Hellobee

Dear Baby Owl,

You’re six weeks old now. You’re growing and changing every day. Your facial expressions are priceless. I wish I could capture every single one of them in a photo. As it is, I’m trying.

I am so grateful to have you, to wake up every morning to your gurgles and baby proclamations. You talk a little bit, which is amazing to me. Your favorite thing to say so far is, “Ngeh!” You’ll learn to say “Mommy” soon enough. But for now, I love to hear you say, “Ngeh.”

Our bond is forged in a million different ways every day now. When you read about birth, or watch movies or shows about it, they always make it look like that moment of birth, when mommy sees her baby for the first time, is an incredible, indescribable moment of irreversible bonding. It wasn’t like that for us, though. As much as I wanted it to be like that, there were a million distractions that kept it from happening, although my love for you was palpable and drove me through that first chaotically emotional week.

Don’t get me wrong–I will never, ever forget the moment I looked down and saw you, all ten fingers and ten toes, your little hands balled into fists as you screamed at the top of your lungs at the indignity of being born. All I could feel was a tremendous rush of relief–that you were whole, that you were crying (which meant you were breathing), that you were moving. Throughout my entire pregnancy, I had silently (and sometimes not so silently) fretted about all the things that could go wrong in utero. I loved you so much before I ever saw you, and although I couldn’t wait to meet you face-to-face, when I saw you for the first time, there was no new rush of love; it was already there for you.

The moments after you were born are a blur, but I remember them–I held you for a few minutes and tried to nurse you as your umbilical cord did its job of delivering all of your blood…from me to you. Your baba was right there next to us, talking to you, marveling at you. After your cord had stopped pulsing, the midwife handed a pair of odd-looking scissors to your baba, and he, proudly sporting his medical gloves like a real doctor, cut your cord, and just like that, our bodies were separated from one another. You no longer belonged to only me.

After that, the nurses and the pediatrician came to examine you. Because I was still, shall we say, in a state of immodesty, a curtain was drawn around me, and I couldn’t see you…but I could hear you. Your baba was with you while you were weighed, measured, examined, cleaned, swaddled. He called gleeful updates to me from behind the curtain.

I lost a lot of blood during the birth, a little more than normal. I was woozy, shaking, and your baba says my lips were blue. I couldn’t see very well during those moments after you were born. I felt the same way I did the time I donated blood and passed out cold at the doughnut table afterward, the same way I did right before I opened my eyes and saw at least five faces standing over me, staring down at me. Luckily, the midwife and the nurses took good care of me, and I didn’t pass out this time. I remember the fuzzy scene of your baba sitting in a chair in the delivery room, holding you after the doctor and nurses were done with you (for the time being, anyway), singing a lullaby to you in Arabic, soothing both of us as you got to know this brave new world and I got stitches.

We rode through the hospital hallways to our private room from the delivery room–me on a stretcher, you in your little rolling bassinet, each of us being pushed by a nurse. I watched your bassinet like a hawk, even though it was never more than a few feet away from me as we made our journey. When we got to the room, we both ate and slept. That was pretty much our only moment of relaxation together for the next week or so.

The rest of that week was a whirlwind of sweet visitors, chocolates, flowers, gifts…as is customary when a Saudi baby is born. My delight at the celebration of your birth was tempered by the simultaneously ongoing blur of bottles, tears, pumping, blood draws, nurses, two different light boxes. How could we bond when for the majority of that time, my contact with you was limited to me placing my hands inside of the box that held you when I could not? I always tried to warm up my hands before I touched you while you were in the light box, but still, you always jumped at the feel of my hands, because they were always cold compared to the tropical temperature of your light box. You also couldn’t see me, because your eyes were covered. I cried a lot. Your baba assured me that you knew who I was, that you could hear my voice and that you knew my smell. But it wasn’t the same.

It wasn’t until about a week after you were born that we had that moment. It was late at night and you had just finished your feeding, and you were relaxing in my arms, making this facial expression you get whenever your belly is full, your lips pushed out to their maximum fullness, a look of pure contentment on your face. At that moment, I burst into tears yet again, but for a completely different reason. It hit me that I’m a mother. I have a daughter. For the rest of our lives, we have each other. Suddenly, the understanding of our bond hit me like a ton of bricks. It wasn’t a new bond, though. It was just, finally, an awareness of its existence. Me and you, kid. You and me.

Lots of people told me to do lots of things before I had a kid. Everyone made it sound like a baby is a death sentence, that my life would no longer be my own. And to an extent, I know that is true. It’s true already. But here’s the thing–anything I do in my life from here on out, I want to do it with you. If I am lucky enough to go back to Paris, I want a picture of us in front of the Eiffel Tower. I want to drive through France in a tiny Peugeot with you in the passenger seat while we jam out to French oldies on the radio. I want to take you to Italy–to Venice, to Rome. I want to stand on a platform in a tiny Tuscan train station with you, holding your hand as we wait for a train and listen to the click-click-click of the schedule board updating. I want to take you to the Great Wall, to Confucius’ Temple. You have to see Hong Kong and Las Vegas and New York and Dubai. I want you to walk through Alcatraz, to ride the spinning teacups at Disney World, to stand on the edge of the Grand Canyon. I want to take you to Silver Dollar City, kid.

All the places I’ve gone, all the amazing experiences I’ve had in my nearly thirty years…I want to go back to them so I can share them with you. Any accomplishment that I achieve in the rest of my life, I want you to be there with me. And any place new that I go in the future, I want you to come with me and experience it, too. You’ll hear “Moon River” about a million times in your life, whether it’s being sung by Audrey Hepburn, Andy Williams, or your baba; you’ll learn from the wisdom of Johnny Mercer, “There’s such a lot of world to see.” I want us to see as much of it as we can together, me and you, and your baba, too. And I want those experiences to give you the confidence to spread your wings and fly when you are old enough, both of your passports in your hand. You’re already prepping for that day, I can tell. One of your favorite things to do is throw your arms out wide, as though they are wings.

One night when my mom, Nana to you, was still here, it occurred to me that she only had a week left in Riyadh. This felt unreal, as it seemed like just a few days ago we were frantically trying to get her visa issues sorted out so she could make the journey to Riyadh to meet you. Hit with this realization, I started to cry. I’m not ready to be separated from her again. Naturally, she started to cry, too. Then she walked over to me, kissed my forehead, looked down at you, and said, “You’ll see…she will be your buddy.” Even though I will always need my mom, too, I know she is right…because you already are.

Love,

Your mom