On the morning of June 5th, 2003, at the same hospital as I was, and in the same way that I was. I laid immobile on the table, as the incision was made and you were pulled from my womb. As you were held up for me to see, I wanted to reach out and grab you as your little arms and legs were flailing. I fell in love at first site. I spent nine months getting to know you, although after about eight of those nine, I was ready for you to take up residence outside of my body. You were a compact fit, lifting your little head up during the day creating a sore spot on my belly. But aside from that, I was just really ready to finally meet you.
I was prepared. I set up your crib next to my bed, filled your pretty bassinet with diapers and a cute blanket, set up your infant carrier in the car, put the wheels on your stroller, put your bounce chair together, put your baby swing together, packed a cute little gown and hat that had little brown babies all over them, and for your ride home, you would wear a snugly bear jumper that was about 2 sizes too big. I wrote a birth plan that expressed my desire to breastfeed you, and my desire for minimal interventions, which my doctors would never see due to all the excitement that morning surrounding your birth. After learning that I had a mass on one of my ovaries during the prep for surgery, the birth plan slipped my mind. So, you were pulled from my womb and taken to the NICU, where you were hooked up to some machines, because you had some fluid in your lungs. My mass, which turned out to be a non-cancerous cist the size of a tennis ball, was removed and I was sent to recovery without you.
I must have bugged the nurses every 5 minutes to see you. They wanted me to wait until I could get up from the bed to come visit you. I just wasn't having that. I wanted my baby. I
needed to see you. So, after relentless pleading, I was taken up to the NICU, in my hospital bed, to see you, and when I could get out of bed, I was wheeled back up in a wheelchair to see you, and that's when we really officially got a chance to meet. They removed some of your hardware and I got to hold you in my arms for the first time that day. I talked to you, I kissed you, I loved you. You were not the chocolate Mahogany (that's what I once wanted to name you) that I thought you'd be. Oh yeah. I just knew that you were gonna look just like me, and have an ebony skin tone just like mine. Instead, you looked just like your dad, and had skin as fair as your great-grandmother's. I looked right past you in the NICU =). But none of that mattered in the end. You were perfect and I was proud.
You got to come down and join me in my room later that day, and we laid together, and I inspected every part of you, finding tiny crevices that the nurses had forgotten to clean, which I brought to their attention. And from that first day, you exuded your strength, refusing to breastfeed. The nurses had given you a pacifier AND a bottle while in the NICU, even though that was not my desire. IT WAS WRITTEN! But they never saw those words because I had forgotten to show them. So, there you were, with nipple confusion, and there I was, crying on the phone to my grandmother, feeling like I'd failed you already and we hadn't even left the hospital yet. You never stayed on as a breastfeeder, and I learned to live with that.
I really can't describe all of my feelings that I had for you that day, except to say that I was truly in love with you and have been every day since.
Love,
Mommy
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