27 Bound Together

From five months back:
Somehow my triplets playing together this morning evoked a reenactment of my pregnancy experience. Last night before bed they were playing with the wooden step stools that have wooden cutouts of their names. After I put the girls in their cribs I cleaned up all the letters and spelled each girl's name as I placed it in their individual step stool. In the morning each girl wiggled out of my arms even before I could place her on the changing table. Diapers heavy they scrambled to the stools next to each crib and began working like bumble bees, buzz buzz buzzing. While they occupied themselves playing I layed my tired self down on the twin bed in their room and watched. Suddenly the letters for all three names were in one big pile on the zebra rug. I felt them all jumbled, as if the girls were symbolically showing me that they are one interconnected unit. My womb recalled the feeling of holding all three bodies within, feeling them entangled in my tummy dormitory.

The Torah teaches that in the beginning the world was created with word. God decided to create this world and formed it with words. Words formed with letters. These letters, the English spelling of Hebrew names, formed my children: Hallel, Emunah and Noam. We only chose the names after they were born. I matched the names to the identity of their souls. Until they were born I had only seen and heard their bodies through ultrasound images. You may not understand this, but I had known their souls for so much longer since they appeared to me in a vision years earlier. And I talked to them and told them that I was ready for them, waiting for them, creating a safe place for them, keeping them safe, giving them everything they needed to grow into healthy babies including and most especially deep love.

The letters tossed around in this womb of a pile on the nursery floor spell three words that are in the language of prayer – both the Hebrew language and the words in Jewish liturgy. Hebrew names born of spiritual DNA. Hallel means praise, the expression of gratitude I felt when a live baby came forth from my womb. The sound of song that we had passed each of the crucial points in the formation of these triplets. Hallel-uyah! She is here, her first inhale embodying the sweet soul who was meant to join our family. Emunah means faith, the trust that we grasped while monitoring the baby who appeared much smaller than her triplet siblings, the little one who was already fighting for her share of nutrients. She was actually born the same size as her younger sister yet an irregular heartbeat would immediately confirm that she is the soul who would instruct us in faith. Amen (meaning “I believe and affirm” ) comes from the same Hebrew root as Emunah. Yes, she affirms our faith with her resilience!Noam means beauty, the kind of gorgeous pleasantness that inspires a deep breath. Finally an exhale, my exhale, my husband's exale, the our parents, siblings, friends, doctors everyone in our world finally smiling and crying and breathing because our three babies, three girls, are alive, breathing on their own, safely outside my womb.

In the last 17 months I have witnessed these tiny babies grow from a total of 9 pounds 14 ounces to a total of 65 pounds. I've spent nearly every second of their lives with them, my sweet souls. I nursed them. I pureed their organic food. I introduced nutritious eating. I nourished their growth. They are fraternal, and they each have different hair colors, different eye colors, and different builds. Their voices are different, their smiles different, their developmental milestones different. I can identify them by the touch of their skin, the feel of their fingers, their bite and the smell of their diapers. They certainly are individual souls in unique bodies. And yet, by mixing up their letters they reminded me that they are a unit. They affirmed my experience of holding them within me and guarding their lives quite literally with my life. Their souls are bound together and they only know life in the context and presence, breath and feel of the triplet unit. Today they reminded me of the blessing of being bound up together from the beginning, not only their three souls, but mine too.

Written in the deep of December 2009 © Heather Altman

Three reasons that I'm publishing previously written material today: 1) convo w/ friend reminded me that my biggest baby was 26 pounds at her last visit; today=26th day of the omer. Assuming that she has gained a pound, she now fits in with tonight's/today's number. 2)Now I watch the girls hold hands and dance in a circle together. What a sight that is, them interacting so deliberately. 3) Realized that I'm can't write fresh tonight, decided it would be better to share one of my favorite pieces, one of my first articulate essays that built some confidence for the OOCC project.


Today is the 27th day of the Omer, which is 3 weeks and 6 days.

Re-counting is a spiritual practice. Especially in challenging times, remember back to past lessons and moments of meaning.