« Loaf, baked! | Main | PS »
December 24, 2007
A letter to my boy - one month old
Darling boy
I knew I would love you. I started loving you long before you were born. What I couldn't have prepared for was the tidal wave of love that consumed me, that tilted my universe on a new axis the moment you were born and were laid naked on my chest. I'm awed by the instincts hard-wired in you. Your hunger, opening your mouth and searching for a breast like a hungry baby bird hoping for a worm – less than one hour old you knew what you had to do.
You are growing so fast. Every day you change. By the end of your first week you had lost your umbilical stump and had a tummy-button all of your own. Your eyes opened a little more against the light each day. Now, you are starting to hold your gaze. Yesterday, for the first time we looked into each other's eyes. I couldn't think of anything else to say, but 'Hello'.
You are a good, quiet, patient baby. On the maternity ward, I heard other newborn babies scream and squawk – we didn't hear that from you. Instead we heard contented sighs and mews, a low-decibel complaint when you were uncomfortable. The only thing that makes you really exercise those little lungs is a change of nappy, and the occasional bouts of tummy ache that can ruin your enjoyment of an evening. But when you are comfortable you are happy to lie on your back looking at your book – black and yellow cloth pages of a car, a train, a star, a flower.
When you were eight days old, the midwife was worried about your jaundice and took us back to the hospital for blood tests. Your levels were high for someone born at 37-ish weeks gestation. What followed was 24 hours back in hospital, you lying naked under UV lights, me struggling to express breast milk for every feed between changing the sheets of your crib every (or so it seemed) few minutes. It was the most physically gruelling night I've ever spent. But just as, during your first night when I thought you were choking on spit-up and leapt to my feet despite a brand new abdominal scar, there was never a question of what I would do for you. When you were minutes old, I promised to look after you to the very best I can, and I meant it.
It's been a month of firsts: our first days as parents – first nappy changes, a first vaccination, first walk in the park, first real tears, first bath. You've bathed with me and with Daddy, and I've even once bathed you all by myself; I felt clumsy and overwhelmed (again) by the complexity of the operation. How to arrange the towel so as to receive you into it and keep you from getting cold, while not ever letting go of the back of your head. The next time will be easier. We've spent whole days together, just you and me, and I'm still getting used to how time consuming you are. To get out of the house, I need to start getting us ready more than an hour in advance.
Thank goodness we adore you. Thank goodness parents love their babies, else we'd probably leave them on doorsteps. Compelling, frustrating, all-consuming, you have us on the edge of delirium with lack of sleep, dizzy with pride at what we have created, bursting with a ferocity of love.
It's Christmas Eve and you're one month old. I've cried that you are already outgrowing your 'newborn' sized clothes. You no longer look like an old man, but like a little boy with a cowlick in his hair. Thank you for picking us as your family, little boy. I'll write again next month.
Love.
Posted by Anna at December 24, 2007 08:34 PM