Motherhood

My friend wrote the following quotes on her blog.  The post was about a book she read called, The Red Tent.  I haven't read the book myself, but as I read these few excerpts from the book, I literally cried.  They so sum up my own feelings about childbirth and seeing my own babies for the first time.  It's so beautifully written that it makes me want to go out and buy the book so I can read it too.  Thanks, Liz for sharing!

When speaking of giving birth for the first time:


"Why had no one told me that my body would become a battlefield, a sacrifice, a test? Why did I not know that birth is the pinnacle where women discover the courage to become mothers? But of course, there is no way to tell this or to hear it. Until you are the woman on the bricks, you have no idea how death stands in the corner, ready to play his part. Until you are the woman on the bricks, you do not know the power that rises from other women - even strangers speaking an unknown tongue, invoking the names of unfamiliar goddesses."


In regards to seeing one's own baby for the first time:

"Just as there is no warning for childbirth, there is no preparation for the sight of a first child. I studied his face, fingers, the folds in his boneless little legs, the whorls of his ears, the tiny nipples on his chest. I held my breath as he sighed, laughed when he yawned, wondered at his grasp on my thumb. I could not get my fill of looking.

There should be a song for women to sing at this moment, or a prayer to recite. But perhaps there is none because there are no words strong enough to name that moment. Like every mother since the first mother, I was overcome and bereft, exalted and ravaged. I had crossed over from girlhood. I beheld myself as an infant in my mother's arms, and caught a glimpse of my own death. I wept without knowing whether I rejoiced or mourned. My mothers and their mothers were with me as I held my baby."

Isn't that so true?!  I loved reading that last paragraph and I have read it over and over.  Very beautiful.