Dear Ben,
In between family snuggle time and heart-melting brother cuddles, there are tears. From all of us.
There is blood. There are tantrums. There are lost tempers.
There
is a long scar that I don’t like to look at, not because it looks bad,
but because it reminds me of how scared I was right before they cut you
out of me, and how the last thing I remember before I went under was
crying out that it burned. You have a faint, matching line beside your
right eye where the scalpel nicked you, too. I take comfort in the
idea that in some way, we did that part together. There is trauma.
Daddy
draws a diagram of the hospital rooms for me; where I was, where he
was, where they brought you to me. We combine our separate memories to
try to stitch together the story of your birth. My body was there, but
he heard your first cry. Neither of us saw you, but that cry meant you
made it to us, whole and breathing and everything that they told Daddy
not to expect.
When
I woke up, they brought you to me and you were perfect and I asked over
and over if you were ours: I wasn’t there, so I needed them to be sure.
As soon as we got back to our room I saw you looked just like your
brother and then I knew for certain.
We
fiddled with the car seat for half an hour before we got you out of the
hospital. There was no ceremony, no wheelchair, no escort, just a slow
shuffle through the long, empty corridors to get to the car. On the way
home we listened to the music I thought we’d play during your birth, and
Daddy and I held each other’s hands and cried.
I
was scared to take you home because I felt so vulnerable; partly from
being bruised and bloody, and partly from realizing how close we are at
any moment to losing any one of us.
Once
we were home with your brother, it felt better. When we are all
together, I can count our four fragile bodies. I can gather my family
into one bed and feel your skin and measure your heartbeats. I can
breathe you all in and smell breastmilk, grass and dirt, sweat and
laundry detergent. I can try to work out what and where is safe.
In
between caressing your soft, duckling-fuzz hair and arguing with Daddy
over what colour that hair will be, there is grief. In between teaching
you what a kiss is and your brother reading you books he has memorized,
there is gratitude. There is relief.
Love
came easy with you, little Ben, and with it came the deep, dark fear of
knowing that we almost lost you. We are tender and bruised. We are
worried and joyful and sometimes sad. But we’re going to try to let love
be the story.
-Your Mother
photos by Sharalee Prang
