February 11, 2012 * 2 days old

March 31, 2012 * 7 weeks old

July 12, 2012 * 5 months old

It’s hard not to cringe at the sight of some things. Things like hot air balloons, bendy straws, and green dish soap. Things that remind me she has been taken apart and put back together.

Nothing has challenged me quite like this before. I can almost brush her hair backward and forward with my hand again. I can almost stop catching myself when she wants comfort and I reach out to stroke her head. Not being able to trace her hairline with my fingers has been difficult. Muscle memory says to cradle and soothe – while a not-quite-healed  incision warns of trauma, infection and pain.

Socked hands and chicken pox. I long to scratch the itch. It is a mothers nature to press her hand, her pursed lips, her breast, her bare skin against the soft temples and forehead of her babe.

I have been robbed of simple, necessary acts since the moment of her birth. My womb, I can still feel, begging her back inside.

In my other hand – more blessing than any mother can contain. A beautiful girl with a big, bright smile. She soars by every milestone, babbles through my incessant prayers. This child, she is perfection, redefined. Every moment  I am with her (which is every moment) she betters me.

After her surgery, I was terrified that I could never hold her again. Never rest her on my hip and whip around the kitchen making dinner. Never splash her up and down in the bathtub. Never carry her barefoot, strapped to my back, down the winding road to Hana.

For I was certain that her head would slide apart in pieces. The imagination is wicked. No mother should ever visualize the things I have visualized. I cannot stop the images, or brush them aside as nothing, hard as I try – there they are. But three days after her surgery I picked her up in one, whole, beautiful  piece.

Her incision is almost healed. A stray suture poking through sent us in for an extra visit, but everything else has been even better than imagined. I am getting used to her look. The process has been slow, but I am beginning to accept the change.

I have a lot of catching up to do from the past month – so please disregard the chaos that may show through my blogs. I have many sweet moments to recreate and capture – and many more painful places in time to revisit and process.