Day eleven.

Last night I felt cold for the first time in months. I had been barefoot and crunching ice in winter at the end of pregnancy. Back then feeling cold was hard to fathom. Last night though, I lay in the (South African power cuts) dark, shivering under big blankets, snuggled up to my little one. This morning I woke up to a wet bed, clammy and sweat-soaked with a breast milk puddle beneath me - so hot. The journey back to individuation is a huge one and this regulation of temperature feels like a significant symbol.

Adjusting to no longer being pregnant is strange. It sometimes feels like the spiritual and emotional process of transformation (or recovery?) is greater than the physical. I'm really adjusting to no longer feeling little feet kicking my insides anymore. No longer heeding to the call of her cravings. No longer waddling with a big belly, with a chattering child always chiming in. I had become used to the constant togetherness. The duty I felt to keep my nervous system calm for her - to give her the greatest start at life possible.

I now look at the stretch marks on my tummy as my child's scribbles on my body. Her autograph to mark our journey through pregnancy together. They only appeared in the final week or so. Her 'Baby was here' etchings into my skin as she signed out of the womb.

It almost hurts how quick she's growing. It feels too fast, too unstoppable. Whilst day-to-day life is now a loop of feed, sleep, poop, coo, change nappies, I can't help but feel the preciousness and fullness of this time.

Nyaniso and I looked at photos from a few days ago. "She's definitely grown" Nyaniso said. Her body is longer, her umbilical cord is no longer connected to her belly button. Days make a difference and they are flying by so fast!

They say that the opposite of death isn't life, it's birth. That feels truer than ever right now in the nature of how confronting this is. Death shows us how easy we hold life with frivolity. It reminds us of how incalculable and fleeting a lifetime is. Right now, birth has done the same.

In a second I see her entire life, and the life of generations to come. I see a time when I no longer will be and my desire to live the truest way possible feels more pressing and poignant than ever before. The things that matter, matter more than I have ever known. The things that don't, are utterly barren.

I cry each time I feel this. As she suckles and gazes up at me. As she sleeps and I stare. I heave inside with waves that crash upon me. Those waves are washing me, cleansing me, initiating me one moment at a time into what it is to mother.