Time Stands Still

There were moments, of course. Those small spaces of time, too soon gone, when everything seems to stand still, and existence is balanced on a perfect point, like the moment of change between the dark and the light, when both and neither surround you.” – Diana Gabaldon, Outlander

Hello World!

I feel as if nearly every post on here this past year has begun with some kind of apology for being away for so long. And this one, unfortunately, is no different. Though writing is one of the great loves of my life and I am trying to figure out a system by which time is regularly spent tuning into this aspect of my person, I do feel the need to cut myself some slack for what has honestly been a few lackluster years as far as writing is concerned.

You see…though I mean it when I say that writing is one of the loves of my life, the last few years have been spent discovering the others – my other great loves: my husband and my daughter.

In 2019 alone, Louis and I got married, I left a job that was no longer fulfilling me, we found out I was pregnant with our first child, and we bought our family home where we are now living (happily ever after).

I would say this would constitute a pretty big year for anyone. Even still, I managed to return to my writing here and there as things periodically and briefly slowed down – as evidenced by my sporadic posts on this blog. But it wasn’t enough. The writer in me never felt satisfied.

Protest as she might, however, my inner writer needed to be patient just a little longer as the biggest change – the biggest of all I’d say – led me to ignore her completely for the last few months of 2019 all the way until today.

I’d like to think that despite her constant niggling at my self-conscious brain, my radio silence was warranted by the best possible reason. On January 27th at 11:44AM in the morning, Louis and I welcomed our first child into the world: Aria Adele.

Before I continue this post, however, I should probably write something of a disclaimer regarding my photo policy for any posts written about motherhood or our parenting journey – and this does not constitute any judgment of how other parents choose to do things. As far as public platforms go, I will not be posting any photos of Aria’s face, even though she is incredibly cute and I am dying to show her off. Louis and I made this decision as neither of us are huge into social media and we want Aria to be able to make her own choices about her social media presence, or lack thereof when she’s older. Apologies ahead of time for depriving you of baby photos!

But back to why Aria’s birth at the end of January led to me ostracizing this poor writer for the first part of this year. Not that I need to explain myself, of course, but the writer is demanding compensation for being ignored for so long.

Leading up to Aria’ birth, I was exhausted and impatient. Daily. Though I had continued to exercise every day all the way into my 8th month of pregnancy, the last bit kicked my ass for lack of a better way to describe the experience. Despite sleeping more than I think I have since my teenage years, I was tired. All. The. Time. Everything became a chore – even the activities I had always found to be both rejuvenating and relaxing. Writing, reading, yoga, even socializing were abandoned one-by-one until I was left lounging on the couch day in, day out half-heartedly bingeing various shows that continued to feel like fillers regardless of how good they were objectively. I felt like time was somehow crawling and racing forward at the speed of light simultaneously and the sensation made my head spin. 

Everyone always tells you to enjoy your time as a couple during your first pregnancy before two permanently becomes three but no one added the caveat that enjoying the last few weeks of my pregnancy journey would be so hard. Each morning seemed to bleed into evening and I didn’t have the energy to do much other than get myself up from the couch once in a while to go to the bathroom. Louis was wonderful and kind and understanding to a fault, and he will tell you he relished the chance to take care of me without me bounding around doing 40 things at once, but my lethargic state didn’t allow for us to do much together other than watch episodes and read from the baby book once he got home from work every day. Before I knew it, and without having “made the most” of our last few weeks together per say, Aria’s due date had come and gone and then…well then the impatience set in. 

I know, I know, everyone knows first babies are late. And I had told myself time and again that she would be two weeks late since that’s the longest most OBs will let you go before they will induce you – but this didn’t make the waiting any easier. As a first time Mom, I had no idea what to look for in terms of labour symptoms and so every single cramp, ache, heck even bowel movement, was taken as a sign that it was “go time”. And it never was. No matter what I tried, it seemed, whether it was bouncing on a yoga ball or forcing myself out for a walk or eating my weight in dates, this baby was not budging.

In fact, Aria held on as long as they would let her: I was induced 11 days past her due date of January 15th. And even with all that waiting, when they inserted the cervidil in the hospital on the late afternoon of the 26th they gave me the following warning: it would likely take 24 hours minimum to kick in. In fact, they would likely need to dose me again the next evening with the hope that things would get within 48 hours or so. However, they added in passing, there is a slim possibility you could hyper react. But that isn’t likely. See you in 24 hours.

Well, world, guess what. 

We left the hospital at 5:30PM that day and by 10:30PM I was back having gone from 0 to 60 without warning: I was contracting every minute leaving me barely any time to catch my breath.

I won’t go into too much detail about what transpired over the next 12 hours but suffice it to say nothing went according to plan. But does it ever? Maybe I’ll actually learn this lesson some day.

Even with all of the complications that ensued, however, I agree with every Mom you’ve ever asked about childbirth (I’m not the only one who has always been curious about this, right?). It was all, all of it, worth it. Every second.

Because when all was said and done, when the pain and the fear dissipated at the end of the longest road I have ever walked, time stood still – just for a moment. In my arms was this perfect little girl, the most beautiful creature I could have ever imagined. And she was ours, our child. Our newest love. As I gazed at her precious face and cradled her tiny body against my chest, everything that had transpired suddenly made sense. All of the exhaustion, the nausea, the impatience, the pain, there was a purpose for all of it: her. Aria’s little hand stroked my collarbone and I knew, I just knew, everything was going to be OK.

My existence in this moment was indeed balanced on a perfect point – no matter what came next, the highs and the lows, the light and the dark, I knew Louis and I would be able to face whatever it was because now we had someone depending on us to see everything through. 

Those small spaces of time, her first moments earthside, were soon over (too soon it seems) and the weeks that followed were hard, filled with moments of both joy and frustration. But what brought us through was this little human who doesn’t even yet know the love she has inspired in us.

I’m still going to continue posting about my travels, I promise, but I hope you won’t mind the occasional post about motherhood because, well, I have a feeling this might be my new passion.

Until next week, remember…

Life is beautiful.

xo Erin