Reflections on 6 months, past and present

Four versions of a self, and the babies that made them (plus, August giveaway!)

Dear friends,

Since I last wrote you, I had a birthday and birth, though not, as I had hoped, on the same day. I also did not end up at the beach on my birthday, thanks to storms — which perhaps was for the best, given a woman not far from where I’d planned to go was bitten by a shark that day— but I did end up at a lovely dinner with friends and family. Not quite a Colombian mall with three small children, but I’ll take it.

This week, when I sat down to write my brain was buzzing with too many interesting ideas, spurred on by conversations inspired my last piece about vocalization in labor and the messages and comments I got on Instagram after I shared a heavily condensed snippet of that piece. I was especially inspired by the rather peculiar, to my mind, reposts of my piece by birthworkers who nevertheless maintained something like “but low sounds are still preferable for ‘relaxing’ in labor.” I thought about writing something about why this myth about low sounds — purely theoretical, backed up by not one single study¹, and probably originating with Ina May Gaskin or some such — is so persistent. I considered writing a piece about how intensely I hate the similarly persistent idea that we must relax during birth, how so many of my clients in the midst of labor will fret, “I’m afraid I’m not relaxed enough to have the baby” (who the fuck told them that they were supposed to be relaxed in a process we have aptly termed labor, and was it the same GD people who told them they needed to be quiet?). I thought about prioritizing a piece I’ve had in process forever, scribbled in Substack drafts and my Zotero folder, my Notes app, and in my paper journal, about the near universal “I can’t do this” stage of transition and how it needs to be honored as a developmental stage in the journey that is birth. And I was galvanized by a reader comment in the last post to tackle another topic I’ve been wanting to write about for a long time: the fetishization of the “pain-free” birth, both in medical circles and physiologic birth communities.

It’s pretty common for me to feel that ambitious, to be excited by the idea of writing, to have a simmering fire crackling at the back of my brain at all times, even when I am otherwise zombie-like exhausted thanks to the small mammal to shares my bed and is currently cutting his second tooth or is maybe gassy or is probably having a brain explosion of his own what with all the new crawling and sitting up and other things he is working on or actually just enjoys nursing all night, who knows, I don’t overthink it.

But then, when I sat down (well, laid down, to side lie said small mammal down for a nap) to write, I got distracted by one of the other small fires crackling in the back of my brain, and that was STARTING SOLIDS, something that this fourth time mama is actually in no rush to do, because it adds messiness and complexity for very little actual nutrition and I find myself already overwhelmed enough by feeding a family of five who don’t get the perfect (and always-already perfectly prepared) food of breastmilk on demand. Sadly, said small mammal does not share my sentiment. So instead of writing I let myself get distracted by looking back on my old journal entries about the other kids, specifically to seek out Jo’s first food, which I remembered as egg yolk cooked in ghee but which was, actually, like Wren and Illy, avocado (egg yolk cooked in ghee, and salmon, and pate, came shortly thereafter — and have had staying power since).

Instead, I found an entry from October 2nd, 2013, entitled “Six Months!” which began:

Dear Josie Nim, you are six months old today and I long to write a well thought out love note to you. But your life is that of a third in a busy family and so a list will have to suffice. A list, unpoetic perhaps, but at least here, some record of the things I want to commit to memory.

I don’t remember writing this entry; I don’t in truth, remember writing most of my entries, which is why they often feel like excavating ancient runes that remind me of essential truths I’ve somehow lost. Reading this, with a fourth baby sleeping at my breast, a fourth baby I had written an uncannily similar Instagram post about just a week or so earlier, while preparing to write an article deeply rooted in nearly a decade of observing people in labor, I felt such surprise meeting that other self I recognized and didn’t. And I also was shocked, as I always am, at how the things I recorded about baby Josie were so resonant to the things I observe about 10-year-old Jo. So I found myself going back, wondering if I had written similar notes to Wren and Illy when they had turned six months. I hadn’t, not in exactly the same format at least, but I had recorded entries that were similar enough that, put together, they presented such a clear illustration of a mother, and human, in evolution alongside her children. And so I thought I’d share them here, for those of you who are in the weeds of young childhood, for those of you who wonder how people get where they get, for those of you for whom it’d be comforting to see the change in perspective over time, and for myself, because now that I’ve read all four, I think they belong recorded that way, all together, a palimpsests of selves and the babies who made them. I hope you enjoy as much as I did, and I’ll see you next week, when hopefully some of the kindling in my brain has become a full fire that can be translated to a form worthy of your reading.

Love,

Robina

A note on context: when I wrote about six month old Wren in 2008, I was a PhD student who had not, in any serious way, really considered midwifery; it was an idle daydream, a kind of lark, until I birthed Ilan in 2010 and staring at him immediately after his birth, thought suddenly “that is the son of a midwife.” By the time he turned six months in November of 2010, I was deep in the trenches of writing my dissertation but very much considering changing gears; by January I had as much as made the decision not to pursue an academic job (bailing on several very coveted interviews at the last minute), and by May I was doing pre-requisites for midwifery school. In 2013, when writing to Jo, I was in my second year of midwifery school, having birthed her at the end of my first. And yes, in 2008, I didn’t use capitalization in my writing…because it was 2008 and I had the affect of a 28 year old PhD student in 2008.

May 13th, 2007

when saadia took this picture on sunday, the day wren turned six months old, it immediately brought to mind this one, which saadia also took, six months earlier:

i remember being so completely overwhelmed with love in those first few days, with those scrawny little two-day old hands, all wrinkled still, and that tiny alien face that to me was not alien-like at all, but the very picture of beauty, so ethereal and perfect and miraculous. i still feel so grateful for the terms of wren's birth, the way it was so simple, so intimate, so soft and calm, the way it allowed me to truly soak in my first experience of genuine, no-bones-about-it love at first sight without any distraction, without any self-consciousness, without anything but love.

i still feel like that most days, albeit in much less manic way. i'm just filled with so much love and so much peace. i marvel at the way wren has brought this to my life: a richness i've never felt before, a content that allows me to wake up on a totally mundane day, with no special plans whatsoever, and to look forward to what the day will bring.

everything about wren is so fantastic and new and utterly delightful right now. she's been an amazing presence all along, but six months is a truly magical age. what a privilege it is to be in her life. there is no other way to say it. it is a blessing, and i don't deserve it, and i thank the universe for it every single day.

anyway, mother's day, or shall i say weekend, was lovely. andy, wren and i celebrated on our own on saturday, when i awoke to a card and a package of cocoa.² it was a mother's day card made by our friend cam with a sweet message inside from andy thanking me for "being exactly the kind of mother [he] knew [i'd] be." the rest of the morning was spent at wren's swim class and then breakfast at dizzy's, which — it being 9:30am and all — was filled with families. it was so natural and lovely to be part of this crowd, talking with the parents around us and nursing wren at the table.

the rest of the day was simple — a few hours of uninterrupted arabic studying (fun!), a walk with saadia while andy studied for midterms (during which time she almost convinced me to buy a sundress, a sewing table, and an amazing dress for wren that would probably last all of 3 weeks, in that order). then dinner, brownies, and "lost." wren was not very compliant about giving us adult time after her usual bedtime; thus the evening ended with a lot of chanting "mama, and papa, and maniac beast...are all gonna go to sleep!" at around 12:30am, at which point we got her to settle down (wren hasn't been a very good sleeper lately; she's waking a lot more than usual and if we're not there she gets upset...i think it's developmental).

sunday we had a big brunch at my parents', which was also lovely.

monday wren gave me a belated mother's day present, which is that she slept until...10:45! my subconscious was so confused by this that i kept dreaming that we woke up. anyway, the extra few hours were much needed so despite my confused subconscious i felt great when i awoke. i also got a mother's day present from the graduate school gods, which is that i found out i got my fellowship. go me. i am totally going to celebrate my raise with something completely frivolous like a really expensive ring-sling i've been coveting. this is my way of balancing out the fact that since i started shopping at the co-op i've taken to creating a spreadsheet of prices so i can make sure i'm staying within budget when i make my grocery list.

i say this poking fun at myself and indeed it is amusing but really: it's just another part of the way my life works right now and it weaves into this fabric of contentment so easily. i am amazed at how things feel like they are just falling into place. i love what wren's presence does in terms of strengthening me an andy's relationship and communication, too. that is both side-perk and incredibly central at the same time, of course. anyway, the other day i was in gusty’s [a friend] living room with another mom, and all three babies were on the floor playing. gusty said, "i love all these babies on my floor right now...it just feels so right." and i knew exactly what she meant.

---

November 2nd, 2010

Every time an election day comes and goes I think of this picture:

That was the day I voted for Obama. Wren was a week away from turning a year old. I was excited not because I thought he'd be a particularly good president but because as someone who studies the most depressing shit in the world (that is, the construction of race in early America) it was a day with a lot of emotional significance for me. I went to vote with my sister and the little boy she was babysitting. It was one of those gorgeous fall days that is super bright and crisp. Later that evening we went to a party Helena had. We were the only people there with a kid.

That self, that mom of one infant, seems so unfamiliar to me now. It's so strange to think about how I would just tote her on my back and then it'd be just us two ladies on the town. How she was always kind of a novelty. How young and, frankly, adorable I felt as that mom with her super cute, super social baby girl. (Maybe it was also the bangs. Do I need to go back to bangs?)³

My cousin Chris once told Andy, "When you have one kid, you're a dude with a kid. When you have two, you're a dad." I have definitely found that to be true. I am only thirty-one now, which is young by many accounts, and certainly young in the grand scheme of things, but I feel a lot older. It may be partially the busy season we as a family are in. Or it may be that I shower less, I dunno. But the fact of the matter is that while I love, absolutely adore, our family now it feels like a Family, capital F, as opposed to a threesome of BFF. I feel like a veritable grown up now. And sometimes, just sometimes, I feel like a pack mule. Tote her on my back and go? Uh, not so much anymore (it's more like, tote him on my back while pushing her in the stroller).

Speaking of which, I was thinking today of the last time I wore Wren. It was January 18th, 2010, if I remember correctly. She was 26 months old. I was 6 months pregnant. I wore her in my ring sling, to the grocery store, because she wasn't feeling well and we were bored so we decided to get some supplies to make cookies. I may have worn her in the mei tai after that but I don't recall it, so in my mind that was the last day I wore her. I just remember thinking "Nearly 30-lb toddler and one-shoulder carry when 6 months pregnant...um, probably not the best idea." Now that I wear Ilan constantly, I miss wearing Wren. I think this is less about the second child in the picture and more about Wren growing up, the way in which her long, lanky body doesn't fit on mine in the same way, the way I can't cradle her in my lap as entirely as I once did.

Guys, I feel so overextended. When I was teaching and writing and had a kid, or when I was doing my writing fellowship and writing and had a kid, I felt like life was good and manageable and perfect. But writing a dissertation and being on the job market, with its never-ending demands, with TWO kids? Feels completely unmanageable. Even though technically I'm home more. My work USUALLY makes me a better mother. In the periods where I've not worked at all, I am irritable, frustrated, impatient, and feel isolated. Working just the right amount makes me happy, engaged, creative, patient: an overall strong presence for my children. But when I'm working at these kinds of high decibels where I'm pressing up against a million deadlines, I hate life and feel like my family is suffering. What a balancing act this mothering thing is. What is the perfect amount of fulfilling work, and how do I find it, and how do I make it pay enough for us to survive? If you can answer that question, you are probably God.

Always on election day, I also think about election day 2001 as well. Andy still lived in this awful apartment building in Midwood that perpetually smelled like weed, cooking oil, and mildew. We had gotten into a huge fight on the phone. I felt panicky and wanted to see him in person. He wasn't home. I wasn't sure if he just wasn't home from work yet, or if he was voting. I started wandering toward the school at which he voted when he lived in that neighborhood. It was not a beautiful crisp fall day. It was a cold, gray fall night, and it was misting. I stood outside the school for a long while, hoping he would emerge from it. I don't remember how I eventually found him or how we resolved the fight, but I did and we did. Obviously.

In any event, here are things I am loving about Ilan this week, this week he turns 6 weeks old.

* As the autumn chill sets in, I love snuggling with him at night. I kind of hate manmade fabrics but there is nothing cozier than sleeping next to warm little babies in fleecy feety pajamas.

* I've been enjoying watching him nurse down for naps: his sweetness, his contentment. I'm more likely to do this than I ever have been: normally I cannot help but read but this week I've been doing a lot of staring instead.

* Speaking of Ilan and naps, I have to say, waking up from them remains the most profoundly cute time of day for him. He always wakes up with little murmurs and mutters, and I usually give him a few minutes to get his bearings before I go in. (So different from Wren, who always woke up demanding attention immediately.) Then when I go in and open the shades, his little head pops up (he sleeps on his tummy) like a little, unbelievably cheerful little jack-in-the-box: all smiles and rosy cheeks. I said it on twitter, and I'll say it again: those moments I almost can't believe he is real. He just seems like a hologram of Perfectly Cute Specimen of Baby.

* The other night Wren was in a tizzy about something or other during dinner, and Ilan was sitting in the bumbo on the table in front of me, as he always does at dinnertime. As she yelled, he played with the objects around him (baby utensils, plate, Sophie giraffe, etc) busily, only looking up at us (and especially Wren) occasionally, in interest but not especial concern. He was engaged, but deadpan. And then he'd go back to his business. And I said to Andy, I think this is how it will always be, with her raging about some injustice or another and Ilan keeping tabs on what is going on, but building a house out of his broccoli or something. Which is not to say that he is a perfect or easier child. Because seconds later, before anyone could even notice what he was about to do, he pulled our kitchen table plant out of its pot.

And then he did the same thing the next morning at breakfast, after I repotted it.

* His hair is kind of the best thing ever. It's so soft and feathery-feeling, like down. And while I think the color will be similar to Wren's it's quite a bit lighter now. Wren's is a chestnut brown with lots of gold and red, a very rich color. Ilan's is less rich, with no red and much more gold: much more mousy, really, and yet somehow pretty nonetheless. Like dark wheat.

* I know I obsess about the way Ilan smells, but I know we are entering the period where it's likely about to change (because of solids), so may I obsess a little more? Ilan smells unbelievably wonderful. He smells clean, despite averaging in at one bath a month. He smells new. He smells like warm milk with sugar.

---

October 2nd, 2013

Dear Josie Nim, you are six months old today and I long to write a well thought out love note to you. But your life is that of a third in a busy family and so a list will have to suffice. A list, unpoetic perhaps, but at least here, some record of the things I want to commit to memory.

One of your favorite pastimes is banging things together, methodically, to see what kind of noises they make. I love watching you do this: your quiet, good-natured experimentation, the way you observe objects, feel them carefully, then start waving them around in attempts to hit them on something else. Your other favorite pastime is simply taking all objects out of a basket, one by one. You are absurdly easy, content to sit and play while this crazy family moves and talks around you for long periods of time, but also assertive about letting us know when you are done.

You think no baby is more hilarious than the baby in the mirror. Weirdly, all other babies seem to think you are the most hilarious, too.

You love clasping your hands together and then raising them over your head, as if to exclaim VICTORY!

You're ready to eat, reaching all of your readiness signs earlier than your sister and brother. You're sitting up reliably, have a tooth (and another on the way, plaguing us all), show lots of interest, and have an astounding pincer grasp. Today you were carefully picking up little grains of rice, which I denied you, much to your dismay. I am not ready! But you only have to wait until the avocados Papa bought today ripen, I promise.

You're having some kind of brain explosion, and last night were up from 12:45 to 4, getting up on your knees and flopping and quasi-crawling all over the bed, by turns crying pitifully and giggling happily. Oh, third child of mine, you have won the award for WORST NIGHT SLEEP I HAVE EVER EXPERIENCED. Way to go!

When someone else is holding you and you start to fuss for me, you always turn to that person once you're in my arms and give this little smile, like "no offense, or anything, but you're just not as good as my mom." The consolation prize smile.

You pant when you're excited or frustrated or hungry or tired. You are full of babbles and chirps these days and still parrot "HEY" and "HI" with your sweet little voice. You now make these exaggerated MMMMMMMMMM sounds when you're waiting to be nursed. Often this is accompanied by a very intense little pout that is so dear.

I'm pretty sure 40% of your body weight is in your cankles.

You are a wiggler. When you are in arms you're always reaching, grasping, twisting, escaping. You have places to be and things to do. You're so incredibly curious, but not intense. There is a spark of humor, of light-heartedness, in all your curiosity and constant movement.

You have a ticklish butt and often giggle during diaper changes. Your eyes are weirdly reminiscent of a Disney Princess': both round and almond-shaped, with an extra-arched upper lash line that makes you look so sweet. You dislike the sun in your face, and the band Okkervill River.

You are fascinated by the dog, and I can't tell if you find her funny and interesting or if you are generally more bemused that there is what you perceive as a giant predator living in our house.

You are just the sweetest little dumpling of a creature and I am so delighted by you. Often I wish time would slow down, that you could be my little snuggly sweet-smelling baby forever, but no doubt I would miss out on all the amazing and hilarious and surprising things you will show us as you grow up, so mostly I am just grateful that I get to be alongside you on this ride, even if it is dismayingly fast.

And a week later:

Josie's milky breath smells like Pakistani sweets, intoxicatingly rich. When will that end? Surely sooner than I imagine, given she's started to eat bits of solids here and there (avocado, sweet potato, banana, sweet potato with a bit of ghee, in that order). Only tiny bits; she still seems to have some slight tongue thrust happening although her interest is high and all her other readiness signs are there. But still: when does it switch over, when will she stop smelling of ladoo, how does that happen? I've been thinking about an old entry I wrote, three years ago on the solstice, with some frequency lately; as I predicted in that one, I never did notice when Ilan stopped picking things up his little monkey feet, and now here he is, 3.5 and such a kid, with his stinky morning breath and his obsession with trying to figure out how the female pelvis works (no, but really; good thing I own a model pelvis⁴).

Oh third baby, what is it about you? The shape of your little round head, peeking out from the covers while you sleep: it is enough to send my heart bouncing away to the moon. There's such a knowing this time, of how fleeting this stage is, how sweet and easy and warm and delicious. I fret nothing. I don't mind not having hands or sleep. I am just in love.

Regarding the solstice entry above, I hate reading my 2010 entries in general. I sound so insufferably whiny and solipsistic and teenaged angsty. All the dissertating malaise and the handwringing about switching careers, ZOMG. It's a shame, because I often have to wade through that crap to read Illy baby archives, and it's all just so cringeworthy. Thanks for putting up with me back then, y'all.

Today was chores and scooting to the toy store to buy Javier a birthday present and breakfast for dinner, as with all Sundays. When we got home from the toy store the kids scooted back and forth up and down our block where I could see them from the porch, over and over again, up and down, and Josie delighted herself by waving her hand through the wind chimes. She is in bouncy baby stage, her limbs flapping wildly whenever she is excited, which is often. I nursed her and kissed her, and breathed in her milky confectionary scent. Tomorrow we begin our movement through yet another week. This is my last semi-sane one before a few intense weeks at school. I'm intimidated. So much has to be done -- Halloween costumes and Wren's 6th birthday party planning and pumpkin picking and Andy's job market stuff and and and. It is all so relentless. It is all going so fast.

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July 31st, 2023

Once upon a time, in conversation with my sister years ago, I said I couldn't imagine I'd ever have a fourth baby, what with my busy midwifery practice and 3 homeschooled children, and a partner for whom the conversation was a nonstarter.

"I don't know, B," she told me, "it just seems like you will. I just think you'll surprise everyone and have a baby late in life or something."

Perhaps I'm that predictable or perhaps Hanif was always meant to be here, and she could feel the inevitability of him, could sense him somewhere out there, waiting for his time. But he still feels like a dream to me. I know I grew him, in my body, know that this time last year I was feeling his tiny, buoyant delight as I jumped off floating docks or listened to "Rebel Girl" in the car, but it all feels surreal. I look at him and can't believe he exists. I marvel "where did you come from?!" out loud. I still get a little thrill whenever I tell someone I have four kids. I feel like he and I are I co-conspirators who found each other, magically.

This weekend marked 6 months since his birth, since the 7 hours of labor that felt like 10 minutes or several centuries. He army crawls and reaches for me and babbles. The dark and cold of January has melted into sun and heat, the yellow hat I wore as I waded in the frigid Atlantic the day he was born packed away, traded for bikinis I wear to do laps in warm lakes. It goes like this, every time, too fast, as if time exponentially speeds when you add another person to the universe. I wish it wouldn't. I don't want to move forward, not yet. I want to linger here, in this sun, in this hammock, with this book, with this baby cradled at my breast. I don't want to forget the way he pants like a puppy to communicate before he cries, the the lush featheriness of his hair, the contented noises he makes when I pick him up, the heavy weight of his body when he naps on my chest at the beach, or in a room where his siblings shriek with cousins and play piano, or during a wedding, because he is at home everywhere, because he is at home in the middle of a bustle, because that was the life he was meant to be part of, and he always knew it, even when I didn't.

As promised, here’s the winner of the founding member giveaway for August, as chosen by a random number generator: reader Libby Silva! (July’s, for the record, was a client who then gifted her consult to someone else.) As a reminder, founding members are entered into a drawing to win a free 60-minute consult with me, which means you get (almost inevitably, given the number of founding members, for now) a consult AND a year of paid articles for just the price of a consult. If you’d like to up your membership level to be entered into this drawings, head to the subscription page. Libby, I’m looking forward to getting the chance to talk — reach out to me via email to claim and schedule.

1. I share this disclaimer each and every time, but it’s that important: western evidence is not the end-all, be-all way of knowing. I do think it’s an interesting, however, that the belief that low sounds are the “best” type of vocalization in labor circulates so fervently among so many Western birthworkers when there isn’t any research about it. This is especially interesting given that the sounds people make in labor do in fact vary from culture to culture so there is no reason to believe low sounds universally support the anatomy and physiology of labor (which is generally the assertion) because if they did, I’d think that they’d be, well, universal.

2. “the cocoa is the last container left of the now-defunct company robin's parents had started with a collective of dominican chocolate farmers (say that three times fast) they met while in the peace core (the collective now works through dagoba, which is of course excellent for them). it's the cocoa i drank after giving birth to wren, and i always imagined i'd have an endless supply of it to wake her up with every 3:37am on every november 11th from when she is old enough to appreciate it and young enough to not think it lame. alas, no endless supply, but: cocoa is cocoa is cocoa and i don't really need to brand-name my hoped-for birthday tradition with my daughter, now do I?”

3. You know how that story ends. Indeed, 2010 was one of the only years in my child or adult life when I didn’t have bangs.

4. Earlier that week, I had posted about the day we picked up that model pelvis from the post office:

While Wren was at tumbling Illy and I went to the post office to pick up four packages that were somehow not delivered to our house while we were home. Illy sat in the stroller at first, reading the library books that were due, then got out and poked around the post office, losing a penny under a door, all while chattering in his charming squeaky voice. The packages were big, and he and I sat outside the post office, opening boxes, popping packing materials, breaking down boxes, stuffing things into the stroller basket including our new showerhead and a model pelvis for my pelvic exam class. (Later, when we returned home, when I reported to Andy that "half of our life is in that stroller basket right now," Illy said in a dramatic, whispery voice, accompanied by jazz hands, "Yes! Like A SKELETON!") We looked at some Halloween windows. We stopped at the comic book store. We bought two 99-cent rainbow pinwheels, after our earlier science experiment illustration of wind energy was a failure (although Wren and Ilan both could explain what SHOULD have happened, which I'll count as a win). Illy walked with both pinwheels in his hands, raising them as high into the sky as he could go, exclaiming "LOOK! LOOK!" His face was full of bright, pure joy. He is so little. So little. I could have walked with him like that for hours.

And then: scooting home, we broke a pinwheel. Ilan was too busy with his books to care. Picking up Josie, my sister was at my parents' with the news that she got a super crazy amazing job. Crazy dinner/bath/bedtime routine, with Wren crying about a canker sore and (not simultaneously, thankfully) listening to silly songs that even made Andy laugh. Josie, not staying down; Andy wearing her and standing while he prepares job market materials. Me, trying to cram in homework at 11pm while drinking tea and munching on almonds and dark chocolate. Class again tomorrow, and Friday. So tired, my friends. So tired.

My life feels like what it is: cramming a model pelvis into a stroller basket while a 3-year old jumps on bubble wrap on a Brooklyn street and the wind whips my unwashed hair around, and I am so, so grateful for it.