April 13, 2011
Dear Scarlette,
Yesterday we drove home from the hospital with you in the car. I had played that moment in my head when I was pregnant and never did I imagine that while I had the setting right, I had the timing all wrong. You were five months and five days old yesterday. The first time we drove home from the hospital, you stayed behind in a little incubated box. We fought our tears and you fought to live.
As I type this you are lying next to me. We had picked out the cutest basinette for you but instead you are in this special sleeper that helps you not to choke in the night. I fretted over that bassinette, over fabric and softness, over cost and coordination with our curtains. I’ve never seen anything more beautiful than you lying in this contraption of mesh and cotton, breathing.
One day motherhood might not be like this for me. One day you’re going to roll your eyes at me and draw out the word Mother into three syllables and I will throw up my hands in exasperation. And I might forget to be grateful that you are here to do these things, rolling your eyes and breathing.
But right now you keep me up all night, with your adjusted age being so like that of a newborn and I am sleepless and showerless and kept awake by the sound of the drip, drip, drip of your feeding pump. I’d be awake without the pump, though, listening and marveling at the other sound, the sound of you, here, breathing.
To say today was good would be an understatement, Scarlette. Today was hard. Your care? It’s intense. Your mother? She’s exhausted. But today? Today was amazing. You smiled at us today. You smiled at the nurse that comes to see you in our house and she was pretty impressed with you too. The first time you did that was on Sunday, when your daddy jingled your favorite lady bug toy at you. You smiled over and over again and it was the first time we knew for sure that you were smiling in response to stimulation. That was on April 10, by the way. Note to self: put that in the as-of-yet-still-non-existant baby book.
That’s what this is, in case you were wondering. The start of legacy of letters to chronicle your first year with us. I can't wait to get to know you more.
I love you, little girl. And I love having you home.
Love,
Mommy
