It's an odd feeling when you realize the universe doesn't revolve around you. I'm not one of those entitled kids who thinks everything is about them, but when you're going through a situation so hellish that your brain can only deal with so much...well, your world becomes very small. Aubrey was born at 3:57am the morning of October 20, 2012. I don't remember much about the rest of that morning, and I have some snippets of memories from other parts of the day. I do, however, clearly remember waking up from a fitful, aggravated sleep, the only kind you can get in hospitals, at about 4:00 the next morning. I was trying to figure out the breast pump, Adam was sleeping right across the room from me with the blanket pulled over his head, and I turned the tv on for some distraction. I was astounded that the news of Aubrey's birth wasn't being televised. I couldn't understand why all that other JUNK was all over the 100 channels and no one was reporting from the third floor of the hospital about the miracle, the terrifying, beautiful miracle, that had just occurred, barely 24 hours previously. My mind couldn't grasp that. I could think only of my tiny, red, whisp of a baby, so why wasn't that what everyone else was thinking about??
As I came to find out, a lot of other people were thinking about that perfect little nothing of a baby. They were praying for her. All over the world. Looking back on things, THAT is the fact that astounds me now. For four exhausting months, people prayed for her, and for us. The answer to those prayers is in our living room now, giggling heartily at an episode of Curious George that she's already seen at least a dozen times.
She's three now, and unbelievably perfect. Oh, she's definitely already hit the "threenager" stage, as I like to call it: temper fits when she doesn't get her way, pushing the boundaries on what she can get away with. But, when compared to the baby I met that day three years ago, we really couldn't have asked for more. Aubrey is smart and silly and thinks she's as big as any other kids, and she's learning new things all the time. She still doesn't talk much, but she has been in speech therapy most of this year and will continue that in a class at the local elementary school a couple of times a week starting next week.
On days when we're frustrated trying to communicate with each other and she has had a meltdown and I'd like nothing more than to just pinch her little head off (not literally--this is just a Southern expression, y'all), she is still the best thing I will ever have a hand in creating. Every so often I still have those feelings of failure, of disappointment that my body blew it, that she was born so early and had to work so hard to stay with us. I realize that isn't logical, but it is what it is; mamas are hard on themselves. However, when I'm in the kitchen making dinner and Aubrey is running in wild circles around the house but stops and drops her ball (it's big for her to give up a ball) just to grab my leg and squeeze me and look up at me with those big brown full-of-love eyes? Well, I realize again that none of that matters. All that matters is the little curly haired girl that wants me to run squealing down the hill beside her, or squish play-doh with her, or wants to cuddle before she goes to sleep. My universe will forever revolve around her.
-Keli
