It's a boy!
I heard him cry!
He was here. He was healthy.
I spent that first year in disbelief that I could ever have made something so utterly perfect.He was magic. My baby.
He was mine; I, his.
Those late nights breastfeeding him in the nursery,
felt like only him and I existed in the world.
Safe, together, learning each other.
We fell in love.
He has always had the most tender heart.
He is so perceptive.
Sensitive to the energy of others.
Cautious.
Curious.
Clever.
Radiant.
He has a belly laugh that is contagious.
One I listen to over and over again when I look back at old videos after they go to sleep.
One I try still to coax out of him when he is in the right mood.
There is this unspoken sigh that comes when you have a healthy baby.
The countless times I have told other women,
“it’s the biggest lottery we could ever win, having a healthy baby”.
I knew I had won it, twice.
Once with him, again with his brother.
How lucky can one woman be.
Then a limp turns into a check up, turns into nothing, turns into something.
For a while, the world stands still.
The pit in your stomach forms.
I did win the lottery with this boy, my boy, but perhaps not in the way I once thought.
Everything shifts.
There will be challenges ahead.
There will be struggle.
There will be pain.
But I am his leader. The mother who rocked and nursed him.
The mother who spent her days jumping up and down, fake sneezing, talking in a silly voice, making his stuffies dance and talk, all to make him laugh.
It is now my job to also lead him through uncertainty.
It is my responsibility to comfort him when he falls.
I am tasked with finding a way to help educate him in a way that is honest, but not scary.
It is terrifying.
I know I will fumble,
but then again,
I know I can manage too.
I don’t want to face this. Not one bit.
But I will.
I would do anything for him;
Anything at all!
We will take it one day at a time.
One new challenge at a time.
Looking ahead only enough to plan and gauge what needs to happen when.
He is not and will not ever be a label, a diagnosis.
He is still my sweet baby.
Perhaps even more magical now.
Bright, brave, bold and beautiful.
A heart of gold.
An imagination that will lead him to daring new places.
A boy so clever, he compensates in creative and ingenious ways.
I wonder now, if he already has everything it takes to weather this storm.
He always did. Maybe he always knew.
I wonder,
although I am his mother,
who is leading who.
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