Absence

I have been fairly absent from this space. These past few weeks have been difficult ones for me physically. I was in triage at the hospital twice and then admitted once for four days for signs of early labor.

There is so much focus on keeping our little girl alive that my thoughts are consumed more by her than by Cara. It's hard. The paradigm shift of needing to care for my daughter almost living in the outside world causes me to think less about the one who has already come and gone, and that is extremely difficult to admit. It's this little baby that I have to constantly monitor. She who has to be my first thought in the morning. She who I need to make sure moves 4 times an hour and 10 times twice a day.

But Cara slips in. She found her way into my thoughts several times in the hospital leaving me in tears. As I sat looking at pictures of her. As I replayed the labor experience I already had. The other night as I sat on the patio watching the sunset, a butterfly danced through the red rays. She was there.

I'm excited to have our new little one, yet somehow it feels foreign this excitement. Loving her will be different from loving Cara. I wish I could be a parent with equal love, whose heart explodes once, twice, three times as their children emerge in the world. However, my two daughters bring with them very different emotions and a different experience of parental love. I try to prepare myself, but I wholly realize it's not possible.

What will the first day with her be like? Happy? Overwhelming with emotion for Cara and our new little one? I hope as I have many times in the past year and a half that the calm in the storm finds me and consumes me.