Letters to Max - Calm before the storm

Dear Max,

You’re getting better! We checked out of the hospital without you unfortunately, but better with the nurses in NICU than with us. It’s not quite the birth we expected, and it was really sad to see you just constantly running a marathon just trying to get enough oxygen. There was plenty of confidence that you would be able to make it through, and if all goes well you’ll be discharged tomorrow!

On the bright side, it gave your momma more time to establish her milk supply to give you that delicious milky goodness that you supposedly crave. She didn’t have as much of an issue expressing as she had thought, which might in itself have been a self fulfilling prophecy. Not really having high expectations seems to have allowed her to be less stressed about it. But she’s now getting some milk from stimulation, and I never thought I would be extracting milk using a syringe from your momma’s boobs. But that’s what’s happening now, while you’re away from us chilling and recovering in NICU.

Dr. Justin called this morning to tell us you were off the high flow machine, which is a great leap forward especially since you were on a CPAP machine the previous evening. You’re coming home soon and there’s a part of me that welcomes the prospect of finally being a father and quashing the uncertainty and increasing control, but another part of me that is going “this is finally the end”. Every little thing out of the ordinary I have to do for your momma like helping her get up, helping her get up, helping her pick up stuff, triggers thoughts of “this is precisely the additional effort I did not want to have.” Don’t even get me started on your bill, but let’s just say you were a pretty expensive baby. We could certainly have done more homework about the hospital and if everything had gone to plan it would be fine, but it is what it is, and we have already committed.

Logically I can follow the chain of decisions which led me here, but it’s hard, and very obviously not healthy to constantly be thinking “this is why I hate kids and never wanted one”, or things like “this is what you wanted” when dealing with your momma. I’m still hopeful I find a way to get that alignment, not least through writing letters to you and what is purpotedly the magic of fatherhood. I wouldn’t place too much hope on the latter though. I can already tell your presence is going to really test how much I do love your momma.

I guess we’ll find out, one step at a time.