, walking, sleeping, throughout my good days and bad. Meetings and conversations with friends that no one else hears or knows about. Pretty soon I read it will be able to hear my voice. If you know me you know I like to talk, I imagine I’ll have a lot to say when no one else is around. Right now, in this time, I have this second spirit with me. It’s made me more grateful, reflective. More receptive to love. My world has opened up to the kindness of people all around me. There truly is so much respect and love and happiness in the world…but much like my initial reaction to finding out I was pregnant so much of our perceptions are negative. We neglect to see the positive and the beauty in every person, every moment, every day.

Tonight in my yoga class I talked about being a miracle. How each of us is a miracle and we lose sight of that in our lives. Somewhere along the way we get swallowed up by society and think we have to look a certain way. It’s the ego that tells us this. Because when we are in the beginning we are perfect. And someone loved us from the very beginning. Someone carried us for nine months and when we were born they saw no flaws. Our skin, our eyes, fingers, toes -there was nothing to be upset about as long as we were there. But at the core of our being is the heart. It’s the only thing anyone can hear to know we are alive from early on.

And it’s the only thing that matters.

It’s the only thing that should ever matter.

So when are we going to stop looking at the outside, and start looking in?

This life, not mine but the one I’m growing has taught me so much already.

And you’re only the size of an orange.