Matrescence: On Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Motherhood

by Lucy Jones

Instead it took me to the edge of what it means to be human. It tested my empathy to the limit, it challenged me intellectually, it required me to answer and ask questions constantly, to consider metaphysics and the origins of matter. I learned how to talk to pre-verbal humans. How to listen and respond with sounds and noises and breath. The language was tone of voice, skin color, pace of movement, facial expression, heat, clinginess, small bodily movements like rubbing eyes or ears or a faraway stare. The language grew and altered daily. I learned how to subtly reel in and out a presence when the baby was learning something new: delicately using my hands and fingers and arms to support climbing at an inch remove without their knowing that my hands and arms were right there. I became a kind of doctor and a nurse, learning essential pediatric health and medicine: what rashes are what, the healthy temperature of skin, signs of infection or the hatching of it. I had to learn a new language for each child. I learned how to be a shock absorber or airbag between my young children with their underdeveloped prefrontal cortexes and inner wildness, their appetites for destruction and the rest of the world. I learned what it’s like to feel two conflicting things at the same time: to want to see my friends and have time away, but also never to want to leave for very long. I was both vulnerable and newly strengthened. My reflexes had never been quicker. Sometimes the baby might fall of...