The induction was scheduled for 5:00am on a Tuesday. My husband Andy and I drove to the hospital before any of the new day’s light had cracked open the edges of night. We held hands walking to the check-in desk, nervous about the labor and excited to meet our daughter, Anthem. Our two-year-old son was at home with his grandparents, sleeping peacefully and not yet grokking how he was about to become a big brother to a little sister.

When his small body is still from the busyness of being two (feet have stopped their bouncing and tapping, hands have relaxed from reaching and examining, voice has quieted from babbling and humming, eyes have closed from seeking and learning) and is finally asleep, I fly to his room in a quiet bound. Slowly turn the door handle. Softly tiptoe into the darkened room. Gently lift his head and place it back on the pillow. Pull the dangling feet and arms out from the crib railings. Snuggle his Teddy bear and fox beside him and tuck a light blanket over him. If he stirs or startles, opening his eyes to see who’s there, I whisper to him, “It’s okay, I’m just tucking you in. It’s still time to sleep. I love you.”

While pregnant, there are days when I am ravenous. I awake hungry and never seem to fill. I grow shaky before lunch and can’t suppress the need for a snack before bed. I run a hand along the curve of my belly, where my baby is growing steadily. My body is a vessel, and I am less in control of it than ever before. I cannot know why there are days my body demands more food, or feels sick, or leaves me exhausted. I can only trust the signals it sends me for rest or nourishment, understanding that miraculously, though I have no conscious part in it, my body is developing and sustaining a human being.

Hair mussed

Sleep still slipping

from the corners of my eyes

Coffee piping

Rain chilly, pattering on the tin roof

of the first home which is fully ours.

Throughout my day, so often it becomes part of the normal rhythm of motherhood, it’s easy to be prodded by small worries about my young son, Ocean.

“Has he eaten enough? Is he hot or cold? On track developmentally? Sleeping enough? Well-stimulated?”

Many of these worries are vital to his care and are easily remedied or assured. Yet there will always be times I worry in vain. I imagine the worst, only to be surprised by the best.

You’ve heard of goat yoga

a popular trend

For deep breaths and giggles

with downward dog bends

Well then let me share

what I learned of today!

Attempting pilates

while my seven-month played

IIt was raining when I left the office on my last day of work. The power had flickered off for a brief instant, giving everyone a thrilling startle in the middle of a Thursday afternoon. At the back entrance, I chuckled with the guard about the automatic doors not working due to the outage as we pushed open the manual ones instead. In my arms I carried a box with the remains of my goodbye cake - almond mocha - and a bag of assorted desk items. Among the items was my office name plate; silver metal printed with my maiden name.

“Maybe one day I’ll show this to my son, and he’ll be interested to hear about his Mama’s life before he was born,” I told my boss. It’s the kind of thing I would have been curious about. You grow up thinking of your parents as your parents, an identity which feels all-encompassing. It’s strange to put any other name for them in your mouth, like something which doesn’t taste quite right, and stranger still to think of your mother as someone with an entirely different last name than the one she has now.

As a young child, I was convinced there had been a time when I could fly.

One day, I simply remembered; I used to be able to fly. The memory came to me all at once, clicked on as though my brain had tuned into a station which had previously been static. It felt like a dream, yet there was a clarity to it I couldn’t deny. In my mind’s eye I could see the world floating beneath me. I couldn’t go very high or fast, and not outside of the house, details which made me believe firmly in the memory.