There were a few days after Henry was born where a part of me mourned not being pregnant with him anymore. In those first moments of acclimating to life with Henry in the world, I was nearly weepy each time I did something that I’d grown accustomed to doing with a belly. As much as I had looked forward to sleeping on my stomach or reaching the faucet at the kitchen sink, I suddenly missed my very pregnant self with every regained freedom. For more than a week afterward, I’d feel phantom kicks where Henry’s feet had so often been, and it was terribly bittersweet every time. Back in church for the first time on Mother’s Day, I cried though whole songs during worship–not only because I was overwhelmed with the blessing of finally having little Henry with us, but because I realized I’d never feel him move to music inside my belly again like he so often had before. I was celebrating all of the new moments, sure, but I was a basket case about all of the sentimental ones we’d created over nine months of getting to know each other in a most sacred and personal way.

I think that in those first days I knew I’d arrive here, on the other side of those weepy, reminiscent feelings about pregnancy; but I didn’t process how quickly I’d be attached to new aspects of Henry that, like pregnancy, have their season but also come and go. We’re three and a half weeks in and already I am watching him change and grow so much–there are things I miss about his tiny, newborn self that I only just came to know in the past days and weeks. Henry is uncurling from the little bean that he first was and stretching himself out into the long, lean (although getting chubbier!) baby whose personality is taking our household by storm. And we are getting to know his every move and cry and indication, just as we are learning ourselves how to be normal, everyday parents of a little person and not just stressed out, worried parents of a newborn, fresh from God.

Tonight, Jason offered me a blissful hour of sleep while he cared for Henry. It was wonderful to sneak away and curl up in our bed without worrying that a little cry would push through those quiet moments. But when I woke up, which happened a few times, I kept feeling the presence of Henry’s tiny body, the weight of him something I’ve grown so familiar with against my own in these past weeks. Henry wasn’t there with me, but the sense of him was–in a way distinctly different than what I felt as I carried him inside for so long. In a matter of weeks, we have been separated and grown together in a new regard. Henry is as much a part of me as he ever was, but now he is his own person, too. We aren’t attached by an umbilical cord or such intimate proximity as we once were, but we are joined in so many ways that I would never exchange.

I am loving knowing him, caring for him, helping him grow. I know that the attachment we have now will change and stretch out over time, but for the moment, Henry is fully trusting and adoringly dependent of his mommy and daddy. And it’s just the most endearing thing…

still attached, just differently,

mm