one year ago today

One year ago today I was 38 weeks pregnant. I had just finished working as a local GP on the central coast.  The pregnancy had been uncomplicated.  I was doing regular yoga and walking meditations.  Positive visualisations regarding giving birth.  I did have quite annoying reflux and insomnia and was sleeping sitting propped up on many pillows.  We had been to the midwife earlier in the week and confirmed that baby was still posterior.  All we could feel was little hands and feet.  I planned this week to get many things into order, as I had left a lot of nesting to the last minute.  Here above we were sorting our all the stuff we had stored in the garage.  This couch ended up going to Vinnies.

I just scored this little cradle on ebay, second hand and was starting only now to wonder how would we all sleep?  Like most things in my life, I would feel what felt right at the time.  Our house was only 3/4 renovated at this stage.  No lounge room, but we had a  refurbished kitchen and bathroom that was the main thing.

I wondered if  I would go overdue due to the position of the baby.  But I could feel the baby was way down.   I felt very calm and it was warm and sunny.  The journey ahead of us was still very uncertain. 

       And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, speak to us of children.

And he said:

       Your children are not your children.

       They are the son's and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

       They come through you but not from you, 

       And though they are with you they belong not to you.

      You may give them your love but not your thoughts.

      For they have their own thoughts.

      You may house their bodies but not their souls,

      For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,

      which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

      You may strive to be like them, but seek not to

      make them like you.

      For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

      You are the bows from which your children as

      living arrows are set forth.

     The archer sees the mark upon the path of the

     infinite, and He bends you with His might that 

     His arrows may go swift and far.

    Let your bending in the Archer's hand be for

    gladness;

    For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves

    also the bow that is stable.

                                      THE PROPHET, Kahlil Gibran, 1923.