Confession
Bella has not been in my camera's limelight much since she started healing. My eyes are drawn to the new imperfections on her face, tiny little craters still red where the scabs once were. My perfect baby girl has scars on her face. Once again I feel overly protective - she should be too young for this - and simultaneously foolish that a few scars should matter so much to me.
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For the first time in her entire life, Dave and I are putting Bella to bed and letting her fall asleep alone. I'm starting up my photography business and need the time to work, and as adults, Dave and I just need the space. The routine this week has been a half hour of cuddles and stories and listening to us chat about our days. Then a kiss, and off we go.
Thirty seconds of crying feels like an eternity to me. Common sense tells me it's practically nothing. She's too distracted to fall asleep with me by her side anymore, but I don't want her to think I've deserted her. When I'm ready for bed, I tuck in beside her, give her a kiss, tell her I love her, and fall asleep to the rhythm of her breath.
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Tonight was my chance to catch up on my much neglected google reader. As I started chipping away at the 400 some odd posts, I came to a photographer's blog that I follow, reading it in reverse as I caught up. But it didn't make sense. I didn't recognize it. Whose blog was this? And then as I scrolled down someone sucked all the air out of the room. No, no, no. In all those days I was away, her beautiful baby boy had died.
I was struggling through Christmas and family and scholarships and chicken pox and websites and collectors calling and a winter without snow. And she said goodbye to her youngest boy. Her sweet little two month old caught pertussis and died.
I couldn't help but cry as I caught up on her life, feeling guilty to have missed it, feeling now like chicken pox was a walk in the park and unemployment was a gift. Suddenly it felt like my baby had died and my own world had been turned upside down. The internet is a funny place, that way. Motherhood is a funny thing, that way.
~~~~
Events like this break into that primal motherhood fear - the knowledge that, try as we might, there is only so much we can do to protect our babies. That everything is okay until suddenly it isn't anymore. I can't help but succumb to this feeling, crying for mamas everywhere, and for a moment I'm reminded why my voice cracks every time I try to sing the second verse of You Are My Sunshine. I have had to wake up without a baby in my belly; never once since Bella was born have I woken up without her. It's unfathomable.
Yet, there I was, reveling in the fact that my baby (now sporting scars as testament to how sick she was just two weeks ago) had gone to sleep with a teddy that night - relieved that I might get four months to reclaim my life before I give it away again. And this mama would give anything to see her baby's brand new smile again, to kiss him on the forehead one last time.
~~~~
My tears change to sad, guilty tears of relief as I sneak away to check on my own baby, to crawl in beside her to feel her warm soft cheeks, fluttery eyelashes, wiggly toes and sleep whimpers. Yet this mama's story has ripped me raw again and it's a long sleepless night as my heart keens for her. Bella inches closer to me in her sleep to grab onto my arm, knowing finally I'm there to replace her teddy. Instead of repositioning her back into her crib, tonight I don't mind sleeping like a sardine. Tonight the kicks will come from inside and out, and one night's lost sleep doesn't seem so bad.
~~~~
For the first time in her entire life, Dave and I are putting Bella to bed and letting her fall asleep alone. I'm starting up my photography business and need the time to work, and as adults, Dave and I just need the space. The routine this week has been a half hour of cuddles and stories and listening to us chat about our days. Then a kiss, and off we go.
Thirty seconds of crying feels like an eternity to me. Common sense tells me it's practically nothing. She's too distracted to fall asleep with me by her side anymore, but I don't want her to think I've deserted her. When I'm ready for bed, I tuck in beside her, give her a kiss, tell her I love her, and fall asleep to the rhythm of her breath.
~~~~
Tonight was my chance to catch up on my much neglected google reader. As I started chipping away at the 400 some odd posts, I came to a photographer's blog that I follow, reading it in reverse as I caught up. But it didn't make sense. I didn't recognize it. Whose blog was this? And then as I scrolled down someone sucked all the air out of the room. No, no, no. In all those days I was away, her beautiful baby boy had died.
I was struggling through Christmas and family and scholarships and chicken pox and websites and collectors calling and a winter without snow. And she said goodbye to her youngest boy. Her sweet little two month old caught pertussis and died.
I couldn't help but cry as I caught up on her life, feeling guilty to have missed it, feeling now like chicken pox was a walk in the park and unemployment was a gift. Suddenly it felt like my baby had died and my own world had been turned upside down. The internet is a funny place, that way. Motherhood is a funny thing, that way.
~~~~
Events like this break into that primal motherhood fear - the knowledge that, try as we might, there is only so much we can do to protect our babies. That everything is okay until suddenly it isn't anymore. I can't help but succumb to this feeling, crying for mamas everywhere, and for a moment I'm reminded why my voice cracks every time I try to sing the second verse of You Are My Sunshine. I have had to wake up without a baby in my belly; never once since Bella was born have I woken up without her. It's unfathomable.
Yet, there I was, reveling in the fact that my baby (now sporting scars as testament to how sick she was just two weeks ago) had gone to sleep with a teddy that night - relieved that I might get four months to reclaim my life before I give it away again. And this mama would give anything to see her baby's brand new smile again, to kiss him on the forehead one last time.
~~~~
My tears change to sad, guilty tears of relief as I sneak away to check on my own baby, to crawl in beside her to feel her warm soft cheeks, fluttery eyelashes, wiggly toes and sleep whimpers. Yet this mama's story has ripped me raw again and it's a long sleepless night as my heart keens for her. Bella inches closer to me in her sleep to grab onto my arm, knowing finally I'm there to replace her teddy. Instead of repositioning her back into her crib, tonight I don't mind sleeping like a sardine. Tonight the kicks will come from inside and out, and one night's lost sleep doesn't seem so bad.
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2 comments:
Oh, that's heartwrenching. And really, how could they have prevented it? They don't even give vaccinations for pertussis before 2 months. Thank you for not linking to the blog, because I would have gone to read it, and I don't want to. I can't even read novels in which children (or mothers) die, and I have avoided some very good (so I hear) memoirs because I just can't.
I've always been a sucker at nighttime. I didn't manage to get the first kid out of the bed before the second came along, and I remember knitting in the half dark while keeping a preschooler company while he fell asleep. I wonder if I have primal, subconscious memories of crying it out in a crib, all alone?
I followed her story from the time he got sick. It was at our local hospital. The one my baby was at just a year ago. And I walked out with her in my arms. But my heart breaks for this other mama and have cuddled my own little one extra close.
{{{hugs}}}
p.s. I found your blog it was linked in one of your photos. (segolily at flickr)
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