With my Mom and sister already back at home and missing this little beautiful girl, I have to stop and reflect that the brand new baby is less than brand new now. I'm out of the hospital. Two-thirds of the family that came to help me get settled with the new baby have returned to their lives. I've come to feel that Alia has always been a part of our lives...I can't remember what it was not to have her.
Alia had her two-week follow up at the pediatrician today. In the two weeks she's been outside of me, she has gained an entire pound and grew half an inch. She's thriving, healthy, and has a voracious appetite.
Over the past several days, I've felt a weight lifting from my shoulders. After Alia's twin brother died at 20 weeks gestation, I had been holding my breath, afraid to actually get too attached to her. I was afraid, despite what my doctor told me, to accept that she would actually be born alive and well. Now that it's obvious that the doctor was right, I've noticed that I'm slowly allowing myself to exhale.
Here Alia is being measured---she grew a half inch in two weeks!
Here Ajay holds our little milk-filled Buddha girl
Sometimes this exhaling comes with some very potent emotions. I bottled everything up and put a very tight cork in... just waiting for her birth to allow myself to feel anything. Aside from writing about what I'm thinking in my blog, I didn't spend much time processing my fears. But now that she's here, I feel so many things all at once.
I feel an overwhelming love for this little girl. I feel totally and completely bonded to and in sync (no, not the 90's boy band... you know what I mean) with her. I feel complete... but not in that cheesy Jerry Maguire "You complete me" way...I mean in a nice, healthy way... not a freaky co-dependent way.
I also feel the sadness of her twin brother not being here...and I feel guilty. I realized just how much work a new baby is, and in a way feel blessed that I only have her to focus my limited energy on. The first time I felt this was on one of those 4 a.m. nights, when she just didn't want to go to sleep. I found my mind thinking, "Oh, my God, I almost had two of these... how would I have managed?" And then immediately I felt guilty and told myself that if I had two, I would have managed any way that I could, and not to think that. But I did think that. I did feel guilty. But now I know that it isn't that I didn't want her twin brother to survive, it was my very tired and fatigued mind trying to make the best out of the situation at hand. It was my mind's way of finally coping with the empty space. Alia was a twin...but her brother just wasn't meant to be here yet.
Maya plans to leave us day after tomorrow...heading first to L.A. to see Ajay's brother, and then another stop here in the U.S., and finally back home to Turkey. Ajay and I have hit our stride and are making our way as new parents. As the house empties, ultimately we'll be left with just the three of us... no longer just the two of us!
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