Happy Birthday, Baby Boy

To my sweet baby- the littlest Doyle boy,

I really can’t begin to wrap my head around how we got here.  How is it that I just put you to sleep on the last night before your first birthday?  How did it all go so fast?  

It really seems to my heart that you were just getting here; that I was sitting around, quite literally holding my breath waiting to see you; to hear your cries and see you breathing. I can remember all of those months leading up to that moment-and with each passing one I was desperately trying not to get too attached to you, afraid our eyes would never meet.  And yet the moment I heard your first loud cry I knew what I’d known all along, I was already wrapped around your chubby little fingers and there was no turning back.  

From those first minutes you were this big, sweet boy.  Your chubby cheeks made it impossible not to fall in love with you and those big round eyes made it impossible to look away.  Even now, those eyes seem to be taking every single thing in, like you know there is too many amazing things around you to miss.

With you, you brought so much of what had been missing from our home for far too long.  You have filled our lives with laughter- and its obvious you love to make your adoring fans laugh, smiles- real honest-to-God smiles, the kind that reach your eyes and bring color to your cheeks, the kind I have been so desperate to see in photos again.  You gave your sister a partner in crime; someone to love, and snuggle, and chase.  You gave your dad a little buddy to make him feel funny and growl with. 

You brought me back to life, my sweet boy.  I know that is a lot of responsibility to put on such tiny shoulders but it is the truth. I am really living again.  When your brother left us I felt so robbed, so cheated, and so angry.  It’s like I was sent a boy that could melt some of that ache away from my heart and soften some of those hard edges again.  You brought the light back into my world. 

Our vacation this last week with you was a bit hectic, chasing you around and holding our breaths as you narrowly missed coffee table edges, waking up before sunrise because you like your crib at home better, but you made every moment of it sweeter too. You are so very loved; it makes me feel like my heart could burst at its seams.

I will celebrate your year here with us the only way I know how: big, full of faces that love you, and all the mama tears I have in my tank.  I will cry: because I am so sad I can not keep you small, because I am relieved to have made it to a year with a healthy, happy boy that is growing (and walking, and cutting three teeth in a ten-day-span!!), and because I didn’t think I would ever really celebrate a first birthday again.    

You have a fever tonight. I will wake up and check on you no less that six times.  I will tell myself it will be to make sure you are all right, that your fever doesn’t come back.  But my heart knows the truth-I want to take in every moment of you I can before you turn One.  Because I know how fast this will go; I know that in the blink of an eye, you too will be six.  But to me, you will forever be my little chooch, my sweet baby boy. 

I love you, Carter Fitzgerald, more than I will probably ever be able to put into words.

Happy Birthday.  

Love, 

Mama

Forever Tied

I’ve followed the news story for the last 2 weeks; the orca whale mama, J-35 or Tahlequah, that has been carrying her baby- who died just thirty minutes after she gave birth to it- with her, unable to let it go.  Reading with tears pouring down my cheeks, and praying for that poor animal that she would find the strength to let it go, I knew this story all too well.  Just last night, I sat with Sean after having a little coffee table dinner date and we talked about it.  I cried, telling him I feel like it would be better if these marine biologists monitoring the whale pod would just separate her from the dead calf because there was no way she could do it herself at that point.  But I knew in my heart that be would wrong too.  I cried because I felt for her and it was all too real; I knew what it was going to take for this poor mama to let her baby go.  And today when I learned she was spotted and was no longer pushing her baby at the surface of the water, my heart broke.  She had done it; after seventeen days and over one thousand miles, somehow she let her baby go.  At least physically. 

(PHOTOGRAPH BY ROBIN W. BAIRD, CASCADIA RESEARCH)
National Geographic 

I often think about the moment we handed our sweet baby Jack back to the nurses, knowing we would never have him in our arms again.  And I know that as I sat in the hospital holding Carter almost one year ago, I sobbed as I thought of that moment, wondering, as I held my precious, warm, pink baby, how I ever managed to give his older brother back.  My mind reeling knowing I could never hand over the boy I was holding in my arms. To this day I don’t know how. Well that’s not entirely true.  I gave him to Sean and I asked him to do it because I couldn’t bare to do it myself.  That is something I’ve always prayed that deep down he didn’t resent me for-asking him to do the worst thing he’d ever have to do; to be stronger than I could be in that moment.

I’ve wondered, sometimes ruminated, about whether I should have kept Jack with us longer in the room; did we give him over too quickly? But as I’ve followed my ocean mammal counterpart all of these days, I know we did what we had to do, that every moment that past, the more my heart was attaching itself and the more impossible it would be for me to tear myself from him.  So I wonder, what gave her the strength after sixteen days?  Was it her family pod that followed, patiently, along with her?  Did they just know that she needed more time- to grasp what had happened- to digest that her baby was really gone?  Because I can relate to that as well.

The reports say she appeared to be in good spirits.  I hope that it’s true and not just wishful thinking or anthropomorphizing on the part of the scientists.  I hope they know too that maybe she is just having a good day and that there could be bad days ahead as well.  I hope they realize that just because she let her calf’s body go she grieves still; that she is forever tied to that baby.  

Do I feel silly for feeling so emotionally invested in this? A little.  But us grieving mothers have to feel for each other, to offer up silent encouragement, and the “I feel for you” sentiments.  I hope that this mama takes care of herself and her pod continues to surround her.  And though she may never know it, the world knows her baby was here- even if only for a brief time- and it’s life mattered and the love she showed her little one did not go unnoticed.