image credit: Dacia Vu Photography
“IT’S A BOY!” Headlines plastered on magazines, newspapers and across the internet heralded the birth of The Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s new baby, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor.
Prince Harry beamed before reporters as he announced the birth of his son, looking tired but absolutely over the moon.
Although this joyful moment was broadcast worldwide, coverage of this sweet statement felt brief and leap-frogged, like it was nothing more than a gun signaling the start of a race.
And now, with permission to start their engines and speed away, the major news outlets were free to zoom headfirst into the “important” stuff, like the significance and accessibility of Meghan’s jewelry.
The media promptly and definitively opined about everything, from Meghan Markle’s postpartum “baby bump”, to what external forces influenced the royal moniker, to how Baby Archie (a one-week old infant) will face a complicated tax situation because of his American mother.
If you listen closely to Prince Harry’s speech, however, you can hear something primal, universal, and pure. He spoke from that familiar place of awe and quiet joy that fills one’s heart after the birth of a child.
He spoke of his wife, and how “incredibly proud” he is of her. “How any woman does what they do is beyond comprehension,” he said in astonishment.
There was a preciousness there, an awareness of the depth of love that one experiences in the face of a newborn child. Most poignantly, there was profound admiration for his wife, and for mothers at large.
For at the birth of a baby there is also the birth of a mother. It is often a difficult process, as many (if not all) of us mamas know.
“The most difficult part of birth is the first year afterwards…when the soul of a woman must birth the mother inside her,” explains doula Joy Kusek. “The emotional labor pains of becoming a mother…are the growing surges of your heart as it pushes out selfishness and fear and makes room for sacrifice and love. It is a private and silent birth of the soul.”
When such a public and anticipated birth takes place, it should remind all of us that when our babies were born or adopted or fostered, so were we. We were born into motherhood, made anew in love.
For at the birth of a baby there is also the birth of a mother.
Really, in the end, nothing else matters. Outfit choices, financial status, nationality; none of it truly matters. What matters in the end is love.
Whether we hear “IT’S A BOY” from the royal tabloids, or “IT’S A GIRL” from our local friends, it would benefit us to hear whispered in our hearts, “It’s a mother,” and to remember how our own births into motherhood remade our souls in love.
