Thoughts On Connor

Kelly has entered that stage in pregnancy where the intimacy between birth mother and child grows in extreme proportions. This is the time when Connor is so large that you feel every movement. In many ways, it feels like you're a part of every breath, every thought that the child inside of you may have. He's to the point where, if birthed now, he would look and feel and act like an infant. He would need support, for sure, but he would likely survive without too many complications. This was the time in my pregnancy with Bailey that I transitioned from a pregnant woman to a true mother in the sense that I began to earn for the seperation of us and yet ached at the thought that it would not be me who was the sole support for our daughter. The tug of war between fierce protectiveness and desire to see our child become her own person began.

With it grew the intimacy that can only grow between birth mother and child right now. I am not a part of this journey that my love and my son are taking together. This is theirs, and theirs alone, to share. This is truly what makes the birth mother a different person in the life of the child. There is a connection that is forged at this point that goes beyond choice, beyond thought, beyond reason and beyond doubt.

I say this without jealousy or guilt. I know, because I lived it, that this is not something that a birth mother can share with anyone and it's not something she can articulate. It is mearly something that happens when your every moment is shared by another human being. Connor is a child inside of Kelly, dependant upon her for his survival right now, but working every day to seperate from her.

This is a profound experience for any birth mother, and a process that I feel is as sacred as any religion. For me, this time in my pregnancy was the truest definition of religion that I've ever had.

And it leaves me in a very unfamiliar place. Kelly is, rightfully, fully consumed by Connor. There is a part of her that she guards with passion that is for Bailey. After all, she is her first born and (I have always said this) the truest love of her life. And yet, even her time with Bailey is marked by Connor's presence. As for me, well there is nothing left for me right now. Even as I write this I can sense the bitterness in my words, but honestly, there really is very little bitterness. As a woman and as a wife, I am still very much in need of the things that only Kelly can provide...and it is those things that she cannot provide right now. But as a mother, and more specifically, a birth mother - I understand on a gut level that I am truly secondary and that is exactly as it should be.

My relationship with Connor is yet to be developed. I do not talk about him the way I talked about Bailey when I was pregnant for the very simple reason that I do not know this child. I do not love him any less than I loved Bailey, but I do not know him. My time to bond and develop those understandings of his intimate details will come after birth. I am seperated from him right now and there is no way around that. I dream of him, I imagine his face, his body, his life and how it will entwine with mine. I picture the four of us, bonded by committement to our family and our individual loves for each other. I am preparing for the reality of a second child, both in the real sense and in the emotional ones. I am ready to be the mother of a son and to be changed forever by his presence.

But I cannot speak of him like I know him. Because I do not. I think that my silence on this subject has been misunderstood. I know that Kelly has misunderstood it. I believe that she thinks I am not excited, that I don't anticipate his birth with the same joy and expectation that I anticipated Bailey's birth. That could not be further from the truth. I am as excited as she was for Bailey's birth, and perhaps a bit more. I know what is coming. I know what infancy feels like to the parents. I am prepared with some knowledge and I have transitioned from woman alone to mother. Connor will benefit from those things.

It is true that I am not giddy the same way that I was with Bailey. And I do not feel regret about that. Bailey was our first born, and she will always know that she was our first. We had no idea, and so we romanticized parenting and having a child. We had the benefit of ignorance when I was pregnant with Bailey. None of our excitement was tempered with an understanding of the realities that are part of parenting. We were, in it's purest form, seeing parenting through very rose colored lenses. And that is our gift to her.

What Bailey never had, and what Connor gets, is a much deeper appreciation. I know what is coming and the tidal wave of change that will flood us in just a few months. And still, I want him more than life itself. My love for Connor, if such a profound emotion can be measured, is more honest and heartfelt than my love for Bailey was at this same time in pregnancy. I love Connor with the strength of a mother - a true mother, rather than a woman who is preparing for motherhood the first time. And I wait with anticipation for the babyhood he will bring back to our lives. I have felt a deep grief that I never expected as Bailey has moved from dependent infant into a confident toddler. I have craved the blind faith, trust and need of a new baby. I cannot wait to feel his small head, to cuddle his tiny body in my warmth. I have no words that can describe the joy I feel when I think of his tiny finger and toes and his baby mouth, looking for food.

But these things, these feelings, are speculative. What I had with Bailey was a constant reminder, her never-ending presence that told me it was coming and that the day was fast approaching when the child inside of me would become the child I had dreamed of my entire life. That emotion is reserved for Kelly right now.