Sunday, April 13, 2014

Parenthood is More Than Writing Letters, Apparently



Dear Ellie,

I haven't had as much time to write letters, lately.  In the first month or two after you were born, there wasn't quite as many things that your mother and I could do for you so that left me with plenty of fallow hours to tap away at my laptop while sitting next to your isolette.  Now that you are stable and on a consistent upward trajectory, we give you most of your care when we are here (which is basically every disposable moment).

Somehow, I imagined that when you did go home with us, it'd be sudden and terrifying.  We'd be fish out of water, unaware of what to do.  In an unusual twist though we've been eased into parenthood in a way that most parents aren't.  Granted, there is a lot more to stand vigil for when raising a micro-preemie, its nice that we were afforded the opportunity to don "training wheels" before hopping on the bike.  

Also, Uncle Atul came by yesterday to visit.  Your mother and I had a lot of fun with him when he was little.  We did our best to make his middle school years suck just a little bit less (as they so often do for us all!)  We look forward to when he can do the same for you!

5 comments:

  1. Yeah the NICU trajectory is funny. You go from doing nothing to being swamped. My daughter (also a biracial baby, Indian and Caucasian) also just went straight to the NiCU at birth, and I've learnt a lot from observing them, and then doing things slowly under thier guidance. Madly envious of thier baby-handling skills!

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  2. Yes, we definitely had some confidence issues while watching their deft hands! Slowly, we became more comfortable, especially as she became less frail!

    Oh, and how delightful that you have a little mongrel, too :-) Our Ellie seems to go back and forth between looking very fair and very dark.

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    1. Haha yeah, the mixed gene pool can produce a lot of fun surprises, especially in the changes with time. Right now my daughter has rather unusual dark grey eyes, going to be very interesting to see which direction they will go.

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    2. It's actually rather fortunate that Ellie is mixed. After a genetic test, It turns out I'm a carrier for a lot of ethnically based Caucasian and Middle Eastern genetic disease. I guess we biologists know the value of hybridization.

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  3. One less tube to deal with! Yay! Hadn't thought of the training wheels analogy of learning to handle a baby bit by bit while at NICU, great one. There is some silver lining I suppose. Love watching the progress Ellie is making. Watch out world! She's going to take it by storm, and your letter writing will definitely take a back seat! But don't stop, we are loving them now, and Ellie will treasure them in the future.
    ~Debby

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