Waylon has been with us for eight days now.  This morning Edge said the word “Sunday,” and it sounded foreign to me–time may be moving, but days and hours and minutes melted away when I went into labor.  Now, moments blend together like breath as I deeply inhale, filling myself with this life in front of me: a baby boy.

He was born at home, filling the yurt with his first cry at 1:52 am on July 27.  I looked down at him on the bed and announced, “It’s a boy,” before the midwives could tell me, and I fell back onto Edge, who held me as I held our son in my arms for the first time.  Now, the memory of physical pain has melted away, and I remember only the whole room breathing with me, the clarity of my cousin Amy’s eyes as she helped me through a contraction, the calmness of the midwives as labor intensified, the steady encouragement of Edge as I held him with all my might through each push, and the easy release of Waylon’s body as it squirmed out after his head finally made it through.

Waylon’s birth changed me in a way that has no words.  Everything but breath and love fell away.  Even in the pain I could breath, I had to breathe, and through the pain I found release.  It was the biggest letting go of my life–my body physically opening to let this being that grew inside me out into the world.  So it is that birth has taught me the first lesson of motherhood: letting go.

Letting go brought Waylon into this world.  Letting go brought love, space and peace.  May I remember this always, especially when I try to grasp onto him as he grows and needs to expand or contract without us.  Let me always remember how we did it together–how I had to push, how he had to leave my body to meet my eyes, how we had to put space between us to know each other in a profound new way.

Thank you, Waylon, for your breath, your voice, and your life that you share with your Papa and me.  Thank you so much.  We’re so happy you’re here.