Sunday morning I woke up extra early. The weekend chores were finished and I didn’t have to be anywhere at any
specific time. It was just starting to snow and the dogs were snuggled under
the covers at my feet, like hot potatoes keeping my toes warm. Baby girl was
sound asleep, her cheek resting on my breast, and a sweet smile raising the
corners of her lips. I wondered what she was dreaming. I never planned to be
one of those co-sleeping, bed sharing Mamas. I thought about our sleeping arrangement quite a bit
before Mirabai was born, and despite the fact that I was making every other
crunchy Mama parenting decision I possibly could – home birthing, organic
cotton cloth diapering, acupuncture for my border line blood pressure which was
on the rise in my third trimester – co-sleeping just didn’t seem like it would
be the right choice for me.
Those early days with baby Mira were epic. My soul was
exhausted from our eight days in the NICU and my body was weak from too many
sleepless nights on the big chair in her hospital room. Everything was hazy. There were no clear answers as to
what had gone wrong, or what her future prognosis was. Every two hours I tried
to bring her to breast, and for three weeks every time I brought her to breast she
cried and refused. When she did try to latch her nasal cannula was pushed
further into her nose and it broke my heart to see her in such discomfort. There
were red spots on her tiny cherub cheeks from the adhesive used to hold the oxygen
tubes in place. My Mom did everything she could to help Mirabai and I learn to
nurse. She fed Mirabai donated breast milk from a syringe to avoid nipple
confusion from bottle feeding. She held the phalanges from the breast pump to my chest when I was
too tired to keep my eyes open, let alone express milk. She even held a tube of
milk over my nipple and pushed the milk in Mira’s mouth to encourage her to
latch. It was exhausting for all of us. So when Mirabai couldn’t seem to fall asleep
in the bassinet in my room, and yet would sleep peacefully in my arms, we
naturally began to sleep in the same bed. I took my mattress off of the frame
to keep it close to the ground and stripped the bed of any bulky blankets and
excessive pillows. At first, I was afraid I was doing the wrong thing, but I let go of the fear. I closed my eyes. I
intuitively knew that we were just right cuddled up together
all night. When she was sound asleep I would get up to pump milk. As my
rock-star lactation consultant told me, if you have milk you have options. So, I
kept pumping and pumping.
Breastfeeding a
newborn is hard, but bottle feeding when you are half asleep, is harder. When I just
couldn't do it, my Mom would wake-up, warm the organic formula we reluctantly turned
to when my milk production was not enough and the mother's milk bank was too expensive,
and feed Mirabai while rocking her in the same chair she had rocked me in 38
years ago. My Mom did not breastfeed me. When I was born nine weeks early her
doctor gave her pills to dry up her milk and she was not even
allowed to touch me until four weeks after I was born. She says she was never worried
about me. Even though there were very good reasons to worry about baby me,
weighing three pounds and six ounces, incubating in an isolate at a Catholic hospital in
1975. She always knew I was absolutely healthy and strong. A belief she
reaffirmed my entire life, and reminded me of when I was pregnant with Mira.
My Mom and Me in 1975
I went into labor just before midnight on a Sunday night. My Mom had arrived from New Mexico a few hours before and was tired from the seven hour drive, her second time making the drive that week due to a false alarm a few days before. She knew before I did that the baby was really on her way. She made me a smoothie and steel cut oats. She eased my pain from the contractions with herbal compresses she kept warm in the rice cooker. By the time I accepted I was actually in labor and called the midwife, my contractions were just a minute and half apart. I was sitting on my red couch when my water broke. I didn't understand at the time why we were going to the hospital. My midwife said something about meconium in the fluid. She said the baby could be in distress.My Mom drove us to the hospital in morning rush hour traffic. I was 8cms dilated and could not bear to sit down, so I stood up in the back of the car all the way to Denver Health. There was only one moment when I thought I couldn't do it, but my Mom reminded me that I was strong and let me squeeze her hands until the midwives told me I could push. Mirabai came out quickly, with a perfectly round head and big buddah eyes. My Mom cut her chord, and Mirabai's Dad found us just in time to watch the midwives bring her to my chest. She immediately latched on to my breast and held my thumb. It wasn't until after we were all texting the good news of our healthy baby girl's arrival that the nurses said her blood sugar was too low and took her away. Her Dad went with her to the NICU and my Mom walked me to my hospital room.
I wasn't worried. I knew that Mirabai had great strength. I felt proud of myself for having a natural birth and relieved it was all over. My Mom brought me carrot cake. The doctors came in and told me Mirabai needed a blood transfusion. I still wasn't worried. I signed the release. The nurses brought in the big yellow breast pump and told me to start pumping immediately. That's when I started to feel a little strange. The nurses told me later that I lost over half the blood in my body in less than a minute. My Mom was standing right there and Mirabai's Dad was sitting in a chair in the corner. I watched my Mom's terrified face as they rushed me away to an operating room and she was left holding my robe.
Someday, I will tell the whole story of those eight long days we spent at the hospital after Mirabai was born, waiting for her kidneys and her heart and her lungs to be healed enough to bring her home. I will tell you about the dream I had a week before she was born that I was holding her in a plastic grocery sack and when I opened the sack and looked inside she was completely blue. Maybe I will say more about how I felt as I sat there day after day doing everything I could for my daughter, while my Mom stayed by my side and did everything she could for me as I recovered from my own blood transfusion. Perhaps, I will fill in all the scary, fuzzy details of that moment in time when I became a mother. But, not now. Now, I am bursting with joy having just celebrated my first Mother's Day with my beautiful ten- month-old baby girl and her father, a man who teaches me more about myself every day.
I woke up extra early on Sunday morning. Feeling a bit like a little kid on Christmas, and I watched Mirabai sleep on my breast, taking a sip of milk from time to time without ever opening her eyes. I listened to her breathe and my own breath aligned with the rhythm of hers. I felt complete. In the Bhakti Yoga tradition there are five different types of devotional feelings, or bhavas, that serve as a means for the devotee to forget selfishness. One of the highest bhavas that can be experienced in the earthly realm is vatsalyabhava, the attitude of a mother towards her child. In Bhakti Yoga we are working with these bhavas towards feeling complete oneness with the beloved.
I am not sure what I thought being a Mother would feel like, but I didn't realize it would feel like absolute bliss, because honestly I don't think I ever knew what absolute bliss felt like until I became a Mom. I didn't realize that being a mother would change the way I experienced being a daughter. I didn't realize that feeling the expansiveness of my love for my child would make me finally understand the depth of my mother's love for me. Or, that watching my Mother care for my daughter would allow me to cherish my Mom even more than I did before. As I watch Mirabai sleep, I feel like I have been reunited with a long lost soul mate. My love for her completes the love between my Mother and me, and within this love between us three I feel the divine love within us all.
The Mother of all Asanas - Sarvangasana, or Shoulder stand
Iyengar refers to Shoulder stand as the “mother of all asanas.” Regular practice of this pose promotes harmony and tones every major muscle group in the body. It is a strong inversion, giving the cardiovascular system a rest, and is beneficial to the thyroid, helping to maintain healthy sleep-wake cycles and balanced metabolism. God could not be everywhere, and therefore he made mothers.
Me and Mirabai on our first Mother's Day - 5/11/14
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