Dear Winnie,
It has been two months. Two months since you officially came into our lives, even though you had already been part of mine for 7 months before your birth date. Everyone has told me I should write stuff down, put it in a baby book, start a journal. You will figure out soon enough I'm terrible at that. Who knows if this will even continue after this post. But tonight, tonight you did something that forced me to start this letter to you. Hopefully I can keep this up, and impart some wisdom to you eventually through it.
This time last year I don't remember what country I was in. Somewhere in Asia I think. Japan or Korea, but really who knows. My life was a whirlwind. I want to be completely honest with you always, and never give you a reason not to trust me when I tell you something. That won't change here. I never thought my life would be anything different than that whirlwind. Photographing all over the world. I had resigned myself to never having a baby, and it would be ok, eve though deep in my heart I think it's all I really did want. I would be in Cambodia, or Africa covering Boko Haram or in Syria covering the female Peshmerga fighters or with the SecDef traveling all over the world. When people would say to me, don't you want kids? Or, well it's different when they are yours, when I was irritated at a restaurant at a screaming kid. Or, there is nothing better than your baby snuggling with you, or smiling at you. My normal reaction usually involved some sort of guttural sound. How could I have known that all those cliches are so true. But it can never be explained to you until you hold your own baby in your arms. I still hate those cliches and I hope I never use them on you. But oh they are so true.
You came into our world, not screaming like all those cliches say, but almost blue with your cord wrapped around your neck and a month early. I got one hand on you before the nicu doctor snatched you away from me. And in that moment I truly knew what worry and terror was. It wasn't the immediate love that so many people talk about, that took longer to develop. I'm ashamed to say it because the mommy shamers out there will put me down for saying I didn't feel that immediate overwhelming love. But for me, it was more terror.
Our first two months have been a hard two months. At first I thought, oh this isn't so bad, you are easy. But that quickly devolved into a red faced screaming hellion that I couldn't make happy. My smiling baby of the first few weeks home disappeared into a miserable baby shooting milk out of her nose like something out of the exorcist, not sleeping for more than an hour at a time, and screaming with nothing able to give her comfort. You stopped looking at me, you stopped smiling, and I feel like a failure.
I should tell you about some of the things we have said and done over the past two months. Like watching you propped on a pillow on the couch on a Friday night making crazy faces as you pooped. How Robin annoys the crap out of us thinking you are her baby. Trying to give you that horrible Zantac medicine that you are an expert at spitting out. Or the fact that you and your father have
farting contests in the middle of the night that sound like a symphony. But I think I have documented
them pretty well in photographs. But tonight, at two months old, you did something that forced me to start writing these things down. After screaming at your Mom-Moms house, screaming the whole ride home, and screaming the whole time I walked and swayed and shushed you until you were calm enough to eat something. You fell off my breast, milk drunk, looked up at me in the dark of the room and smiled with your milk drunk smile at me and grabbed a hold of my finger so tight. My heart simply just exploded. And for one night when you went to sleep I wasn't crying because I couldn't make you happy. I was crying because I don't think in one moment of my life I have ever been happier. And all those cliches people talk about are so true, but really don't due any of it justice.
So yes, who knows where I was this time last year. China, India? I don't really care. Because tonight, I'm sitting here listening to you snore in your swing next to me in the dark. And that's all I really care about.
It has been two months. Two months since you officially came into our lives, even though you had already been part of mine for 7 months before your birth date. Everyone has told me I should write stuff down, put it in a baby book, start a journal. You will figure out soon enough I'm terrible at that. Who knows if this will even continue after this post. But tonight, tonight you did something that forced me to start this letter to you. Hopefully I can keep this up, and impart some wisdom to you eventually through it.
This time last year I don't remember what country I was in. Somewhere in Asia I think. Japan or Korea, but really who knows. My life was a whirlwind. I want to be completely honest with you always, and never give you a reason not to trust me when I tell you something. That won't change here. I never thought my life would be anything different than that whirlwind. Photographing all over the world. I had resigned myself to never having a baby, and it would be ok, eve though deep in my heart I think it's all I really did want. I would be in Cambodia, or Africa covering Boko Haram or in Syria covering the female Peshmerga fighters or with the SecDef traveling all over the world. When people would say to me, don't you want kids? Or, well it's different when they are yours, when I was irritated at a restaurant at a screaming kid. Or, there is nothing better than your baby snuggling with you, or smiling at you. My normal reaction usually involved some sort of guttural sound. How could I have known that all those cliches are so true. But it can never be explained to you until you hold your own baby in your arms. I still hate those cliches and I hope I never use them on you. But oh they are so true.
You came into our world, not screaming like all those cliches say, but almost blue with your cord wrapped around your neck and a month early. I got one hand on you before the nicu doctor snatched you away from me. And in that moment I truly knew what worry and terror was. It wasn't the immediate love that so many people talk about, that took longer to develop. I'm ashamed to say it because the mommy shamers out there will put me down for saying I didn't feel that immediate overwhelming love. But for me, it was more terror.
Our first two months have been a hard two months. At first I thought, oh this isn't so bad, you are easy. But that quickly devolved into a red faced screaming hellion that I couldn't make happy. My smiling baby of the first few weeks home disappeared into a miserable baby shooting milk out of her nose like something out of the exorcist, not sleeping for more than an hour at a time, and screaming with nothing able to give her comfort. You stopped looking at me, you stopped smiling, and I feel like a failure.
I should tell you about some of the things we have said and done over the past two months. Like watching you propped on a pillow on the couch on a Friday night making crazy faces as you pooped. How Robin annoys the crap out of us thinking you are her baby. Trying to give you that horrible Zantac medicine that you are an expert at spitting out. Or the fact that you and your father have
farting contests in the middle of the night that sound like a symphony. But I think I have documented
them pretty well in photographs. But tonight, at two months old, you did something that forced me to start writing these things down. After screaming at your Mom-Moms house, screaming the whole ride home, and screaming the whole time I walked and swayed and shushed you until you were calm enough to eat something. You fell off my breast, milk drunk, looked up at me in the dark of the room and smiled with your milk drunk smile at me and grabbed a hold of my finger so tight. My heart simply just exploded. And for one night when you went to sleep I wasn't crying because I couldn't make you happy. I was crying because I don't think in one moment of my life I have ever been happier. And all those cliches people talk about are so true, but really don't due any of it justice.
So yes, who knows where I was this time last year. China, India? I don't really care. Because tonight, I'm sitting here listening to you snore in your swing next to me in the dark. And that's all I really care about.
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