In becoming a mother, I fell in many ways like I have fulfilled a destiny.  Whether it was taught to me by my culture, or whether I had an innate desire within me, I have always wanted to be a mother.  I conceptualize God as mother, giving birth to all things from Her body.  The Mother is an feminine archetype, and birth is her rite of passage.  I am musing more and more these days on what it means to mother, mother well, mother on our own terms, release the way we were mothered to become our own embodiment of Mother.  I am studying to be a midwife, the guide for women on their own journey into motherhood, and my own daughter is growing.

I believe in the equality of all people.  But I am also very strongly woman-identified, as a women's reproductive health worker and myself a mother of a daughter, and a woman raised in a house by mother and grandmother.  In my activism, I suppose part of me feels that men, so long the privileged sex, can take care of themselves; to make equality, we need to make things better off for women, so long subjugated around the world, even into the 21st century.  And I know that what is good for women is good for societies, as mothers are responsible for raising the citizens.  My work for women, my passion for women's issues is human rights work. 

However, my woman-focus can serve to alienate men, even my dear feminist male partner.  It's a bummer, and something I need to focus on correcting.  The other day, he reminded me that our home-birth wasn't only beneficial to me and Ramona, but also to him, and that my birth work is not only about women, but people, families.  It is absolutely true.  But full control of our bodies is something that white men take for granted and women & people of color must fight for; and men can choose not to participate in the realities of pregnancy, birth, and parenting but women cannot.  So, I fight for women.

Jamie said that he thinks this is a change in me, being so woman-identified.  I still care about humanity as a whole.  But my work in this life is with pregnant women, and as my learning progresses,  I am seeing everyday more clearly how all my work comes together.  I also know that I could not do this work, I could not support women (and families) without some balance in my life; Jamie's masculinity helps to bring balance into my life.  His support and love have been absolutely necessary for me to progress on my journey toward midwifery and women's health advocacy.  I am so grateful for him, and the family that we have made together.  He is the partner that I need to do this work. 

It is true that you love your kid more than anything.  Everybody talks about it, and it's true.  People often describe it as some kind of lightning strike at the moment of the birth.  There is that, sort of.  But I love Ramona more every day, as I get to know her, as I watch her grow.  Sometimes it feels so big, this love for her.  I don't know how it fits inside me, how it can be a part of my little ordinary life, a love this big.  It feels somehow mythic, as though Ramona must have some important destiny to be able to inspire such love.  But in fact, that's how almost every person feels about their child.  Jamie doesn't use words like "miraculous" to talk about birth or having kids.  As far as he's concerned, if it happens to everybody, it's not a miracle.  I disagree.  I think the love we feel for our children is miraculous, in that it allows all of us parents to encounter something that is holy almost by accident, as we go about our lives.  A mundane miracle, an ordinary divinity -- that is what this love is all about.