My heart is not outside my body

I heard them say how it would feel but no one described it like this

There is nothing like the love of a Mother.

There is absolutely something unique about the bond between mother and child.

I used to be the person who said “love is love is love is love…” until I became a Mother.

Loving my dog is not the same as loving my child.

Taking care of a pet is not the same as taking care of a child.

This isn’t a competition, so before you cat or dog moms feel the need to defend yourselves, I want you to know that your love matters, your love is unique and special too, the way you care for your animal is REAL and powerful *and* nothing compares to how it feels to GROW A HUMAN BEING IN YOUR BODY.

Nothing compares to the dance of DNA between mother and baby that dances forever in EACH body, long after birth.

So much of my passion here is going to be about the magic of the mother baby dyad and how we live in a culture that makes it seem like having a baby is no big deal.

It’s a big fucking deal.

Over the years I’ve heard people say “When you have kids it feels like your heart is walking around outside of your body.”

They share it in a way to try and capture the vulnerability that is loving a child. It does do that, but it’s missing something.

I never felt like my heart was walking around outside my body.

I felt, and continue to feel, like I was never *not* connected to her.

The umbilical cord forms at 3 weeks of pregnancy.

The umbilical cord is the lifeline for baby. It’s the connection to the placenta. The placenta which provides oxygen, nutrients and helps remove waste.

I don’t feel like my heart is walking around my body, I feel like there is a cord between us that is never not there.

That while she doesn’t need me to breathe, she needs me. She needs what I have to give - love, presence, nourishment, leadership, guidance, comfort, and space to release. That there is energy between transferred every second, there is a RELATIONSHIP happening, that is undeniable and unbreakable, that will never go away.

The literal umbilical cord is physically cut, maybe I don’t feel her kicks inside my belly but every movement her body makes, I still feel inside mine. Every breath she takes I feel alongside mine. There is a pulse of life that’s different and there is still an imprint in the cells of my body that represent my connection to her.

There is still a cord - that is what it’s like for me - a cord of light that will never be broken, but it’ll have to get longer, as she grows and as I let go.

I will literally never not be connected to my daughter, this I know.

I recently read a woman’s story about her 20 something year old daughter, who was living on the other side of the world. She talked about experiencing pain in her stomach, only to receive a call 2 minutes later from her daughter who shared she was having stomach pains and needed support.

A day will NEVER go by where I don’t love her, think of her, wonder how she’s doing.

Right now I track everything at nearly 3 years old…. one day I won’t know every move she makes, but I know I’ll spend every moment thinking of her.

I know I’ll spend the rest of my life remembering how it felt to have her grow inside my body, have her fall asleep on my chest or next to me for years, how it felt to breastfeed for 3 years…

The cord is never broken between a mother and her child and we live in a culture that WANTS to break it. A culture that wants you, as mother, to believe you are not important, that other people “know better” than you, that your child is “resilient” and can handle being away from you for long periods of time, that you don’t have to make sacrifices, that you are interchangeable with others… and I just won’t believe it. I can’t.

I will believe in my bones, my womb, my heart, my knowing that has been there long before a baby arrived, a knowing that lives inside every woman…. YOU KNOW. YOU KNOW YOURSELF. YOU KNOW YOUR KID. YOU MATTER.

I pray that our connection remains my daughter’s lifeline. Not for oxygen and nutrients anymore but for love, nurturance, care, support, warmth, and protection. That she will never, ever hesitate to pick up the phone, that she will share freely who she is, and that if one day she chooses to be a mother, she will trust her bones too. She will know the sacred work, the sacred role, that is mothering.

This is the greatest gift of my life.