7 Months Old

Dear Little Poppy,

Today you are 7 months old.

I have to say that this is not what I expected or was hoping for. This is a shit show of negative experiences, right here: you, me and us.

I am sad and sorry for you, little Poppy, because we don't know what's wrong with you and we can't make it better. You hate the intubation tube that's helping you breathe and you hate being swaddled so that you can't pull it out.

You've always preferred to have your arms free and wave them all about.

You get really frustrated and shake your head from side to side a lot, which is obviously not great for the tube. It reminds me of a caged animal pacing. I just want you to be free.

Over the last couple of days I've taken to giving you arms-out-time. I have to stand over you and make sure you don't pull at the tube. You're pretty good, really. After a little while you settle down and just enjoy the freedom.

Poppy at 7 months, 26 July 2017

It's hard to separate all the bad things I'm feeling into discrete silos. The avalanche of worry I feel for you affects me viscerally. That sounds like bad teenage poetry, but it's the simple truth.

I worry most about your daily experience of the world. 24 hours a day in bed, mostly swaddled, staring at a hospital ward, with tubes and IV lines poking out of you and a constant hum of ward activity and monitor alarms is just an objectively awful way to pass your time.

Hovering over your bed for several hours each day to sing and talk to you is murder on my back, but it's not like I have a choice. It's the very least I can do for you, Poppy.

I love you so much, little Poppy.

If you could just start breathing on your own, that would be an enormous step forward. We could extubate you and you could get out of bed, and off the sedatives; and I could have my sweet, weird little baby back.

The one who never cries and can't really sit up like a 7 month old should; but who laughs and gurgles all the same.

Poppy at nearly 4 months, 21 April 2017