as i may have mentioned, since carys isn’t gaining weight quickly enough, she needs a midnight feed. struck with bronchialitis, stuffed up jasper isn’t getting enough to eat during the day and so wakes during the night full of snot and woes.

i have learned that feeding the babeolas is easier at night. half asleep, they dont have the energy to get entranced by the ceiling fan, decide to fight the feed, or self-diagnose themselves as not needing any more milk. carys can’t stop gently slurping away at her bottle to grin at me, because the lights are very dim.

last night around 11.45 jasper realised he was hungry and started bemoaning his fate. got really scared that he would never be fed again. i hauled his gro-bag encased body out of his crib and took him into my room. he finished 70 mls of his bottle in a short amount of time, and then i gave him some sweet potato, which he finished as well. jasper seems to like food more than milk. i think if i gave him a steak milkshake he would be thrilled. jasper is a bronto-burger kind of guy.

his lids started drooping and he started smiling, a sure sign he is ready to sleep. when he is food frantic he is a perfect candidate for the “before” photo in a botox commercial. he has more creases than a shar-pei.

so i popped him into bed (knowing i would be seeing him in three hours) and he rolled over on his side and laid still. (stay! good boy!)

i went over to where sweet carys was dozing, and lifted her out and into my room. she shied away from the light but took the bottle quite happily. slurp slurp, slurp..she finished about 80 mls before she decided she’d had her fill. but 80 mls is better than nothing.

although i should have shunted her back into bed, i didn’t. oh i was tired, knew i had to get up soon, but wanted to be awake with carys and just hold her for a little while. i looked at her tiny veined lids and remembered the first time they opened. she was about one week old when she first opened her eyes. i smiled at her little red mouth, still new to me, as for the first two weeks of her life it was covered with a vent. her face, one side flatter than the other as a result of her torticollus, which was covered in duoderms, tubes, tape and gauze for so many weeks.

i started singing to her one of our NICU songs, eric clapton’s wonderful tonight. gazing at my bald girl, i laughed at the part where the lady is brushing her long dark hair, but by the end of the song, as she turns out the light, i was crying. i wanted to hold carys all night, remembering those terrible and love-filled days in the NICU, where every minute was precious. i wanted to have more precious memories with her, like i used to. but i needed to sleep, because in 3.5 hours, i would be taking care of jasper again.

but those few moments with her, that familiar song, they were, wonderful. i got out of bed, carried carys to her room, kissed and laid her down, smoothed sela’s grobag, lifted sebastian’s special blanket from the floor, and pulled jasper’s arm out from under him. and i went to bed, still humming the song, and i slept.

and the wonder of it all, is that you just don’t realise how much i love you