Friday, July 30, 2010

normal

this last month, i kid you not, i have gotten a bajillion million baby birth announcement things. okay, maybe one or two less than that. but still. this is the right time of my life for that; my peers are happily baby-fying and that is totally normal.
the problem here is that N-word. yeah, i said it, "normal." i sort of alluded to this in my last post, but i've been thinking a lot more about it lately. it's a weird little piece of semantics; on one hand it implies that You Too can be part of a big group of ordinary folk; on the other, it indicates that You Are A Freak O' Nature because nothing normal happens to you or for you.
the last nine months i have watched someone in close proximity to me get normally pregnant; have a normal, healthy first pregnancy, filled with normal joy & anticipation & innocence; go normally into labour; and finally, have a normal, natural live childbirth resulting in a normal healthy baby. i have felt often that i am clearly living in a parallel universe because what seems so normal over there is totally shocking! breathtaking! astounding! over here. other people in that parallel normal place you know, just get pregnant and have babies and are happy. in my version of normal, it is a struggle to get pregnant and then maybe you're actually not going to have any babies, and you will cry a lot, and if you actually do get pregnant on your own and actually do deliver a real live healthy child then it will be A TOTAL EXTRAORDINARY JAW-DROPPING MIRACLE for heaven's sake.
of course, any normal mother will tell you every single one of her kids is a total extraordinary jaw-dropping miracle, right?
i guess i am normal after all...

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

i think you are normal... quite normal... and that every tear you have cried for your loss has been magnified a trillion times in the love scale. the women who have children without grief, don't understand that what they have gained is a jaw-dropping miracle, as you described. they dont get full comprehension of the privilege of having a child without losing one...without complications...without grief. i have incredible respect for women who choose to bear children... but with what i've seen of people i know... i have a magnified respect for those who have suffered this the grief of loss. im a woman who has chosen to not have kids up to this 35th year of my life... i guess to be honest, caz ive been too chicken to deal with the jaw-dropping non-grief births... AND ive been too chicken to bear the grief of possible loss. i know myself...and i dont think i could truly bear with either one. but you had the courage to bear it... so again... for what its worth... you have my respect. and in my version of the scale of love/balance/weight... your tears of loss reflect that much love for what you lost. i consider sugoi. hugs to you and may you be rewarded with a thousand tears of joy for every tear of grief you have shed. oxo

JenniferSaake.blogspot.com said...

{{{hug}}}

Julianne Harvey said...

Thank you for continuing to share your journey and your feelings in this blog. I love to read every one of your posts. I'm continuing to pray for you, but I love to see your joyful personality, which 'normally' just bubbles out of you, coming through, even in the midst of pain and frustration. I think you are the tops. Hang in there.

hadashi said...

thank you! your love is an anchor for me.

halfway

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