Birth Story/First Words

I still haven't sat down and written a full account of Margot's birth. I had planned to get this done in the first weeks afterwards, but, well, then there was a baby in my house. I don't know if you've heard, but they require both hands. 

I'm not going to write it all down today, either. But lately I keep thinking about the first time I saw her, about the moment of her birth. I've been thinking about it since she, very recently, started saying words.

Everyone makes a big deal out of a kid's first word. And it is a big deal, but I'm not sure what will go down in history as Margot's first. So far she seems to favor the hard consonants. We've heard "block" and "book" -- but of course we are also very much wanting to hear this, willing to take her chatter and bend it into whatever fits the narrative we're going for. (Genius baby! Kidding. Sort of.) But, whatever she has said, she is clearly working on language and it is, in a word, neat. 

Then this weekend, she picked up a book, brought it over to her grandmother and said, "Read it." I actually missed the first one, but she kept repeating herself, always accompanied with the handover of a book: "Read it." And that's when I felt a strong wave of the feeling I felt when I first laid eyes on her, a feeling which I can only sort of feebly desribe as surprise.

So, of course before I myself gave birth, I'd seen dramatizations on countless TV shows and movies, plus I watched a lot of birth videos during my pregnancy, plus I had actually been in the room when a friend's baby was born. I had, I thought, a pretty good idea of what it would be like to finally meet my little girl. A rush of emotion, tears, love bigger than the sun, moon and stars, etc etc, blah blah.

The reality was a little bit different. And it was something I felt strange about for a while. Maybe it's why I haven't written the birth story yet. I felt, as I said, surprise -- not, like, a little taken off guard. Surprise, shock, even, was the primary feeling for me in that moment. At first it in my mind, it seemed related to the fact that she didn't have dark hair. Adam and I both remarked later that we'd both just assumed she would be born with the same thick head of dark hair I was born with. Margot's hair was thinner, and light brown, a bit reddish. But that was a weird explanation for the feeling -- like I had some major stake in color of my healthy newborn's hair. 

With "read it," it finally became clear. It was because I did not recognize her. It was because she was a brand new person, made from parts I know well, but someone I had never met before. It seems bizarre to say it, but: a stranger. This is obvious, but then it isn't. I lose track of it sometimes, meld the two of us into one. We're tight, but we aren't one. Margot is her own dog. (Raised, in part, by dogs, as it turns out.)

I know other parents experience versions of this. (Some play it out for the whole of their kid's life, hoping that young person will live a happier remount of their own youth.) It seems especially easy in this pre-language phase, when you are operating full-time on your best guess of your child's needs. I don't see how you could avoid projecting yourself onto them a least a litte bit here and there. 

But then she reminds me. She says, "read it," and I am again smacked in the face with how she is Margot, this person I am still getting to know. Below is some excellent photographic evidence of this principal, taken on Mardi Gras Day. I would really love to know what is going on in her mind here...

Comments

[trina]

I TOTALLY know what you mean about the hair. I was a bald baby, so I think I just assumed Porter would be bald, and when he came out with a head full of dark hair I was sort of like wait, what? Who IS this?

Glad I finally discovered your blog. Sitting here in rehearsal reading your birth story and laughing and crying.