4 Months Old And Counting!

Today our sweet little bug is 4 months! It's so hard to believe that its been only/already 4 months. It feels like years passing in a blink of an eye. Very fast and very slow at the same time. What can I say but that he holds our hearts in a very special way. I love him. And you know, I really feel that it's a stronger love then what a mother has for a normal baby that is born to her. Usually, once you see your brand-new baby, you have no choice but to give your heart to this little creature that was and is a part of you. I remember that vividly from when Nika was born, as if the whole world zeroed in on her tiny face, and nothing else mattered. When Leo was born, he arrived on the crest of a wave bearing all kinds of pain, heartbreak and fear. Also drugs. The c-section was so rough and intense that they filled me with a medley of narcotics. I'm one of those folks who doesn't even take sudafed and here I was stuffed to the gills with chemicals. I was so loopy that even the OR team was doing double takes. Ask my nurse, they were quoting me around the ward for the rest of the night. I didn't get to even see Leo for awhile, and honestly it was as if I even forgot that I had a baby, I was in such a state. When I did finally get to see him, I didn't even know what he was. A strange homeless alien perhaps? I didn't or couldn't feel any kind of emotion. I remember holding him while they were monitoring me, and watching his oxygen stats going down. They were around 50. (Regular oxy stats should be in the 90-100.) I remember wondering why everyone around me was so sad and worried? All I was worried about was my next batch of ice chips. Anyway the point of the story is, that in the beginning, I didn't love Leo with that momma bear love, it was more like every day that I knew him, I was able to love him a little bit more. Even before his shunt, when we were watching his head get bigger and more scary, I felt him chipping away at the locks on my heart. No I did not love him right away, sometimes I felt angry and mad at him for being born so wrong and different. Sometimes I sided with the docs who were only looking at him like a medical curiosity. Every feeling and miserable thought that could be imagined I had. However, slowly, steadily, and powerfully, he melted all my defenses, all my safe-guards, and moved into my soul. I don't love him like a protective mama bear love, a love that is controlling and instinctual, but by one that is free of any expectations, constraints or guilt. In other words, its free. It's sounds crazy, I know, that a terminally ill baby could make you free? But it's true, I didn't "have to" love him; I didn't even have to take him home with us! But the one thing I am certain of, after 4 months with Leo, is that I choose to love him, and it's the best thing in this whole blasted world. Merry Christmas buddy, and though you don't always get what you think you want for Christmas, it all makes sense in the end.

Here are some of my favorite Leo expressions...