10/01/17

Lily,

In two days time your little brother will be with us so before we all embark on our new adventure I just wanted to write you a little note.

Almost four years ago I was in a very similar situation as the one we are going to find ourselves this week – waiting for you to arrive and not knowing what the future was going to bring.  I lay there in my hospital bed hooked up to a heartbeat monitor willing your beats to become faster, having no idea that you would be with us so soon.  Fast forwards 12 hours or so and at 4:59pm on Thursday 7th February 2013 you “popped” out of my tummy 10 weeks early and weighing a tiny 2lb 70z.  You were a dot.  The first photograph I have of you is of you wrapped in a plastic bag (literally) which was to help keep you warm but really only succeeded in making you look like a scrawny kitten.  The midwives stopped briefly as you were wheeled away and into the ICU but because you were so poorly and I had had emergency surgery it would be a long 18 hours until I saw you again when Daddy wheeled me down to say hello.

You spent your first hug with me shoved down the top of my nighty a tangle of wires and tubes, whilst I spent my first hug with you terrified that I was going to drop you; I was still very woozy from the medication I was on which made everything seem like a surreal out of body experience.  I sincerely hope that I have spent the next four years making you feel considerably safer than I did that first day, because if the truth be known I had no idea what I was meant to be doing or how to be a ‘mother’.  No, this is an acquired skill we have learnt this together over the course of many ups and downs but I wouldn’t change a second of it.  I have learnt and done things as a mum I never thought I would do – both good and bad.  I have had to make life depending decisions on your behalf, completely lost my shit about the most irrational of things, cleaned up projectile vomit at 4 in the morning, learnt the words to every inane nursery rhyme you have ever taken a interest in and much more.   I have learnt about my capacity to love another human in a completely unconditional way, which I honestly thought that this was one of those cliched things but now know otherwise.  

I know that you are excited about the arrival of your brother but I can also see how, like me you are also a bit apprehensive about the change that we all know is coming and how this will effect our relationship. Please know though that no matter how old either of us get you will always be my baby – my first baby and love an no one will every be able to take that away from us.   I am looking forward to meeting and loving your brother and learning what life holds for the four of us – we have so much excitement coming our way I am sure!

You have recently taken to telling me about three times a day that “hugs make Mummy happy” and whilst this is true I just wanted to let you know that what really makes me happy is you – Lily! I love you with all of my heart and am so incredibly proud of you and the beautiful person you are growing into.  You are my world.

Love always

Mummy xxx