I've been so busy I feel like I've hardly begun the holidays…so today I took some time with my big kids who have been begging for a tree. We headed to our tree farm only to find they had SOLD out. Well thankfully not too far down the road was another farm and so we had a bit of a run through the woods and then went onto enjoy some crepes and hot chocolate at a favorite spot.
A nursing toddler is…well a whirling dervish. The song "Something about Maria" always comes to mind…."how do you catch a cloud and pin it down?" Nursing becomes something of a sport and some days you feel like Mom's Diner means you are a short order cook. But so much of the nursing now is about the relationship, the connection, You are guard, a force field if you will. You are home base, the safe place, the nest. The nourishment is there, but the eyes search you in a new way, the hands grab securely, sometimes possessively, but you are you are the sun and they are the moon. They gravitate around you, moving in their own sphere, but ever present, ever close to your comforting arms. I have nursed 4 children into toddlerhood. It has been hard at times with the antics, but the joy, the comfort and peace I see relax their faces has been worth it every time.
Last month I shot this nursing session for a Mama who knowing her boy, her last, was close to weaning. She wanted to catch those moments and I was so happy to be there and grab the seconds he dove in and out of her arms, found refuge from the stranger and giggled and hugged and nursed.
My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast; I will sing and make music.-Psalm 57:7
There are births….there are moments-- where you are at a loss for the beauty of it. You cannot even with skill and lens and light, embody the sheer delicacy, bottle the energy, that is an artist in motion. It must be just witnessed, absorbed. Even though a recording can bring you to tears, it is the music flowing forth from a stage that pours out your heart and rushes it's beating. And so you know you must just let it happen. You stand back and feel both weakened and energized. So it is when a woman is in her element, when she is so in touch with the historical dance of her birthing time...she is the sun; she is the joy of creation. She is all the hope and beauty and love God has created.
I'm so very thankful to have been part of such an intimate morning, for the fellowship with some of my favorite women. I was meant to be at this birth, I think from the beginning, months and months ago when I met this Mama. I don't tell my Mama's birth stories, just my impressions, and Aurora was a gracefully born as she was created and carried. On a Sunday morning her mother eased, and I mean eased, her as gently into the world as I have ever seen. She was music. Her birth, I think may have been the finest song her mama has yet to sing.
I'm in love with all birth stories. Every one is like a snowflake, so much in common, but different and hard and perfect. I do, however, feel so pleased that I can document so many natural births, and spread the beauty and empowerment all women can experience. So much relies on support: having a doula, taking childbirth classes, having a care provider you feel comfortable with, and faith. Faith that you are created to birth your baby. I have had 4 children and their births stories are all different and some were at home and others in hospital with interventions. Those births that did not go as planned are as special and forming to me as the ones that went differently. The common thread is that I knew I could do it and I surrounded myself with a support system that felt the same way I did. This Mama did just that and from the very beginning she began forming a little circle and tribe to beat the song she wanted to hear. This, this is what we can all create together.
This Mama is a classically trained singer and for reference an aria di bravura is the song of a heroine, composed to display the artist's agility and range .
