Just her mother

I wanted to share something that has happened a couple of times lately mainly because I want to remember it and putting it on the blog is a great way for me to keep our family memories together.  However, it is such a touching moment for me that I don't know if my words can do it justice.  There have been some nights when we put Sophie Kate to bed that she starts crying.  We're not sure why she is doing it b/c it hasn't been that she's had a bad day or anything.  So we give her a few minutes to try and calm down but she doesn't.  She continues to be really upset. She seems sleepy but she continues to cry.  After a few minutes have passed and we realize that she isn't going to stop any time soon, either me or Chad brings her back to our bed.  I lay down with her and snuggle her real close to me and she falls immediately to sleep, not another sound is heard from her.


It is one of the most normal, natural moments I believe I have ever had with her.  I remember holding her in the NICU skin to skin and it rivals that moment for me.  Her breathing eases and her muscles relax and she just sinks in to all my soft places (and believe me y'all I have a lot of soft places).  I hold her close and our breathing seems to fall in place together.  As she sleeps, my mind wanders and I wonder...did she just want to be with me?  Did she want her mama?  Does she know who I am?  


Sophie Kate sleeps hooked up to her feeding tube all night long, but when she gets that upset we turn it off thinking that maybe her stomach is bothering her.  I was able to hold her close without any wires or tubes between us.  The only sound was the sound of us breathing, no feeding pump whirring, no suction machine being turned off and on...it was just us.  


There are no words to describe the way I felt being able to comfort her like that.  It's different from the boys because they are able to say, "I want my mama."  We didn't know what she wanted. Dare I dream that she just wanted her mama?  She just wanted to be held, by someone she trusts, by someone who comforts her, by someone she knows loves her.  I don't know, but it felt so good to be those things for her.  I feel so helpless so much of the time when it comes to helping her when she's in pain, it felt wonderful to be of some comfort to her.  


I can't describe it properly but as soon as she was in my arms I could feel her relax and she immediately fell asleep and I just laid there with her, holding her, smelling her sweet hair and feeling her next to me.  I am extremely task oriented when it comes to Sophie Kate and believe me there are many tasks to do, but this was so beautiful to me that I never want to forget how it felt.  


We are so bonded together that sometimes I don't know where she ends and I begin.  It's always her and I together but most of the time in care giver and care receiver roles. This was the mother-daughter role that doesn't always get a chance to shine.  Sweet baby girl was crying for her mother, not her nurse, not her therapist, not her meds...just her mother.  So I took off all those other hats that I wear every single day and I just held her as her mother. 


1Corinthians 1:5 "For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ."