My first love letter

I've fallen in love twice now. The first time was with your father. It was slow and clunky, I worked away at it, years after year, until everything about him was dear to me, although sometimes I still need reminding. It wasn't hard with you at all my love, or slow, and I will never forget it. Of course all your DNA was of my love and I, and we grew you together inside of me, but that's not why I love you, I started to fall in love with you before you even existed. Once you were out the process was the same as it had been with your father. faster and stronger and effortless, but the same. Thanks to you I know what falling in love is now. It happens bit by bit, too big to happen all in one, I don't believe in love at first sight, love is too deep for such shallow notions.

The first thing I fell in love with was your eyes, not the colour, although the dark stormy blue is enchanting (and I'm sure will always be, no matter their final colour). It was the you in them, and the way you stared at me with them straight away, looking up like you already knew me. Which of course you did, as I knew you, greeting you by name as they laid you on my chest, we grew those eyes together, but they were all yours now, seeing the world for the first time and I knew that for now your world was me. The second love I found was your nose, the very same nose I had seen on those scans, the little upturn I had stared at over and over, trying to picture your face, and there it suddenly was, wrinkling slightly as you searched for my nipple already. As I took you in I fell in love with every bit, your fair hair plastered against your head in wet little waves of red tinged blonde, your ears with their fairy folds and those lovely soft furred edges, your mouth, just like in your scans, open and puckered, that latch so strong as you started your first feed. The folds in your arms and your tiny elbows, the incredible softness of your feet, and the way they wriggle, the turn of your wrists and the constant movement of your hands. Your hands move like a dancers, elegant and graceful, unless your fists are clenched and then they become jerky and unpredictable. you wave them about bravely like you are searching for a fight, but mostly you hit yourself, a surprised look on your face at their lack of consideration.

You make so many noises, grunts and snorts, a little outward breath that sounds like a contented pony, a small barking noise like a Chihuahua, a sudden contented wheezing squeak sigh that has both your parents cooing. We call you little dino for all those funny grunts that sound so prehistoric. You sleep and dream loudly. Your cries all have different textures, and definitely meanings although I can't quite work them all out, I wish I could as hearing them sends me into a tailspin to fix the problem as fast as possible, and sometimes I can't seem to do it. Sometimes this is the worst thing in the world and sometimes your father and I can't help but laugh at your exaggerated frown and comically down turned mouth, although we keep trying to fix it, fix it. It must be so hard being so small and growing so fast, so much to learn and so much to figure out and so much discomfort in that tiny body.

 I love your smile, not true yet and so fleeting, a promise of what's to come, even if now it just forewarns a poo. I watch the heartbeat in your soft spot and am reminded of all the growth in that brain, all those connections happening, how tiring it must all be, you are magical and I am enchanted by you. But baby you do reek, first the cheesy rot of your umbilical as it fell off, now your vinegary little hands, sweaty and grubby, and of course the ammonia stink of your nappies as we change them. Your poo smells strangely of a chicken coop, and if the comically loud sound of your farts didn't alert me to your need for changing the waft of chicken poo would. But you smell delicious too, milky and soft and new, and even the smell of your sticky vinegar hands enchants and delights me, every part of you human, and oh so much more human for seeing no need to hide your mammalian nature. I love every speck of you, I have wished for you all my life and here you are, real, solid, and growing fast and strong like I asked of you. 

We call you boglin, gremlin and goblin, dinosaur and sproglet, froglet, boglet, I call you my love, princess and darling, my angel and my baby. I almost never call you your name, but you are always my ray of sunshine, you light me up by being here, and you are the center of my world now and forever, and it seems so strange that none of that is romantic exaggeration. I keep thinking of how Thea described you as sparkling, and that's how you feel to me, like glittering light, even when you are crying for hours you still glow for me and I can never, never stop loving you, even if you become a Tory. 

Getting you was and is a terrifying journey, I can't help but be scared for the future, afraid of what might come and how will we face it, but the heavy anxiety I carried throughout my pregnancy and our birth is gone, you dont hold the darkness and weakness of my cancer like I feared, you are strong, healthy and vital, your growth impresses the midwife, the health visitor and anyone else who sees you, and I am so proud of you my eyes tear. I feel you must have heard all my fears and become as strong as you could for me, I hope my wishes do not become your burdens, when you grow I will teach you that you do not need to always be strong. You can be whatever you are in any moment and whoever you are with all your being. I hope that you will always know that for me you are all I have ever wanted and you will always be exactly who I want you to be without ever trying. I hope my want for you does not become your baggage, that my love and support for you is always something good and never makes you feel pressured, my love is not dependent on your health, your vitality, or any other part of your being, it is inextricable from the very fabric of you and I put it all in there as I dreamed you and grew you and will continue to do so as I try to learn you. It's such a desperate need for you to love me too, but I know that love has to be earned and is a gift and not an obligation. Right now we are still one being, but as we seperate I hope that I earn your love and that we always grow together, even when we grow apart, I hope that you always turn to me when you need me, or at least know that you can, and that you want to be around me in all your phases, if not in all times.  

Thank you for answering my call and coming into my life, by all rational accounts your existence was not a smart decision for our circumstances, and and it is the best and most wonderful decision I will ever make in my life. I named you for the light that you bring to me, from the first thought of you and then as I first held you in my arms and saw it sparkling out of you.