Dear Thomas,
You are now one month old. I'm
writing this with you sprawled out across my lap, sleeping. We've
spent a lot of time, just like this, your first month here on Earth.
If you're not sleeping, you're eating. This is pretty normal,
mundane baby behavior, and I think it's fabulous. I hope to emulate
your schedule one day.
Your start in life was a little
stressful and scary, not that you should feel bad about these things.
I'm sure it's just the way parenthood is: you expect the ordinary
sort of experience, or maybe a slight variation on what is considered textbook and normal, and your kid scares the crap out of you, just because they can. Your first day was a
very long one – I began feeling contractions around four on a
Sunday morning, and you were born nearly twenty four hours later.
Giving birth is absolutely one of the hardest, scariest tasks I've
ever done. In in the middle of it all, I became convinced that I
would be unable to give birth, lost in some sort of limbo
land. Thankfully that didn't happen, and you came with just an hour
and a half of pushing. That was honestly the longest hour and a half
of my life.
When your daddy handed you to me, I felt I was on the edge of something holy, some ancient ritual, joining this infinite line of mothers. Amazingly, I didn't cry – me, who cries over commercials and when
people win stupid reality TV show competitions – but simply touched
your face and started talking to you. We barely had any time together
before your daddy walked you to the nursery, but they promised me
that you we would have you all to ourselves in four hours. There was
no way of knowing that we wouldn't see you again for around twelve
hours, that you would soon be in a helicopter and I would be in a
speeding, screaming ambulance. I will never forget being so hungry,
and tired, and yet just wanting to see you, waiting for those four
hours to be up and for them to bring you back to me. Instead, the doctors
came and told us what they thought was wrong with you, and how we had
to go somewhere else to take care of the problem.
As I rode in the
ambulance, the realization that I had carried you for so many months, and now you were very far away from me, high in the
sky. I felt many things, angry of being robbed of the "normal" post-birth experience, hopeful that you would be safe and well. My heart was like a bowl of emotional gumbo, with joy and fear and hope all stewed together. Of course at that point the only thing I could do was pray,
and pray I did, as Anne Lamott says, “desperate, beggy prayers”
that God would protect you, and that Jesus would be with you in that
helicopter. And Mother Mary, I threw that request in for good
measure. I figured Mother Mary would understand how I felt at this
moment, and would be very tender with you.
And I don't know about you, but imagining Jesus riding in a helicopter, it makes me laugh.
I was never afraid that you wouldn't
be okay. I always knew in my heart that you would be well, that you
had one tiny issue that needed a solution, and then we could move on
with our lives. I believe in the power of focusing on health, not illness, and I refused to dwell on the possibility of anything but complete and utter health for you. There were many, many people praying for you, and I remember telling Auntie Sara, "This is where the rubber meets the road. This is where I choose to have faith, one way or the other." I will never think of you as a sick child. You are
healthy, and strong, and everything I could have dreamed of in a son.
In the hospital, you were surrounded by people who love you - me, and Daddy, who was frantic with worry about you but so strong and loving, and Lovie and Gramps, and Auntie Sara - there was pretty much always someone there to
hold you and sing to you and tell you about how much fun we were
going to have, just as soon as we could get you disconnected from all
those wires. In fact, we were often gently scolded for having more than the approved two visitors by your warmer. We had such a good experience in the hospital, such kind doctors and nurses and lactation consultants. The fact that we were in a teaching hospital, surrounded by faces that looked just as young as your daddy and I, made me feel as though I'd landed into an episode of Grey's Anatomy or Scrubs. I kept expecting J.D. and Turk to slide around the next corner, singing - a tiny fantasy that always made me smile.
I will never forget setting my alarm every three hours that second night, going down to the NICU in my pajamas, just to feed you, and having you all to myself. It wasn't too hard, except for those first few minutes where I longed to hit the snooze and then realized that you were probably HUNGRY, three floors away, and crying - and then I couldn't move fast enough. I remember being the first person to sign into the NICU book early that Wednesday morning. When I would get to your row, my heart would pound so, the jungle drums beating in my ears. There you were: my baby. I was too emotional to sing anything with words to you, so I sang scales, over and over again.
Another thing I never want to forget: pumping out colostrum in my hospital room, and having just the tiniest amount of liquid in the bottom of the bottles. I was afraid to try to transfer this liquid gold, and so your daddy unflinchingly carried those two bottles down to the NICU, without a hint of embarrassment. Then he filled up a a slender syringe with the colostrum, which we fed you, and felt so relieved to know that you were undoubtedly getting all these wonderful nutrients. Let me tell you, him carrying those bottles is one of the most loving things your father has ever done for me, and an expression of how committed he is to this family of ours. Going through that first week of your life with him being so emotionally available and supportive made me fall in love with him all over again. He is such a good daddy to you.
Having you home and beginning the everyday (and night) together has been a lot less stressful and difficult than I expected. I think you're a dreamboat of a first kid, and fairly easy. Of course, at first we struggled with the night and sleeping, but we all get more sleep if you sleep on me, so that's what we do. You are entranced by the thick black shelf over the couch, and will spend a good ten minutes gazing at it, adoringly. We call it "your shelf". You are snuggly and love to be sweet talked. You really hate to have your diaper changed, and can scream like we are the worst parents ever, because we insist that you not sit in your own poop. And speaking of poop, you poop so loudly that it's frightening, but hey, at least we know what you're up to. You eat, all the time, and I'm so thankful that we had such an amazing lactation consultant, who taught me how to breastfeed you with confidence. When you're hungry and I start making motions to feed you, you get this hilarious look on your face like you can't believe it, how wonderful is your life, that you get to drink down this delicious milk. AGAIN.
People had fun warning us, while I was pregnant with you, that our lives would never be the same. While that is true, I truly feel that our lives have changed for the better. I wouldn't trade being without you at this point, not even for eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. If you want to know something crazy, I have a sense of being reborn. I feel like I get to experience life with a fresh pair of eyes. There's so much to look forward to, and this is just the beginning of the adventure.
You are the son of my red star dreams. I love you, all the time.
Love,
Mama
