#Microblog Mondays: Back where it started


Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

My sister had her baby this weekend. Chris, Olivia and I went to go visit and meet my nephew, Olivia's first cousin on my side. 

I hadn't stepped foot inside the Mother Baby Center in 11 months, when we took Olivia home from there last November. 

It's funny how a place can bring back good and bad memories simultaneously. I'm still working through my emotions on that hospital stay, because there were events that bring tears to my eyes out of sheer happiness and there are traumatic things that happened that I wish I could forget. 

Holding my tiny nephew against my chest in that familiar room brought a rush of of nostalgia from those early days almost a year ago, holding Olivia skin to skin against me for hours under her blanket, smelling her, kissing her head, nursing her. It was the place I met my daughter. And now she's almost one and I'm planning her birthday and I can still remember how it felt last November. Exhausted. Exhilarating. That primal instinct to protect my baby, hold her, keep her close. Those feelings of love so powerful, it was frightening at times. 

I didn't get the birth story I wanted. Like trying to get pregnant and stay pregnant, my body failed me during her delivery. But then again, it's still my story. Her birth is as much as part of me as all the fertility treatments were. I think those events drove me closer to her. It strengthened my bond with her because she was the tether holding me together through those six days. She was the one that kept me from completely losing it. She's the reason I can walk back on the floor and smile instead of frown. She kind of has a way of doing that. 

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts by clicking here.

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