This is a note I wrote a week after Toroa was born... it is nearly a year ago now. It is a very personal and precious reflection for me. I am just keeping it here for myself to re-read again and again.

-Mumbling, thoughts and notes of being a mother-

After 7 days.
Our dragon hatchling (my baby screeched like a baby dragon in GoT) is doing remarkably fine. From the previous experience with my first one, I was expecting myself to be crashed and burned by now, but instead, I woke up only by my own urge to go to the toilet, never by the squeal for the whole night.

Becoming a mother of a young child is a fascinating ordeal. To be honest, I was worried and scared more than just a little, thinking of what could go wrong. ( I made and signed a will on the day before, for god sake. )
This pregnancy has been physically demanding and every step of the way, my personal and work experience warned me, “stay alert, things can go wrong anytime. You have the older one to protect as well as the new one now.”
But the actual experience has been much calmer and enjoyable. Mainly because I have a man who is committed his life to make us happy and well, who is willing to listen to me whenever and whatever, who enjoys life as much as I do with the lightness and yet sincerity. He is the reason I decided to do this again. This is the biggest and hardest adventure I knowingly took up with the great trust I have in this relationship.

After 9 months of puking and discomfort, my body was cut up and then stitched up. Looking at my body with so many needle holes in a mirror, I said to myself, what an ordeal a woman goes through to give birth to just one human being.

I mean, really, without the medical assistance available now, I and both of my daughters would have been a lost cause. We would have been dead on the birthing tables if this was 100 years ago. But instead, we are living a happy and healthy life. Feeling the reality of that is absurd. If there was no medical assistance, I would have been waiting to give birth only to die - that reality. The seriousness of this giving-birth business.

The first time I had a child, I was younger, a lot more naive and ignorant. That’s why I possibly chose to have a child in the life circumstance I was in, though no regrets in doing so. I am still proud of living the life I did with the young baby in the pioneers’ lifestyle. But also, reflecting back at the experience, I realized that there was so much help from mothers who were around me and who must have thought I was crazy putting myself in a hard life. Without their help, I don’t think I could have got through it without breaking myself.
“Think about developing countries. There are millions of people who doesn’t have access to shelter, food and clean drinking water. I have them all.” That was my mantra when I was washing dishes on the ground in rain, carrying the baby on my back, or whenever I found the life hard.
The second time around, I am experiencing something more gentle, calmer and more enjoyable. And it is good. It is so good.

Still, the fact that becoming a mother is a serious ordeal doesn’t change. With the intense pain and joy. For the second time, I am humbled by the fact that every each human being on this planet has a mother who experienced this. Crazy, amazing, extraordinarily ordinary.

上記、下記は Toroaを産んだ直後に書いた日記だ。ちなみに、同じようなことを書いているけれど、この二つはお互いの訳ではないので、悪しからず。自分と近しい人たちのために書いたものだけど、でもなんども読み返せるようにここに載せておきたい。

ーーーー

12年ぶりに子供を産んだ。
新生児とはこんなに小さくてふにゃふにゃしたものなのか、と出産からの数週間は、彼女の小さな身体を抱くたびに心もとない気持ちになった。でも３週間を過ぎたここ数日、なんだか、彼女の身体がしっかりしてきた。ちょっと地に足がついたような、落ち着いた感じが彼女の身体から感じられる。体重も1キロ近く増え、自分の血が乳に変わり、それが一人の身体を肥えさせている、という当たり前の神秘に時々唸ってしまう。人間の身体とは、生き物の身体のシステムとは、なんと必然でなおかつ不思議なのだ。当たり前なんだけど、「すげーな、おい。」と内心驚嘆。

高齢出産だしなあ、大丈夫かなあ、と思ったけど、心配性なのに能天気な相方さんが、大丈夫、大丈夫、と根拠のない自信で大いに安心させてくれた。まあ、今の所、全ては順調にいっているし、１日、１日、丁寧に扱ってゆくしかないしなあ、と毎日、確認、覚悟をし直している。

教育の仕事に過去10年近く携わってきたため、私は変に頭でっかちである、が、その前に一人産んでいるので、理論通りになんかいかない育児のこともわかっていて、微妙なバランスだ。新しい娘をまるで理科の生物観察みたいな目で見てしまう。プロフェッショナルと母性が入り混じっている。
新生児は面白い。大変見ていて飽きない。長女の時ははこんなに面白かっただろうか。多分、若くて、そして結構生活だけで手一杯だったから、あまり楽しむ余裕もなかった気がする。

とりあえず、目覚めて泣く娘に、反応して乳が漏れる。この生理反応の不思議さに思いを馳せる暇は今はない。