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Parenting

Cherish

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The time goes so fast, they said. Take pictures, take videos, so you’ll remember, they said.

I’ll remember, I thought, but I find comfort in instructions, and I followed them.

It appears that I’ve forgotten.

I asked my partner last week when our baby stopped making the inchoate newborn noises that kept me awake at night. Months had past since we’d heard them, but I’d forgotten since when. I hadn’t known we were coming to the end of that time.

I recently flicked back through the earliest videos I’d recorded, marvelling at the slowness of the movements that have become deliberate and finer, the nasal squeaks that have blossomed into a wordless voice full of expression.

In just under five months, the skinny, scrunched bundle we brought home from the hospital has transformed into a baby – one who babbles and laughs and tries unsuccessfully to roll over; one with likes and dislikes, her very own temperament, and characteristics that signal a nascent personality.

And I’ve forgotten, just as everyone assured me I would.

I’ve forgotten just how tiny and new she was, and I am stunned at the videos and photos that remind me. I’ve forgotten just how tired I was, though the feeding times scratched into a notebook every two hours provide the proof. I’ve forgotten the feeling of just getting up and ready for the day, but I imagine it to be quite freeing, indeed.

This is a fleeting time and it needs to be cherished. Nearly five months already gone, and in them I have done little besides loved.

I wrote once that love is a verb, and I understand that yet differently now. I spend my days and nights awash in it.

It is this feeling that has me writing while growing increasingly uncomfortably on the couch while the baby sleeps in my lap. I could be doing so many other things with this time . . . but I’m not. Cherish.

And I cherish the drunken glow that washes over me when I breathe in her baby smell, or when she lays her head on my shoulder when tired, or in the moments of clear, wordless communication.

Tears prick my eyes when I think of the deepest truth I have ever held and will not attempt try to explain: My daughter and I are one being.

I cherish this feeling, too.

I want to remember. They say I’ll forget, and they’ve been right, but I hope to remember, and when not with the brain, then with the body (which is a manifestation of the brain, but that’s a blog post for a different time).

It’ll be all too soon before she doesn’t want to be held anymore, all too soon before she slams the door shut.

And when she’s raging, I hope to find the feeling of tears pricking my eyes, tickling the back of my throat, because my daughter is sleeping in my lap and the world is simple. Because we are one, despite how I know she’ll pull away, despite how I know my role is to giver her wings and watch her soar.

I’ll catch her when she’s ready to land, this daughter who gave me the gift of being her mama. And I cherish that, too.

Jena, Germany – February 2024
Parenting

What This Blog Isn’t

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Sweet Baby is napping in the carrier rather than in her crib, but she slept through the night, so that seems like a reasonable trade. She’s only had two outfits on today, though there will be at least one more for her photo of the month. Her laundry basket is full but needs to wait until tomorrow because her parents need clean clothes, too. I ate lunch standing and rocking (but hey, I ate lunch!) in order to lull Baby to sleep in the carrier. I’m writing this blog post standing and rocking (but look, I’m writing a blog post!) in order to keep Baby asleep in the carrier.

I actually don’t want to write a blog about babies and parenting. Unlike education, which I was delighted to spend my days around and my evenings writing about, I don’t have any tips and tricks, any wisdom, any knowledge worth sharing. At exactly four months into this journey, I can sum it up as, “Phew, what a ride!” while knowing that we have hardly begun.

In the past, this blog has concerned itself with some politics, but only when I couldn’t help myself, which happened regularly enough. I wrote about relatable things like relationships and heartbreak, but such openness is best reserved for past relationships. Education was a favourite topic, particularly at times when I felt myself at odds with the system I was working in, but my work life feels lightyears away from my private life. I began this blog as a way of documenting my travels and sharing photographs, but I haven’t been very far from home lately. My world has become very small indeed.

Perhaps I am suffering from classic writer’s block. I want to write, but have no ideas. I think about writing, but push it aside in favour of something else. I intend to write, but the time to do so slips away because of other things that need doing. I would write, but there’s nothing to say.

One could argue that there is, in fact, a great deal to say. There’s certainly no end to conversation when I’m with other mamas and babies, but little of what we talk about would have been of interest to me before having my own baby, so it’s hard for me to imagine that it’s of interest to anyone else. That being said, I’ve had plenty of colleagues for whom education is a job and work stays at work, and I used this blog to spend more time thinking about education and to turn those thoughts into a book.

So maybe there’s an audience somewhere for a blog that is not about, or shouldn’t be about, or is merely reluctantly/sometimes/at the moment about life with a baby. After all, this blog has been a chronicle of selected parts of my life for about thirteen years, and this is a rather significant development. Maybe there are things that are important to say, like “The baby blues are very real” or “There was a period of a few weeks where I realized I wasn’t looking forward to anything” or “I felt rage like I’ve never felt before.” And then there are things like, “We kept looking at each other and crying because the depth of emotion was overwhelming” or “No matter how often she wakes up at night, my breath catches every time I see her” or “They said you can’t possibly understand that love and they were right.”

I don’t want to write a blog about parenting because I don’t have anything to say.

But maybe I could write a blog about being a parent because that is now something that I am.

Machico, Madeira – October 2025
Parenting

Arrival

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Two days before

A regular checkup because I’m past my due date. The doctor looks at the CTG, frowns. She scribbles a note, picks up the phone, and sends me next door to the hospital maternity ward.

The midwife explains that I’m being admitted to be monitored. I ask if I should call my partner. She tells me there’s time and sends me downstairs to fill out the admission paperwork.

And then we begin. Every two hours, a pill to begin contractions. Every half hour after the pill, back up to the maternity ward for a CTG. In the meantime, I’m free to roam the grounds. I’m given a roommate and a late lunch. I call my partner to ask him to bring the suitcase. It dawns on me that when I leave the hospital, it will be with a baby.

Much later, I return to my room after the last CTG of the evening. Everything looks fine. “We’ll see what happens overnight,” the midwife says.

One day before

I’m woken early by nurses taking vitals and told to help myself to breakfast in the room across the hall. In the maternity ward, we begin the same procedure as the day before.

My partner arrives after work with extra clothes now that I am clearly staying longer than planned. We walk the grounds in between scans in the maternity ward. While some look fine, the midwives keep me longer than usual with others.

By the time night falls, there are no significant changes. “We’ll see what happens overnight,” the midwife says.

The day of

The day starts much the same way as the day before, but I feel tired. My roommate had her baby late in the night and I woke to his cries. I wonder when mine will decide it’s her time. The sun is shining and the weather is far too warm to be indoors.

I’ve spent enough time looking at the CTG printouts to know that something is different. I lie there a long time. The midwife gives me a tablet and reviews when to be back. I walk the hospital grounds, call my partner, tell my baby it would be a beautiful day to be born.

Early afternoon, the midwife says I should plan to spend the night in the maternity ward for monitoring. “This is what happens when the CTG looks strange,” she says. “And in an emergency, you’ll need a C-section.” I ask if I should call my partner. She tells me there’s time and to tell him not to panic.

I call and am immediately in tears I didn’t know I’d been holding. I can hardly speak but partner understands enough. Minutes later he’s there and we talk with the midwife about the CTG. Same procedure. Tablet and come back.

My partner and I walk the grounds, share two pieces of cake. Early in the evening I begin to feel contractions. According to the next CTG, they’re not enough.

This time, it’s my midwife on duty and she tells me she’s preparing the necessary items for a C-section. My partner watches the CTG, brow furrowed. Something has changed. And according to the midwife, not for the better. The contractions are minimal, the baby’s heartbeat atypical.

The midwife calls a doctor, who explains what I intuitively already know. We can’t tell how the baby is doing. Maybe she’s fine and progressing with a regular birth would be fine. But if she’s not fine, the surest means of a healthy birth is a C-section, not without risks of its own.

Another doctor comes in. Agrees with the assessment of the first doctor and midwife.

There’s nothing to think about and no decision to be made. In all the uncertainty of the previous days, this is the one thing I know for sure.

Arrival

Minutes pass and a wail tears through the air. I have never been more afraid of a question and never more relieved by the answer: “Is she okay?”

Minutes pass and a midwife lays my daughter next to my head. My partner and I are in tears. In that moment, we become a family.

Minutes pass and I am wheeled into the maternity ward to recover. My partner and daughter are already there and the midwife lays the baby on my chest.

That night, my baby and I sleep skin-to-skin, a bonding top wrapping us together. It is the strangest, most beautiful night I have ever known.

After 41 weeks, my daughter has arrived.

Weimar, Germany – March 2026