Eight Weeks

Today marks eight weeks since I was a mom.

Time has passed rather strangely for me. I scarcely remember the first two weeks, the third week felt more like the third month, other weeks have felt like years and this week feels more like eight days than eight weeks.

I miss her a lot. I'm not sure what brought it on, but in past few days I've found myself preoccupied with Roo. I've remembered with astounding clarity the exact feel of her in my arms right after she was born, the delicate weight of her head resting on my arm. She seemed so tiny, so fragile, and yet looking at the length of her stretched out on my lap, I marveled that she had ever fit into my belly, even curled up tightly.

I miss holding her. Sometimes I wish I could will her into my arms for a moment, just to hold her again, to relax with her warm weight resting on me, to feel her soft skin and silky hair, to kiss her chubby little cheeks and watch her regard me with big blue eyes. I miss that sense of rightness that I had when she was in my arms, the feeling that she was my baby and I was her mother and I was holding her and nothing else in the world could possibly matter.

I miss being her mother. She is at that age where babies change rapidly, learning and growing and testing their abilities. And I'm not there for it. She is not mine to hold, and her firsts aren't mine to wonder at. I wish they were. They were for a time, and it was magical.

I don't know why anyone would ever tell a birth mother, as some have told me, that they're sure the birth mother must have done what was best for her. Best for me? Not hardly. Best for me was being a mommy. Not just best, but natural and instinctual and right. It went against nature, against every cell in my body, to place her with P and M. It didn't matter that I knew it was best for her, that I knew she needed to be theirs. She might need to be theirs, but she was mine. She was my baby and I loved her and if it was about what was best for me, I'd be in bed asleep with Roo a few feet away in her crib.

I did what was hardest for me because it was best for her, and I don't regret it for a moment. The past eight weeks have been the hardest of my life but I think I've learned and grown the most. I would do it again in a heartbeat.