1/1/12: bòn ané

Happy New Year! One of the ladies in the program had her baby this morning just after dawn. A big healthy baby boy (two of her babies died in their first few weeks of life and she has a 10 year old girl at home). It was a long night and we all were so happy to be together (Beth, Jen, Obermeyer and myself) that we weren’t smart and all stayed up past midnight catching up and ringing in the new year together. Fireworks went off in the neighborhood surrounding us, and we raised our glasses of limonade to toast the new year.

There is something significant about starting of a new year with a tiny new life. Because I was up all night, I never got to reading my journals today (a New Year’s tradition—to reflect on the year). It will have to happen later. It was so interesting being with this mama as she labored. There was a real battle with fear going on for her and she refused to push and fought the birth process—which really drew things out.

As I watched her labor I felt I could relate. Sometimes the things I most want to birth into the world, are the things I am most afraid of losing.

So as this new year dawns, I pray that it is full of new life. Messy, squawking, slippery, real life. There are things in me that want to be birthed this year. I don’t even fully know what they are, but I want to do the work of bringing them into this world, even in the face of my own fear.