I love you Butterfly

I tucked my hand up tight for this photo. Curled my fingers tight against my palm.

Still in shock, I somehow moved forward to take photos. Against my better beliefs about all of this.

...

I just saw a TV show about a woman who had five babies, and of course they were preemies. And I watched rapt, waiting to relate. Because preemie families are always related. By terms and struggles and common jargon.

I'm suppose to be "over" this. Mostly, I have come to terms. But sometimes the unexpected resonates.

And as the mom on the show said something I hadn't before known how to put into words, BOOM. Our connection was established. She was talking about looking back at photos of her babies after they were just born. And how at the time she photographed them, she celebrated their health. But the truth revealed itself later as she looked back ... Hindsight Truth.

She looked back at those photos of her children born before they were suppose to be born. And this is what she said, very liberally paraphrased:

"I had been telling myself all along they were so perfect. But when I really saw those photos, looking back after they were older, I understood how truly ill my children were."

...


So ill.


I see my then-girl now, too ...

I didn't know.

...

Damn.

I hated so many of the pictures of her that I took then, when I forced myself. I self-edited before I even took the pictures. Her dad has some that I hate. {{some that repulse me there i said it}} She looks like she is in agony, as her body reacts to the outside environment it was not yet meant to be thrust into.

It contorts.

iamsorrybaby

...

I still feel that somehow it is my fault. Self-doubt ebbs but never fully dissipates. Sometimes it comes together enough again to form whole hurts, though those hurts are never as large as the time before.

And they still coalesce no matter how amazing my girl is now ... because she is so utterly amazing! She is so smart:) So FUNNY! Have you seen her be a dinosaur, imitating her brother as she stamps and stalks and growls? No?! Sorry, because you are missing an absolute treat!

...

I just read that 1% of babies are born at 25 weeks.

Did you catch that?

ONE PERCENT!

My girl! My miracle baby girl. Whose tiny hand ... I hung onto right away after she was rushed into this life.

The hand that was so much stronger than my own.