unfamiliar faces in unfamiliar places

If baby Tom, Phoebe and Amelie, who were all born to people dear to me in the past week, were to be told of the life before them they wouldn't believe it. Would you? Even now?

It is a huge adventure into uchartered territory and I really think that 'journey' is the best word to use for it. I know its a cliche but nothing else will do. If you think of a better word to describe life, please let me know. Life is a journey of a very specific kind. It starts somewhere we don't remember and for privileged people it ends somewhere we can't predict. For people living in deprivation it can be all too predictable. But the emotional and psychological journey of our inner lives is the really interesting bit for me. What the outcome of these inner journeys of discovery might be is less certain. We are all unique and we all respond entirely differently to our birth, our life experience and our death.

Tom, Phoebe and Amelie,( in no particular order) are so, so perfect. I don't mean only physically, all babies are perfect, whatever their illnesses or physical problems. I don't mean 'faultless', I mean 'complete'. They are born complete. God knows who they are, and they don't think it matters. They don't know what has happened, why things are different, where they have come from or where they are going. They don't know what is past, or present or future. What alien land do we arrive in when we leave our mother's wombs? These babies have all been born into good natal units in comparatively well-funded hospitals, they have mothers with maternity nurses and great midwives, pain control and support throughout their pregnancy. They have home visits and are nourished enough to produce their own milk. They have food, safe houses and they have been born into prosperity and peace in a temperate climate in a country relatively free of natural disaster or famine.

But this won't protect them from their own journeys. Their lives on earth should, statistically be long and healthy compared to people grown in poverty, but they will still be human. They will be sentient beings, they will experience compassion and joy, creativity, imagination and play, they will love and laugh and they will face trials and hard times as they learn to live fully. Just like you and just like me, just like our parents and our siblings they are learning to live fully.

What is so hard to comprehend is that they are born 'complete', with their microscopic eyelashes and fingernails and their craving for milk. They are so human and precious. They have everything to teach us about hope and about living in the present with trust. What can we teach them? They remember what we have forgotten. That life is unpredictable, that we have come from somewhere unseen and unknown and incomprehensible. That we are miracles. That we are torn from the comfort of the womb. That one by one and God smiles and celebrates and lets us go. There are so many other types of 'births' afterwards as we continue to seek nourishment for survival. There are many movements from one safe, dark space to a light open dangerous territory. In both places we depend upon the love of others to nurse us into freedom and independence again.

We have already named these children, they already belong to this society, they are English and Welsh, they have blood relatives, they have been labelled 'Boy' and 'Girl' and been showered with pink and blue cards and presents. They have no idea why, they have no idea what this will mean for them. Their paths are mapped quite carefully already, but one day these paths will take unexpected turns for them and they will find themselves in unfamiliar places. Just like me, and just like you.