5 thoughts on having 5 kids
/// multitudinous mothering entity /// A mother who moves through the world and navigates spaces while attached to or in close, physical proximity of her children. Italicized words expanded on in the Glossary.
seed prompt + photo essay
5 thoughts on having 5 kids
by Mother Mother Binahkaye Joy
It’s been 5 weeks since my 5th baby arrived earthside. Numbers are magical to me and I tend to reflect on things in numerical patterns. In this moment I am experimenting with a shortform writing practice: draft 5 reflections about what mothering 5 people has revealed to me so far, and take no more than 5 minutes on each passage.
I have paired this writing experiment with a short photo essay. These images are stills from videos of my morning dance communions in my birthing altar (my room) when I was sitting with possibilities with Luminous Glory, my fifth baby. I love being naked, dancing naked, and studying my naked self as I am. Both in the moment of moving in my unadorned body, and in the post-dance witnessing and archiving of the movements, I am able to feel and see myself in a deeply raw and satisfying way.
#1 The memory of being loved is not the same thing as feeling loved.
My older children are all trying to find their new way of connecting one-on-one with Mommy. These early weeks have been a whirlwind of vibrant feelings in every direction. Joy, disappointment, sadness, loneliness, excitement, happiness, eagerness, anxiety, anger, despair, hope, gratitude. They have all said multiple times, that their new baby sister is getting all the attention. When I remind them that this is what it was like for them too once upon a time when they were the baby, they believe me, but it doesn’t soothe what they are craving in the moment. Knowing that I held their newborn selves just as close, and that they went with me everywhere— it doesn’t settle the quivering in their heart that maybe there’s not enough space for them anymore.
It helps that they are now a big enough group to be in that particular heartache together. Something beautiful emerging is that they’re each showing me what love feels like for them now, in our spontaneous moments, usually when baby is sleeping, and when they can be with me. Reading the same book that brings lots of tickles and giggles. Having a talk about something no one else knows about. Dancing to a favorite song over and over. Secretly being the one who chooses what’s for dinner. Stringing yo-yos together and testing out spin techniques. Eating upstairs with Mommy while the others have to eat downstairs. Staying up late or getting up early to help Mommy with the baby. I am learning.
#2 If there’s not enough support, then you can’t sleep when the baby sleeps.
I already knew this. I’ve never been able to sleep when baby sleeps, but I always attempt it. When I think of why I can’t sleep when baby sleeps, the main reason is because that’s also when I’m tending to my other munchkins, or cooking, or working on something, or, as is the reality some days, breathing through the hemorrhoids situation while using the facilities. I don’t sleep when the baby sleeps because no one will do what I am doing if I rest. And if children are hungry or in need of a precious moment with Mommy, there’s not going to be any rest happening. Since ample rest as a multitudinous mothering entity is not accessible without ample support, I have chosen instead to move very slowly through my day. Slowness is the most rest I can feel. If magically a circle of loving mamas come over—all at the same time— to hold space with munchkins and bring food THAT DOES NOT HAVE TO BE COOKED (okaaaaaay!) and distribute snacks galore every hour, maybe I will take a real shower and a long juicy nap!
#3 I know very few mothers with as many children as I have.
When my grandmother birthed her 5 children, that was not called having “a lot” of kids, but in today’s moment, in this country, it is seen and treated as so many. And the spaces to be out in the world have grown so small if you need to move around as a large group like we do. Places, and programs are generally sized for 2 kids, maybe 3. I’m curious how it will feel to navigate public spaces with all my children. Some people will marvel at us, will celebrate us. Some people will stare in disbelief. Some people will question and assume and judge, especially when they don’t see a ring on my finger. Others will proclaim fervently, with equal parts awe and terror, “BETTER YOU THAN ME, MY LORD!”
#4 Each birth has been both sweeter and harder than the one before.
Luminous Glory is my first baby that I birthed in my 40s. In many ways the journey was more gentle, as I’ve evolved my birthing intelligence with each birth. All my births have grown me, stretched me, the births the world could see, and also the births that were unseen. The recovery has been slower, or maybe I’ve learned how to go slower. The intensity of the birthing sensations in my body was unlike any other birth. That is something I haven’t yet said aloud. When I’m in the depths of labor, I don’t use the word “pain” to describe contractions. It doesn’t help me breathe with the waves. But for the afterbirth contractions, I did call them pain. They were just as strong as the strongest contractions when I was in the thickest part of labor. They wracked so turbulently through my body for several days after she was born. I struggled to access my deep, calming breaths, like I had been able to do when Luminous Glory was dropping down into the birth canal, coming forward into life with every brilliant wave. Now those same contractions tore through me in long, fitful torrents. As each mighty, afterbirth signal swelled within, and seemed to take over my whole body, I remembered tenderly, reverently, that I am older now. That my blood and bones hold many more stories now. That, for my blessed, courageous womb, this one birth is a reliving, a retelling, of every other birth, and all at the same time.
#5 This is the community I always said I would birth.
Years before there were any visible children to make me a mother in the world’s eyes, I was seeing a bright bunch of chocolate-brown babies in my dreams and in my heart, and seeing them as mine. Everything I did was always with them in mind. And now they are here. There is a part of me that falls down at the feet of my inner knowing every time I think of how much doubt I had to labor alongside of to get them here. There was no pillowy ride, coasting along with delight, and trust, and unwavering belief in the certainty of life. No, it was a relentless trek to a well called faith, a well that had to be replenished daily. It was a lot of prayers and fears tangling messily together. It was lying wide awake in the quiet, dark night as plenty of ugly, scary scenes swarmed all around. It was a garden of spiritual communions, rituals, and practices. It was the dancing, and the sunrise, and the mothers, ancestral and otherwise, circling around me, surrounding me with love. It was the dreaming, always the dreaming, and learning how to dream out loud. There is immense and absolute gratitude, for all of this, and also in some parts of my spirit, my body, there is immense weariness. I am just beginning to thread the words of it all. I am just beginning to be able to look back and see it all in one sweeping, daring arc of time.
