Connection Here Is Blood, the Privilege of Mothering

We’ve been told, by people with medical degrees, that the genetic code has tapped out a girl.

So we are counting on that, after having hoped that it might be true, and now we are about to find out for sure.

Our daughter, Hannah, will soon be born.

She is our second. Oh, how I hate how that sounds--like a leftover, a remnant, something with a slight flaw that one can get for cheap.

Hannah will be none of that. We know that much for sure. The diagnosis does not require a medical degree.

Yet Hannah will distinguish herself from her sister, whose fourth birthday we are celebrating today. It could be no other way.

Dreams do not depend on DNA, character comes from someplace else. Hannah’s beauty will be unique. Discovering it, in snippets and bursts of enlightenment, will be a joy.

I say this as a mother, and an observer, of my own and many other lives.

For almost a year now, I’ve been paid to corral these observations, form them into thoughts and print them in this column three times a week.

Sometimes, of course, it has worked the other way around. I wasn’t quite sure what I thought until I saw the words my fingers lined up, in punctuated rows, across a computer screen.

And now I am taking some time off, to mother--without the delights, burdens, deadlines, surprises and adventure of this job. I’ll miss all of that, I am sure. I have made many friends, some enemies too. The connection, black and white, is the printed word.

But I would be missing more were I not at home now.

The connection here is blood, little toes and fingers, a first, toothless smile. This is a time my newborn daughter might not really remember, but will certainly never forget.

I will have the privilege of caring for her myself.

Not many years ago, steeled with the certainity of inexperience, I would have never written these words. But now, more than ever, I’m learning to question my choices and my absolutes.

Lines, these days, are usually fuzzed. The answer to the multiple choices: none of the above.

Motherhood came to me as a surprise, out of nowhere, to teach me these and other lessons that I could have learned nowhere else. Four years later, I have a few answers, many worries, and hopes about things that never occurred to me before.

Becoming a mother, too, has broadened my heart, stretched it, and made it easier to hurt. Often it does. My daughters are usually why.

Yet, in a way that I could never know as simply my husband’s wife, my daughters have shown me a new kind of love. I know I am essential to their lives. I will never be alone. Through their eyes, I am somehow more than the sum of my parts.

This gives me pause, frightens me and empowers me just the same. And now that I have experienced it, I would want it no other way.

So for the next few months, in all of this I’ll be enmeshed. I hope I do not turn into goo. Instead of deadlines, I’ll find new things to worry about. Like sleep.

As for writing, I imagine there will be lots of grocery lists. Assignments? Probably the neighborhood park.

And, as I mentioned, today our firstborn celebrates turning 4 years old. So I already have some pressing matters on my mind.

The extravaganza will feature sand, sun, swimming, pizza, cake, candy and Little Mermaid regalia. Or so it is hoped.

It could rain.

In which case the party will move indoors. Children will become whiney. Parents will fidget. Drinks will be refilled, often. Everyone will go home early, for the sanity of all concerned.

I hope to have mine intact when I return.