That's how the song goes, right?
You are fifty-one days old because you arrived fifty-one days early, but you are also zero days old. Your "adjusted age" starts at day one, now, and we will no longer refer to you by your gestational age when talking to your doctors. From now on, we get to watch you develop like a "regular" newborn. You'll be picking up new behaviors quickly, I'm looking forward to when you start to coo.
You spent twenty-eight of those fifty-one days away from home, tucked into an isolette. We were going to share a birth month, but now you share your dad's birth month within two days of each other. He's pretty stoked about joint birthday parties. Because of course he is.
The moment you were born, when they lifted you up for us to see, my first feeling was relief that you'd finally get what you needed to grow and the second feeling was utter dismay at how small you were and knowing you'd be away from us for a while. Your first lullaby was me very quietly singing "All My Lovin" by the Beatles in the NICU with you. If you know the words, you know why it came to mind in that moment as the right song. Oh, and as a side note, "You'll Be In My Heart" from Disney's Tarzan will absolutely destroy a NICU mom's heartstrings. Do not recommend.
You're still small, but now you have cheeks and arm rolls and round thighs and a full tummy. Now when I look at you, there is no dismay. Instead, it is a mix of joy and pride and wonder.
Today, you are squalling on the change table all nakey and mad as I switch your outfit. During all of this, I like to imagine that you look like you would have had I experienced a typical pregnancy and delivered you sometime this week. And holy smokes, you're cute. You would have stolen the air out of the room if we were just meeting you today. The nurses would have given you the Most Ridiculously Adorable Baby of the Day award. This coming from your mother, so take it with a grain of salt (but for real, you're unreasonably cute, have you SEEN yourself?).
In another reality, one that I will likely always mourn a little, I would have carried you to this time. I would have been dying with anticipation, aching with late pregnancy pains, and vibrating with excitement. Hunter and I would be on hyper vigilant baby watch. My doula would be giving me ideas for how to stay comfortable-ish. I'd be big and pregnant and hopeful with my equally pregnant best friend and sister like we all three thought we would be at this time. My mom would be texting every morning to ask "Baby time?!"
We would have had your baby shower as planned. We would have marveled at how huge my tummy had gotten and watched you struggling to find space all folded up inside. We would have started a betting pool for your length, weight and due date. I would have gone to every doctor's appointment crossing fingers that I was starting to show signs of early labor.
Maybe as we waited through those first contractions before going to the hospital I would be furiously reorganizing your room for the tenth time. Or maybe we'd be watching movies while I bounced on my yoga ball. Or maybe we'd be taking a slow walk around the block for the third time that day to Penny's delight. Or maybe I'd be like my sister and labor would come on like a freight train and you would hardly give us time to settle in the delivery room before you arrived.
I would have had time to prep my teaching sub. I would have had time to do a proper hand off for my students... who were rooting for you to be named Karl with a K, by the way.
Instead of all of that, I developed a puzzling case of preeclampsia with no common risk factors predicting its possible arrival. And with that, the one place in the world that was supposed to be safest for you, the one safe place any mom is proud to provide for her growing baby, was no longer safe. I don't think I feel guilty about that so much as I sometimes feel angry that my body went off the rails and caused so much heartache.
It's also incredibly frustrating that there's no easy explanation for my preeclampsia. I was being such a good pregnant lady! I was eating well and exercising and taking my vitamins. I was doing all of the things you're supposed to. How come that wasn't enough?
Preeclampsia just happened.
There is yet another reality in which one of us or both of us could have gotten seriously hurt or worse. How macabre to think that what did happen to us was the happy medium.
One of my most conflicted thoughts has to do with loving so much that I have gotten to hold you and see you and watch you grow for the last seven weeks, but wishing at the same time that you hadn't come so early.
It was hard. It was so hard to get through those weeks. Watching you grow was amazing, and you were so incredibly determined to blow everyone's expectations out of the water, and Hunter and I have learned valuable lessons and proven what we're made of....but I'd still take a do-over in which we go full term. And I feel really bad about that sometimes. You are absolutely worth what we did experience. It's not that. I think the grief of everything was just too much. I would have really liked to begin motherhood without so much of that.
It has taken me an entire day to write this post. I started at 4am and have been thinking about how today feels ever since then. Today feels a little raw. And it feels like a proud moment. And it feels like a celebration. And it feels like a somber acknowledgement.
Today, you stay awake a little longer after eating and you look around. You study faces for a few seconds before letting your eyes drift away again. You listen to our voices reading you books and you like when even just a hand is laying on you. You know when you're the only one in the room while you're still awake and give a squawk to say "Hey, I need company!" If you are crying, you calm instantly when you are held tight against our chests. You chew and suck on your thumbs, lick anything that brushes against your mouth (so many damp swaddles) and when you're stretching, you often blow a raspberry.
You are perfect and infinitely loved. You are our adventure baby, our whirlwind beginning to parenthood. You are fifty-one days old, and zero days old.