If there’s ever a time that I don’t remember June 24, 2021, I am either no longer on this earth, bound by memories of my time on it or my brain has been attacked by one of the horrible diseases that eats away at the mind and steals our most important memories. It is the day that you moved from your place inside my body to your place outside it, in this wild, crazy, beautiful, frustrating, maddening, magical world. In other words, it is the day I gave birth to you. Because your heart rate was “non reassuring” as we both moved through the induction process, you were born via cesarean section before I ever even attempted to push. Many women who deliver vaginally describe feeling as though their body is being torn open. I never experienced that as you were surgically moved from one plane to another…but I assure you, my entire being opened that day and will never be closed again.

For the first 39 weeks of our time together, you were on the inside, and other than a couple of ultrasounds, your development was relegated to my imagination, your growth compared to French pastries and exotic animals. The following 22 months have truly been the most interesting months of my life. I have watched you more than quadruple in size (at least in pounds anyway!), roll, crawl, walk, run, smile, laugh, cry, talk, make friends, and spread an immeasurable amount of joy. You have already grown and changed so much…but you’re not the only one.

As I laid there on the operating table, feeling no bodily sensations from nipples to toes, anxiously awaiting your first cry, I had no idea that you weren’t the only one being born. As you were carefully removed from my body in this version of birth, I didn’t realize that a forever changed me was born too. We stayed in the hospital for the next two and a half days as my body started to recover, my mind tried to make sense of all that had just happened and what lay ahead, and you slowly started to explore your embodied life. At one point, your dad looked at me and said, “I feel like a different person.” I think I said something like “Of course. You are,” but I had no real understanding of what that meant.

I knew enough to not even attempt to predict what motherhood would be like and gave myself 12 weeks away from work (for the most part) to focus solely on being your mother. I wish I could say it felt effortless and graceful, but it didn’t. Don’t get me wrong. I loved being your mother from the moment I knew I was pregnant with you and can’t imagine a time when that could change. Thankfully, we both took to breastfeeding quite easily and that part, at least, felt natural. I am also very lucky to have felt an immediate bond with you, even before you were placed in my arms. My love for you has always felt effortless, natural, as if it was there my whole life, just waiting for you to call it into existence. Caring for you, and especially playing with you, is also full of joy, typically easy, except when you put your foot in your poop when I change your diaper or squirt your pouch all over the floor! I guess what I’m saying is that the relationship to you, the one that made me a mother, is beautiful…it’s the resulting relationship with myself, the life I had before you, and the life I have now, that feels like a mess, a tornado, a rollercoaster that goes up, down, and all around.

I have no expert knowledge of how a woman’s hormones fluctuate during pregnancy, childbirth, and the post-partum period, but I can tell you that at one point in the first three months after you were born, I called your Mimi in tears, which may have alarmed her given my history of depression, and after assuring her that I was in no way, shape, or form a danger to myself, you, or anyone else, said “This is totally wild! It’s like experiencing the strong, changing emotions of a teenager, but observing them with the wisdom of 42 years of life!” I remember walking around the house crying, but not tears of joy or tears of sadness or frustration…just…crying.

Not all my tears were “nothing tears.” I have always been uncomfortable with anger, my own and others’. I hate conflict and typically shy away from it. For whatever reason, anger was not an emotion I experienced much after adolescence, so when it makes itself known in my body and mind, I am typically startled by it. Imagine my surprise when I began to experience anger regularly after your birth. When that anger turned to rage simply by seeing your father relaxing on the couch after I put you down for the night and still had things to do, I felt like I might somehow both implode and explode at the same time. There is also anger and rage on behalf of myself and all mothers when I think of the hours upon hours that eventually turn into years and years of work, both physical and mental, that goes largely unseen and is wholly undervalued in our culture. Mothers are the glue that (barely) holds our nation together. Yet, there is no guaranteed family leave, and we are in the midst of a maternal health crisis, both physical and mental. And then, there is another form of rage deep inside me.

As I rock you to sleep at night, grateful for the opportunity to be your mother, oftentimes something I can only describe as a primal rage starts to form around my heart. I then feel it radiate through my body and sometimes spill out in tears. Thoughts of what I would feel and do if you were gunned down in a senseless, likely preventable school shooting start to reverberate through my body. I feel the weight of you in my arms and know that I could tear someone limb from limb before letting them hurt you. I wonder how I could ever quantify the size of the whole that the loss of you would leave. I can’t imagine being a childless mother, but I force myself to, because there are so many…and that shouldn’t be. Then shame pounds on my chest and rises into my throat. I am ashamed that I haven’t done more to protect children everywhere, not just you, and I wonder how many mothers feel this too. Don’t let this scare you, sweet boy. There is power in this experience, and I will find a way to channel it.

While I feel contentment in my life with you, I think I’m actually yearning for parts of my former life. I don’t want to wish away any part of my time with you. And yet, I really wish I could just pick up and leave and go hiking in Sedona or visit my old stomping grounds around Washington Square Park or do a silent (ah…silence!) retreat. I wish I didn’t have to consult two schedules and your dad before saying yes to…well…anything. I feel so privileged and lucky to be your mother and feel like a huge whiner as I type this, but some days I just want to feel like my only responsibility is to myself, that I can do anything I want for as long as I want with no one climbing on me, hitting me, or yelling “Mama!” Then, I hear that sweet voice calling “Mama,” and I know that I wouldn’t trade anything for you, and I wonder why I can’t clone myself. I want to be with you…and I want to do my work as a psychologist…and teach yoga…and meditation…and travel…and be with my friends and family…I want to do everything, be everywhere all at once…and you have shown me that I just can’t. That has been such a hard thing to learn, and honestly, I’m still learning it. You have connected me to my desire and ambition and also shown me my limits. You have forced me to slow down, and at times, come to a complete stop. I still hate when that happens and don’t lean into it very gracefully, but I am doing (or I guess NOT doing) it.

As I try to gently guide you through this world, to teach you to be kind, curious, and compassionate, I realize that it is even more important that I follow you. You have already taught me so much. You have shown me a fuller version of this human experience as I confront my anger and limits. As I live life with you wandering around outside of me, so beautiful, so joyful, so vulnerable, I must acknowledge my fear of something terrible happening to you. You have expanded my experience in ways I cannot quantify or even begin to describe. We are cocreating this life, and I don’t know where it will lead us.

But here is one thing I know: on June 24, 2021, I didn’t just give birth to you. You gave birth to me.