Giving Birth

With Mother's Day approaching as well as the impending birth of my second child I've been thinking a lot about being a mother. There are so many important things I want to do and be for Amelia, but I can't help but think that I already did one of the most important things I will ever do for her... give birth to her.

As I was walking the hospital corridors of Scripps Memorial Hospital while in labor with Amelia, I read the poem below more times than I can count. It was beautifully painted on large canvases throughout the labor and delivery part of the hospital...and I think I had it memorized by the time I left.

I think of it often, and I am looking forward to that indescribable moment when you see that baby for the first time and your life changes and you feel like the most blessed person on earth because you are that child's mother.

"Being Born Is Important"

Being born is important
You who have stood at the bedposts
and seen a mother on her high harvest day,
the day of the most golden of harvest moons for her.

You who have seen the new wet child
dried behind the ears,
swaddled in soft fresh garments,
pursing its lips and sending a groping mouth
toward nipples where white milk is ready.

You who have seen this love's payday
of wild toiling and sweet agonizing.

You know being born is important.
You know that nothing else was ever so important to you.
You understand that the payday of love is so old, So involved, so traced with circles of the moon, So cunning with the secrets of the salts of the blood.
It must be older than the moon, older than salt.
--by Carl Sandburg