It’s been an interesting week. I think, overall, I am doing better. I have spams of sharp pain sometimes on my right, and sometimes a low, insistent, throbbing ache. My left flank also aches sometimes, growing louder in complaints and then settling into a murmur, and finally, into silence. I don’t really know what to make of it.

But in general, other than the pains (which I am trying to remind myself to embrace, instead of run from, for to go into pain is to welcome life) I am really well. I have not had this much spirit in months, no, over a year, now. I am eager and quicker to think, to do things. I move easier. I laugh easier. I can focus. I don’t feel like I need to be curled up somewhere quiet and safe where people won’t ask things of me. I imagine something akin to this is what many women feel after giving birth – just really good, after not much time at all, they bounce back. Such was not my experience. I felt like I was crawling out of a damp, deep cave, where there was beauty and love permeating all through everything, as well as exhaustion and aching I couldn’t shake, and what turned out to be well-founded concern for my baby.

I should be sleeping and I will soon. But it’s almost 2 weeks since her last transfusion. She is doing well – she can balance now for a few seconds before she starts to topple. She has learned to swing her legs over a ledge to let herself down. She picks flowers and gives me their petals.

It’s less than 30 days before she is one year old. I find it baffling. Where did the year go?

I remember so clearly, lying next to her now, what it was like with her lying inside me. She was so much smaller!! I remember feeling her fists and feet slide across my belly, and coming out to meet my palms. How she would swim inside her aquarium, as I swam slow laps in the pool. How she would turn and change positions constantly, but she would always rotate herself back to the ideal birth position when I asked her to. How she waved at us during the 20 week ultrasound.

How happy I felt, so joyful, so blessed, for her to chose me as her mother. Those last 3 weeks before birth, when I had finished graduate school and had nothing to do but rest and be with her… well, apparently, many women feel awful. But I truly wasn’t that uncomfortable. My swelling wasn’t terrible and I felt radiantly beautiful in my body. (I was taking pictures of myself even the day my water broke.) I loved, loved, loved carrying her in those final days. We were a walking miracle.

I cried the other night, apologizing in whispers to her as she slept, for how hard it must have been on her when my kidney failed during that last trimester. For not giving her the energy, her birthright, necessary for healthy gene expression. For the stress on her developing systems, which weren’t able to finish fully developing before birth, and the pain of inflammation. It breaks my heart.

Oh it’s hard when I think about it. I know how to be healthy, how to optimally care for a pregnant woman, and I did absolutely everything I could. Health and diet, gentle exercise, vitamins and loving, energy healing. And how hard her life has been already! Everything I did not want for her – and more – has been medically thrust upon her. I haven’t been able to give her the first year of life that I had envisioned: a healthy life free of needle sticks and antibiotics, and full of joy and the knowledge of her safety and security. I wanted rosebuds for her; she got thorns. Thats hard.

Whats worse: My main job, as I see it, was my duty to her while she was so vulnerable in my belly. The pregnancy was my marathon, and I, only I, was entrusted to nurture and protect her flame. Entirely helpless, it was up to me to give her a safe and supportive environment, to do everything I could so she could have the strongest foundation, the healthiest entry into this world. All my knowledge of natural health and strength and love, and it was not enough. So hard not to feel like a failure.

And yet, I know I wasn’t. If it weren’t for the reiki acting as a channel for spirit, would it be so brilliant? So perceptive, so intelligent, so sensitive and beautiful? If not for the great nutrition and herbs, would she be so vital, so strong? No one ever believes that she is sick. No one. The doctors barely believe it. Would that be the case if I had been less devoted?

Would she even be alive? For after that first time my right kidney failed, only regular trips to the pool, swimming slow, gentle laps, my belly hanging down, taking the weight off, pushed the pain away and back into place. It probably allowed my kidney to shift just enough, that long, deliberate freestyle, massaging my kidney and draining it a little. Enough to keep it going. Enough to bring the pregnancy to term. Enough to even give birth naturally to a bright-eyed and inquisitive little being. Her birth was everything I would have hoped for her.

If it weren’t for the breast feeding, that hard battle I fought to keep for her, and for us, would she be this healthy? This happy? The baby-wearing, and shonishin, and moxa, and reiki, and herbs… Where would she be without them? Really, its been like a 2 year gestation. Did I fail? Or have we merely been called to continue the good work on a higher level, one so intense that it required 2 full-time caretakers, both Joe and I’s efforts and love?

We’ve worked so hard for this anniversary coming up. It’s been so bittersweet.

And yet: If she didn’t get sick, would I have quit working? If I didn’t get sick, too, would I have left my doctoral program? Would Joe have stopped working to care for us? No, certainly not, on all counts. We weren’t in the financial position for me to slow down, let alone him. We wouldn’t have felt like we had permission to devote this last year to loving her. Was this simply what had to be, so that she could experience the love and attention of both her parents during her first year?

I think of myself a year ago today, lying in this bed, and the mix of emotion is stunning: the remembered peace and joy and anticipation juxtaposed with the difficulty and pain, the sweet and not-so-sweet adjustments of the last 11 months. It makes me so sad for her, for us. We could never have guessed what was coming. We were so happy. So confident. So clear. Never having planned to become parents, we were nevertheless ready to be attentive to her, sensitive to her, and loving to her, in ways we didn’t experience as children. Ready to experience confusion and mystery with her, instead of shutting her down. Ready to encourage her curiosity and own mind, instead of instilling old doctrine. Ready to be awkward with her, to admit our own bewilderment. Ready to be naked with her, to be gentle with her. To help her begin her own ascent, or simply watch, as needed. Sometimes, I feel robbed of what should have been storybook.

But theres no such thing as storybook. The more ready you are, the greater the challenge granted. And we were so strong. We did the best we could in extraordinarily tough circumstances. It’s not about failing or succeeding. It’s about heart.

She is so strong.

Before I close my eyes, then, I will relish these memories of her united with me, savoring also the present existence of her, the sounds and scent of her lying next to me. The touch of her skin. Both the pleasure and the pain, the fullness of the parabola. To fully experience pleasure, one must be willing to experience pain. And I wish to know the fullness of this existence. I wish to unlock everything that people hide from.

A year ago today. So much has changed. She is so big! How did she ever fit inside of me? It is fantastic and silly and beautiful and mind-blowing, the very existence of her.

She Is.

And wonderfully, I Am, too.

We are still strong, still curious. There is still something here. Something yet to be discovered.