9 Months In | 9 Months Out

Kip turned nine months old this week and I'm having a really hard time wrapping my head around the fact that he has been out in this world, living and growing, for as long as he was tucked inside me. The nine months of the pregnancy felt so long and punctuated. So many moments are crystal clear in my memory - time seemed to stretch endlessly in anticipation. Comparatively, these last nine months with a baby have felt so fast and blurred. Most moments are fuzzy in my memory - time cascading into a wash of diapers, breast milk, sleep deprivation, and crying all pooled together. Only a few moments winning in clarity. Everything mixed together with the most acute sense of love and joy.

On August 13, 2017. Three days after Kip was born. At 4:53 AM, I typed out a tiny note on my phone. I had just finished pumping. Dan and Kip were asleep in our room. My parents asleep in the living room. Me, wide awake but completely exhausted in Kip's room. I was battling with myself mentally. My brain felt like mud and I had this sense of pending doom. A brief moment of sanity when I recognized that things would get A LOT more difficult before I would feel like a human being again. And all these things I had read and heard from other mom's about how it all goes so fast, and how hard it will be, and how babies don't keep. I heard all of that replaying in my brain.
This is what I wrote:
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Don't rush anything. You'll miss it when it's gone. Every moment counts for something, even if it isn't perfect.
Newborn is a short phase. You'll look back and wish you had one more night where he slept on your chest or one more midnight feed. It sucks now but your future self will look back on it as gold. Treasure it for her.

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It was all true and I knew it would be and yet that future self, me, right now in this moment  - nine months later... She's sad. Sad because I didn't treasure it for her. Or rather, didn't treasure it enough or really I didn't know how I could. That I looked too far into the future or focused too much on the unknown that I didn't truly soak it in. That I didn't see the seconds slipping away. That I was too tired and worried about everything else that I couldn't stop and just be IN the present. And I still haven't figured out how.

It seems fitting that this milestone of nine months is coinciding with Mother's Day. Last year I was almost seven months pregnant and Dan and I were on our babymoon in Boston. I count that as my first Mother's Day because I truly feel like every woman is a mother the instant that tiny egg begins to form. But it wasn't until the moment I pulled Kip onto my chest when he was first born that I really felt the weight of that title, literally and figuratively. Mother.

I can't really say anything about motherhood that hasn't already been said by women far more poetic and experienced than me. And I know I have a lot left to learn and many more mistakes to make, so in many ways I don't feel equipped to say anything about motherhood at all. But with the benefit of some hindsight I like to look back on that day that Kip was born, the day before actually, when Dan and I hustled over to the hospital. So excited and so ready. I'm proud of that girl. And I'm proud of Dan. We were and remain clueless about what we're doing, but somehow I think we're figuring it out just fine.

So, happy 9 months Kippy! And happy Mother's Day to all the mamas out there...to the ones who bore, to the ones who raise, and to the ones who help us bear the burden.

And just for kicks:

Nine months out - One week out - Nine months in