When Haile came home she was still dead asleep. After spending those vampire days with her in the NICU, I didn't quite feel like her mother. I had to bring her home from such a horrid place, a hospital. All we could do, for lithless weeks, was figure out a way to wake her up. The hospital gave us a bunch of plastic bottles and told us where to find powder. I felt like I had never been a home-birth mother.
We fed her with a dropper, drop by drop, the purest of pure. And sometimes we had to give in, mix powder, for Haile would only fall deeper into that distant sleep upon her mother.
We gave her her time and we watched her shine.
Last week she gained her first 'war wound'; busted lip, swollen mouth, crusty scabs, and all. That's what she gets for playin' around with a bunch of ruffian boys all day.
I've watched her steal their food, she makes Govi cry sometimes. She plays their games, I hear her laugh when they try to scare her with wicked masks. I've caught her leaving home a few times. No more preemie, that Haile holds her ground.
She shared with us, something that baby boys, born at home with their comfortable start, had never shared with us. Her womb world.
In that maze of exhausted days, we couldn't imagine who she might become in a year. A scrumptious peach and a twinkling little star. Lotus blossom.
Thank you for sharing your womb world with us.
Our blessed little empress eye.
Happiest of birthdays, dearest Haile.
Haile at nine months
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