A Love Letter to My Baby Who Is Not Really My Baby

Reflections on one year away from my nephew

It has been a year now. Does that time register to you? Do you feel the heaviness of this anniversary?

No, I don’t think you do. You are too young. (And thank goodness. I never want you to be sad.)

It’s been a year almost to the minute as I write this that you were lying in my lap in the hot early October sun, sleeping. We were on my folding chair in the front yard because you all had to play there while your parents were cleaning out the last of the house. You got so tired, you climbed onto my lap and nodded off.

I still remember so well the feel of your little body. I remember how sweaty your hair was and how many times I leaned down to kiss your forehead and smell you. I knew those were the last few moments we would have together until spring. I wanted to imprint every detail into my memory.

That last hour was one of the worst moments of my life. I had to sit there and keep a smile on my face because I wanted your older siblings to be excited about this big change in their lives — not scared or sad. I had to grasp at every second so desperately as they mercilessly flew by. I had to hold you so tightly knowing that letting you go was just moments away.

When you were born, I had just started considering surrendering my pursuit of motherhood. I was almost 43. I realized that I wasn’t sure I wanted to get pregnant anymore. In fact, I was almost positive that door was closed for me. Not because I can’t get pregnant anymore — but because my body has told me that it’s time to move on. That it doesn’t want to take on the stress of a pregnancy at this stage in my life.

I listened. It hurt like hell, but I listened.

I was still thinking about adoption, but just with the prohibitive cost alone, that option didn’t seem viable. It was more like a fantasy that I needed to hold on to. Me and the little girl I’d dreamed of having, somehow made manifest…if I happened to have at least thirteen thousand dollars socked away somewhere. And the desire to be a single parent.

Truthfully: I didn’t (on both counts). But the fantasy comforted me at a time when I thought there was no comfort to be had. When I didn’t think I could endure the grief of not becoming a mother.

And then you came along.

Do you know I was afraid to love you? The doctors didn’t know if you were going to make it. There was talk among family members about how close we should get to you. Could we endure that kind of pain if the doctors’ worst fears came to pass?

I planned to be careful. To try to treat you with as much love and care as I gave to your siblings, but also somehow guard my heart.

It’s pretty laughable to think of that now. What on earth did I think I was going to do? Did I really think I could control any of my feelings? Or how you might change my life?

You came home after your stay in the NICU. I know that sounds unworthy of mention, but Bug, it is not. They thought they would have to perform surgery on you right away. They did not know if you would ever leave the hospital.

And you fooled them all. You were okay. Okay enough, at least, to come home. Okay to grow stronger so that your little body would be more prepared for the surgery you will eventually need.

We didn’t think we’d get to meet you so soon — or perhaps, at all.

Then one day, the family assembled at your house and we all passed you around. You were so tiny and had bandages all over you from being poked and prodded so much.

In that moment, I fell. I fell for you. And I knew my life would never be the same.

Perhaps the greatest joy I have in this life is that I know you don’t think of me as your aunt. You think I’m one of your parents. I can tell by the way you treat me.

It makes sense that you would feel this way. You don’t know what “Auntie” means. You have no concept of such a label and the difference between that and “Mama” or “Papa.”

But you do know that I was there all the time during the first year and a half of your life. That I put you down for naps, changed your diaper a million times, and went to most of your doctor appointments.

When you had your first echocardiogram without being anesthetized, you reached for me afterwards and would not stop burrowing into my chest as the doctor told us what she had seen in the scan.

“Wow, he sure is attached to his auntie,” she commented at one point.

Yes. You were.

You see, because of your stay in the NICU, you got used to bottles and never warmed up to breastfeeding. And so I got to do something I’d never gotten to do with your siblings: I got to feed you.

It was as wonderful as I imagined. I got lost as you stared into my eyes, playing with whatever necklace or scarf I was wearing. It felt like string after string of devotions were looped around us by little pink fairies, a cocoon of tenderness that no one but us could enter.

I think because of this experience, you came to regard me much the same as you regarded your actual parents. You trusted me. You loved me. You sought comfort from me.

And every single time I picked you up, you tucked your head against my neck and held the fabric of my shirt in your fist.

You were always a little bit mine. And I couldn’t be more grateful.

It’s a sorrow I cannot fully express that though you have turned out to be quite a miracle child…you still left. Just in a different way.

I’ll never forget the day your mama told me you all were moving away. We were standing in your front yard. I was holding you. It was a cloudy day.

I started crying immediately and squeezed you close, as if to ask, “Can I keep this one?”

All she said to my wordless plea was, “I’m so sorry.” I know she understood how much it would hurt me to say goodbye to you.

Can you imagine if you had been the firstborn, instead of the last? I would’ve had fourteen years with you, as I had with your big brother, Ben.

And I can’t believe that you were the first baby to come along after I’d let go of my pursuit of motherhood. I thought the universe had gifted me with the greatest treasure of my life. And then…it took you far away from me.

Though don’t get me wrong: You are still the greatest treasure of my life.

I’ve only seen you three times in the past year. I’m on my way to you again for our last visit before the snow blocks my way to you. But even four times a year isn’t nearly good enough for me. Not after spending so much of our time together in your infancy when you lived just across the highway from me.

I miss you every day. I often think of the fun we had this summer, when I was holding you in the pool and I said, “I love you, Bug,” as I spun you around slowly, and you looked up at me so solemnly and whispered, “I luff you.” Or when you woke up from your nap and came searching for me, bypassing your mother and throwing yourself into my arms, which made her give me a mock eye roll. Or when you would reach up for my face and hold it in your hands while you rubbed your own face all over mine.

It killed me to say goodbye to you last time. I know you must have thought I was just running a quick errand. That I would be right back. Later that night, your mama sent me a video of you lying on the floor kicking your legs back and forth, repeating “Aun-TIE, Aun-TIE, Aun-TIE,” over and over again, which she said you did for a full fifteen minutes.

It watched it over and over, crying harder each time.

I feel stuck in time today. I feel the weight of the sorrow of those memories from a year ago. I feel the excitement of being able to see you soon. And I feel so much dread at the long winter of separation ahead.

I’m not going to have a baby. But you are my baby. And you aren’t here. And there is nothing I can do about that. Because you can be my baby, but that doesn’t make me your mother.

As such, you are just out of my reach.

It’s been a whole year and I still haven’t made peace with this. And I wonder if I ever will.

© Yael Wolfe 2021

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