Two

Two years ago today, I woke up feeling a little off. After a morning spent wondering whether we should call the doctor, J. decided he'd feel better if we went in and got things checked out. So we piled into the car. I wasn't due until May 10th, but I wasn't worried. My high-risk pregnancy had been marked with dozens of similar ER visits and everything had always turned out fine. Still, as we sped toward the hospital, I looked out of the window at the acres of yellow forsythia, the stands of daffodils in the yards we passed, and thought what a pretty time of year it would be to have a birthday, just as everything was coming into bloom.

At 11:28 that night, Anne Louisa was born, weighing in at just under 5 pounds, with the skinniest little legs I'd ever seen,  the most graceful hands.

She was in the NICU for fifteen days -- fifteen of the tiredest, scariest days of our lives, but fifteen of the most joyous, too.

Though I cried and cried over it at the time, in a strange way, now, I am very grateful for those fifteen days. They taught me so much -- not just how to do simple things, like bathe a baby, change a diaper, or prepare a bottle, but how to be flexible and roll with the punches, how to take each moment as it comes and not look ahead into the future for things to worry over. I learned in those days how to check out of the so-called "mommy wars" -- because who has time to focus on formula v. breast feeding, daycare v. stay-at-home when you're measuring success by desats and blood draws? The concept of "having it all" suddenly meant no more than having my baby in the same room as me, happy and healthy. With my tendency to overanalyze, to stress about little stuff, I'm not sure I would have been able to let go of those things if it weren't for those fifteen days after Anouk was born that redefined everything.

All the same, despite the valuable lessons learned, having a NICU baby is not an experience I hope ever to repeat or one I would want any other parent to have to go through. And that's why I made a donation to the March of Dimes today, on Anne's birthday -- in memory of that scrawny baby that is now my beautiful (two-year-old!) girl, in honor of the babies that had a much more difficult journey than she did, and in the hopes that one day we can put an end to the crisis of prematurity around the world.

The daffodils in our shady yard popped out over the weekend, just in time to help celebrate two years of the cutest, sweetest, funniest little kid I've ever known or imagined, even in my wildest dreams.

Happy second birthday, Baby A.! (Still "baby" for a little bit longer). We love you so.