A Wondering: Becoming the Octopus

I have to look at the past two years as a transition, a transformation of sorts, a veritable metamorphosis.  Ahhhh, remember Kafka's Metamorphosis, the classic story of a man who overnight changes into a bug and struggles and eventually fails to survive in his new form.

Well, becoming a mother is similar.  Over nine months you morph into this bulbous creature that moves in a rather creepy manor and certainly can not get up of its back - 'I've fallen and I can't get up!' You adapt to moving through the world in a different manor, to accepting help in forms you never expected, to being this new version of yourself.  But that isn't the metamorphosis, for all intent and purpose this is your chrysalis stage... what you truly are becoming still awaits.

And then your child is born, or in my case TWO.  Welcome into the world my tiny bundles of (food slinging, dirt eating, decibel beyond imagination screaming) joy.  They are my joy, but we had to struggle together, discover each other, and I had to CHANGE to become what they needed - a Mother.  Day by day I adapted to make this new self work in the world, to create a routine through which I could catch glimpses of my former self, to hold fast to the knowledge that I was still me - only more.

But my metamorphosis still was not complete - oh you thought that was it???  HA!

Five months after my boys were born I received the shock of the year - two pink lines.  Shock because the Drs had informed us that without medical intervention our chances were slim to none of having children (But that is a story for another time).  Let me just say that repeating the chrysalis stage from above while being a mother of two BABY boys was a challenge of physical, mental, and emotional pain that words can simply not paint a picture of.  I Wanted to change the first time - I wanted to transform into the difficult, awkward beauty that is Mother.  Then, I was willing to become a creature; to be sick for months and months and months, to watch my skin and muscles stretch and tear, to see my legs become tree trunks, because my desire for the end result overpowered it all.

But now I was MOTHER -I didn't want to change further.  I didn't WANT to, but I had to.
And then my baby girl was born, and something magical happened - my heart Multiplied.  Did you know that an Octopus has three hearts?  Suddenly I had a heart for each of my children - not a split love divided away to nothingness, but an individual all encompassing unique love for each of them -I became the octopus.

I wish I had come home from that hospital stay with 8 arms - it would make feeding two toddlers and a newborn while cleaning the house, doing laundry, editing photos, and trying to occasionally get a morsel of food into my own mouth so much easier.  I wish I could glide elegantly through these murky waters of child rearing without simply feeling that the water is over my head.  I wish I could camouflage myself and hide from the unending 'ma ma?!' - if only to get two minutes in the bathroom by myself.  But my final metamorphosis was one of the HEART - and I am so thankful for it!

 
(31 and 37 weeks pregnant w/ A&B)

(A&B one week old)

(A&B 1 Year Old)

(the moment of the miracle)

(Baby Girl 1 week old)

(35 weeks pregnant with Baby Girl)

(Baby Girl and Mama at One Month)