A Letter to my Sweetiepie

Go Shorty, it’s your birthday… gonna party like it’s your birthday….

Sweetiepie's Pressie Stash

So, my littlest baby, a whole year has whizzed by since you arrived on this planet. And what a year!

Remembering the day you were born is not easy for me – partly because I was whacked out on drugs, but also because it was a day filled with fear. I remember the Neonatal posse coming into the room and reading a ridiculously long list of possible complication you and I may face. It did not cheer me up! But I also recall how one of the doctors put his hand on my shoulder and said: “You’ll be ok. You’re strong”.  I held onto that over the next few weeks.

I took a few days to recover and so didn’t see much of you. Daddy was your champion – he must have taken a million photos, made a million phone calls and missed a million hours sleep to be beside you.

'All these... for me?!'

You did well to start with and were released from your ‘bubble’ for ‘kangaroo care’ (it’s a medical term, honestly!).

Then it all went a little bit pear-shaped. You contracted a nasty infection (which only went and turned out to be e-coli meningitis, grrrrrrrr) and a number of other complications. Your little body couldn’t cope and shut down. You were pumped with every antibiotic known to man, ventilated, filled with bright red blood and transferred to a very special hospital many miles from home.

We followed you (except for Peanut who went on a somewhat confusing holiday with all his Sweetfamily) and spent the next weeks hoping.

Sweetie, I could write volumes about your first few months, and maybe one day I will, but for now… a few of my strongest memories:

• Sitting by your side reading you extracts from ‘Little Women’.
• Singing you the chorus of ‘Run’ – I still can’t listen to that without breaking down, how embarrassing!
• Stroking your head where they shaved a big baldy patch for yet another tube.
• Hearing of hundreds of people praying for you around the world and finding out that many people at our church had given up their Christmas Eve to meet and ask God to heal you.
• Christmas shopping with Daddy in beautiful Cambridge – very surreal.
• Christmas morning by your cot – your stocking stuffed with gifts and your lovely hand print present for us.
• The day Daddy heard God’s voice say “no more” – from then on you began to recover.

Then started what felt like an endless process of getting you transferred and strong enough to come home; and scooping myself up so that I could care for you and your adoring (and adorable!) bro.

Finally, after a number of false starts, we made it. You came home.

Since then you have kept us up at night, clung to me like a monkey-baby, scratched my eyeball, thrown food EVERYWHERE, pooed in the bath (with me in it too – aahhhhh), chewed up Peanut’s dinosaurs and generally wreaked havoc. And I have moaned.

But, my Cutie-pootie-tootie-fruitie, I thank God ever day that we have you at home with us, that I can give you cuddles and smell your hair, that you are growing into a strong and beautiful girl.

The best part of a Baby Birthday... the PAPER!

I will never forget your first days, they just make all the rest sweeter.

Love you so much,

Sweetmumma

Sweetdecorations!