too thoughtful

On the hard days I sometimes forget how far I've come since Mikey's birth.

I find myself regressing to the same state I was in soon after bringing him home; frustrated, angry, desperate. On the hard days I think and wonder why on earth I laughed when the NICU nurses described my tiny, delicate, baggy-skinned 4lb newborn as "rabid" (true story). I wonder why God thought fit to give me such a difficult child.

Of course after I have put him down to sleep for the first time in the evening, I have those 2 hours of peace before the next waking, I sit comfortably with a nice cup of tea (PG Tips, milk and sugar. You can take the girl out of England....) and I realise.

I remember being pregnant, how much he would wriggle and kick inside my tummy. His personality was showing even before his birth. I remember the very first time we heard his little heart beating.

I remember the heartache of his premature birth, holding him for those minutes after his birth before he was taken away to the NICU. Being so disoriented and not holding him again until a few days later, being told that he had stopped breathing on his first night and that i wasn't there for him, wondering why nobody had come to get me. I remember holding strong, going to see him every day even though I couldn't bear to see him like that, with the wires and tubes. The times he stopped breathing and his heart rate dropped while I was feeding him. Holding him against my bare skin while he slept in the hope that it would speed his recovery. Having to be strong because I couldn't afford to fall apart. Falling apart anyway on some nights and having my husband there to comfort me despite his own worries.

I remember having to pump breastmilk for him, being attached to a machine every 1 - 3 hours, storing it in little bottles in the freezer and packing it up to take to the hospital for him. Feeding him with a syringe and tube through his nose on the days where he was too tired to eat. Having to pump breastmilk for the month he was in the hospital and then the 3 - 4 months after because I could not get him to breastfeed.

Then the joy of him finally getting the hang of it. Laying in bed with the sun shining through the windows. The joy of watching him grow and get stronger every single day due to my efforts. Growing into the little man that he is now, who likes to play with books and lightswitches, climbs furniture and crawls faster than anything I've ever seen but does not like to eat mashed potato or to have me out of his sight. Who likes to splash me with his bathwater, show me things he has found on the floor (and then attempt to eat them) but who does not like loud noises, scratchy tags or having to sit still for longer than a minute.

He has taught me more than my 15 years of schooling, more than my adventures, travelling and experimenting. More than all the books I have ever read or people I have ever spoken to.

He is only a year and a half old, the hard days are but nothing in the grand scheme of his life. But they do seem so very hard right now.