Sunrise Ruby

I gave birth to Ben.  He was born 7 weeks before his due date, but he entered the world with a strong cry.  My life changed forever.  The nurses attending his birth weighed him and wrapped him and gave him to me to hold for the briefest of moments before he was whisked away to NICU.  The next 16 days were the most agonizing of my life.  I ached to hold my son, to bring him home with me when I left the hospital.  For his future, for his health and well-being, I felt greater fear than I have ever known.  I couldn’t stop crying.  I could barely eat or sleep or speak.  The nurses told me that in 2 years, no one would ever know that he was a preemie, that he would be “caught up”.  They couldn’t have known how it felt.  To hear those words.  To hold your first child attached to so many cords and dinging monitors, to come home to his empty room.

But you know, they were right.  My son, our firstborn, is the light of our lives.  And a light in the lives of many others, too.  He runs.  He jumps (with both feet off the ground now!).  He knows many of his letters and numbers already.  He gives hugs and kisses.  He says the word “eyeballs” out of the blue, and then bursts into the kind of unabashedly delicious laughter that for some reason we only indulge in when we’re 2.

Two years ago today I became someone’s mother.  My sweet Ben.  I’m so happy you chose me.