With profound joy I am happy to announce the birth of my second grandson, Brody Georges Thiret. He weighed 8 lbs. 7 oz. at birth and was 22 ½ inches long.
Being a grandma is one of the most significant roles I play, and birth has long been an important learning metaphor in my life. It is birth, and death, that have taught me the most about authentic happiness, not the passing kind, but the joy you experience in every fiber of your being.
More times than not the birth of a child is one of the most meaningful and joyous experiences of a lifetime. Even when there are surprises, it provides many opportunities to embrace the wonders and mysteries of life. With a newborn in your arms you taste, touch, smell, and see innocence, and witness pure love. It is the closest you will ever come to understanding the meaning of life.
This innocent and small being captures your attention fully so you can know the benefits of present moment living and selfless giving. This is most true if you are willing to surrender your control and open your heart fully to the journey of falling in love and the process of coming to know someone so deeply, unconditionally, and intimately on their terms rather than according to your agenda. Birth teaches you compassion, tenderness, protection, selflessness, discernment, kindness…oh, yes, and patience. The hardest thing for a mom is to let it teach you self-love. Not in a selfish way, but rather in a conscious way. Mature self-love is by knowing that your child’s well being depends on yours, so the most loving thing you can do for them is to care for yourself.
Happiness does not always come wrapped in the best of circumstances. Brody was not born without incident. Due September 30th, my daughter was overdue and was induced October 6th. Brody was finally born on my first grandson’s 4th birthday, October 8th at 2:50 a.m. with the cord wrapped around his neck 3 times. He did not breathe for over a minute and needed aggressive encouragement to join us fully in this crazy world. Can you blame him? Still, that minute felt like an eternity, and that cry, that will become exhausting at some point, was music to our ears.
Fortunately, after scaring everyone with his dusky coloring, delayed breathing and a low blood pressure, he decided to stay with us to see all that living has to offer. Only seconds after his birth our expectations wandered to other possibilities. Remaining in the present moment became very difficult to do, and yet never once in the history of the Universe has worry ever changed an outcome. Fortunately we were together as a family to face that horrible thought as Brody was rushed off to the neonatal intensive care unit for three days of monitoring. As a precautionary measure he was given IV antibiotics. Although my daughter had looked forward to welcoming him against her chest and for his dad to cut his cord, priorities shifted and not getting what was imagined gave us a deepened appreciation for just having him here, grateful for knowing he would be healthy after his brief ordeal.
It is always good to dream in order to manifest what you want, and visioning is an integral part of the Law of Attraction. And then we are reminded of the importance of surrendering the outcome to the highest and best, not knowing what powerful lessons might available to us in the form of challenging circumstances. The priority quickly became giving Brody the best chance for his health and well being…the rest were just details. Being able to dance gracefully with the unexpected if we can retrain ourselves to do so offers the possibility of happiness regardless of circumstances.
So, I think it is safe to say that I will always find an excuse to talk to you about my new grandson, but now that he is here and doing well, he will not be the total focus of my newsletters…until I am blessed again in December with grandson #3. Through this fertile time I am reminded that birth comes with all of the ingredients for knowing true happiness. In the presence of pure love and innocence and enveloped in the intuition of motherhood you become ever so aware that happiness comes from the inside out, is not dependent on the circumstances being perfect, overlooks imperfection, initiates compassion, facilitates deep connections, stretches clear communication, and brings you to the present moment with a greater appreciation of the simple and sweet miracles of life.
I wish for each of you that you will have the chance to know in your lifetime the complete joy I feel in my heart right now, and the tremendous gratitude I have for my family, friends, daughters and grandsons as we walk together on this journey called life.
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