Freda Ellis

Birth and Rebirth

It is May 31st, 2020 and I am watching the news at 6pm with my partner. I’m only half watching as the latest numbers dead from the virus is announced. My mind is preoccupied, constantly, as it has been for forty weeks. As I look down at my pregnant belly, immense and ripe enough to drop like an apple, emotions come filtering down through my mind. Like dappled autumn light they hover, each thought distinguished from the others yet none have any strength. Fear. It’s there, ominous and clever. Fear of giving birth of course. But another, the fear of being a mother. I can not honestly say I love my baby yet. I don’t know how I feel at all, except perhaps there is a sense of detachment for now. Doubt. I doubt very much that I’ll be a good mother. I lost my own mother at eight years old. Her cancer ripped my world apart and my childhood fled before my eyes and in its place crouched a dark new being composed of loss and wilderness. I do not know how to be a mother. How do I hold this baby, his entire world in my hands and guide him through this terrifying world so that he is not alone? Hope. I think I see it, further off, a faint star. Is there always hope? I hope that labor will not kill me, that the baby, my baby, will be well and that I will love him. He kicks inside me and I feel the thrill of the unknown, always accompanied by the oppressive weight of doubt and fear. My belly ripples and moves as he stretches out inside me and I look with wonder at what my body has accomplished. He is late, by three days. Does this mean he’ll get too big and I’ll have more pain? Is he ok in there? I am so afraid. His birth has felt like an eternity in the making and somehow it still feels like it will never happen. The imminence and unavoidable truth of it is almost surreal.