I see a portal to another world: a place filled with love, life, security—a nourishing utopia, where you formed your perfect little nose, your perfect little cheeks, the perfect little wrinkle between your eyebrows, all ten perfect little fingers, and all ten perfect little toes.
You’re a big boy now, people say. You don’t need to crawl into bed with Mama in the middle of the night anymore.
A poem to my unborn children.
I push
forward, moving
to a sound—
Recovery is a journey, not a destination. It’s a long road, and sometimes there are detours. Sometimes there are speed bumps. Sometimes there are accidents.
Because the person he sees is the person I know I can be.
Because you—both of you—will always share my heart.
And when the motion finally slows—just enough for him to recollect my presence, and reach out to me—is it only my imagination, or is the boy I lift in my arms clinging to me a little less tightly than the one I put in moments ago?
Sometimes, I marvel at the irony of its smallness, wondering how a hand so small can hold so much.
You can prepare to have a baby. You can prepare to take care of a toddler. You can even prepare to raise a child. But you can’t prepare to be a mom.
