Speaking of Twins
My good friend J is having twins—today! I received an email message this morning, saying that baby A is breach and because he is presenting first, she will have a C-section today to have her babies.
By now, all is probably done and I’m just waiting to hear how everything went. I’m praying for her and her husband and her two baby boys, who are full-term, (probably) fraternal twins. I am soooooo happy that she was able to carry them to term; their health is much more likely to be very good now that they’re fully “cooked.”
And I can’t explain it other than by admitting to a secret, masochistic stripe in my personality, but damned if I’m not totally jealous! I can’t help but wonder what it would feel like to carry two babies, birth two babies, care for two babies. Completely crazy, I know! One is hard enough.
But now that I’ve done the singleton thing twice, I can’t help but wonder if I could hack the double-trouble of twins. So that’s weird, I know.
But there’s another part that is less weird and more miraculous: the fact that two new lives begin today. Two new beings are arriving here on Earth, and they come embodying the hope of every human being who ever lived. In my view, newborn babies have only just left the other side, the Oneness with Everything, that we wonder about and crave, the thing so many of us hope to return to someday. They come in spiritually and physically intertwined with others, bound to mother. Then they spend the rest of their lives simultaneously separating the threads to establish their own individuality and reweaving them together with others’ threads to build connections and community.
The moment of birth is so mysterious and unique, and I am honored to have experienced it twice. I’m wishing J a safe, respectful, magical birth and happy, healthy babies. Blessed be.
