By JOSEFA PETE
I look back on that first night and the memory is a haze. I could not think. I could barely move.
Your Dad was on a roll-out bed on the floor next to me. You were in one of those hospital plastic cots beside him.
I was dead tired. Drained. Exhausted. In pain. You were crying. Not the kind that tore the walls down. But the kind that I now know meant you were scared, alone, wanting me. But I just called out to you, annoyed, and hushed you to sleep.
I was desperate to sleep. I won’t forget it. I churn inside over it. I try to regret nothing, but that first night tears me up inside.
That was my first night as your mother.
That first week, your father was nothing short of amazing. He changed you. Cuddled you. Comforted you. Fed you. Adored you. The look in his eyes changed the instant you were born. A strong, confident, overzealous man melted into his little boy. Nothing has changed since. He shed his old self when he walked out of that delivery suite holding you. I could not stop thinking about me. Just like being on a roller coaster, I felt sick. Sick from the medication. Sick from the lack of sleep. Sick just watching you that whole week in the humid crib, with your little sunglasses on under the UV lights.