whitney dziurawiec

I write this while my daughter sleeps in the other room. My daughter. She came nine days late, taking her sweet time while I downed sweets for every moment she wasn't here. I remember the conflicting duality of being more than freaking ready as well as not ready at all. I remember crying in the shower seeing the baby wash sitting there; feeling overwhelmed at the idea of bathing a newborn. I remember the realization that I'm not just a full-time babysitter: I am and will be the mother of a human being. I am forever part of her earliest experience. I am the first thing she saw in this world, my voice will always be one of the first sounds she's heard, apart from the whishing of my body. My smell is already woven into her senses as one of comfort and sustenance. What a horrifying honor to be someone's mother, to have the influence upon someone as immense as I'll have, to know so many of her characteristics will mirror my own. It is a sort of tragic triumph, to ha...