June 12, 2005

Hello my darling,

I am still having such a lovely time with you. You are three and a half weeks old now. You still dont interact much....you do look at me...and respond to my voice. You definitely respond when you get close to my chest. I guess your nose recognizes me. It should be just a week or two for a first smile. I cant wait.

I took you out to breakfast today at Wolfgangs to meet auntie gails parents, since auntie gails mother made a blankie especially for you. She loved meeting you and holding you. Everybody loves you. How could they not?

Yesterday I took you to Target to buy a breast pump. I am not sure why, but you cried and screamed for most of the trip over there. I am just beside myself anyway when you cry, because I cant stand to see you in pain or lack what you need, but I had tried to fix your problems while we were still at home, it wasnt food, wasnt your diaper, wasnt a burp.....and then you stopped crying so we left. You looked freaked out when we got to the store but you werent crying so we went in. As soon as we got to the heart of the store you started shrieking.

Of course, you just met me, but if you had known me for the last 15 or 20 years you would know that there has never been a more irritating sound to me than a baby crying. Like nails on a chalkboard. Of course, your crying doesnt bother me, since its you, and I love you more than anything else on the planet. But I am thinking of offending all the other shoppers, and now I am the one causing the noise and disturbance.

So I am totally freaked out. I cant pick out what I was going to buy and I didnt know if I should leave or just buy the stuff and run because I didnt want to come back. I couldnt even read the packaging I was so panicked. I was begging you to stop, and you were SO loud. I managed to shh.shhh.shh. you, which you seem to like, I actually do it all the time to help you go to sleep, and I had to put the tip of my thumb in your mouth which you also like, and then I had to push the cart with one hand, and keep my thumb in your mouth going shhhh.shhhh.shhhh all through the store. I even had to pay with one hand, because I was terrified you would start screaming again. You caused quite a stir sucking my thumb though. Everybody I passed thought it was the cutest thing they had ever seen in the world. But I just had to get out of there as quickly as possible...

You seem to be getting better with your screaming through the night thing. I changed my whole diet, to basically nothing but bread and pasta...(ick), and I also learned some new burping techiques, so I am not sure which one it is, but I am not going to change a thing because you seem much happier.

I am going to go to work this week, and ask if they mind if I extend my maternity leave for three months instead of six weeks. I doubt they will have a problem with that. First of all, your infancy is such a tiny blip on my life radar, I dont want to miss a second of it. I cant stand to be away from you, at all.

Second, I am the only one that can feed you right now, and I really dont want it any other way.

Third, you are still not on a schedule or sleeping through the night, and I dont think you will be in three weeks (or 2 1/2), which might drive a babysitter to drink, so I want to get that sorted out prior to hiring help.

The other night I made the mistake of looking through photos of me and your father. It sent me into something of a tailspin. I havent seen him in over seven months, and havent spoken to him in over four....and truth be told, I miss him terribly. I was deeply and madly in love with him. Unfortunately I was in love with what he was pretending to be, and not with who he really was. A wolf in sheeps clothing....but unfortunately for me, that doesnt make my love any less real, or my pain any less real, or my heartbreak any less real.

I think about him all the time. I try tricks to stop thinking of him, but its like photos flash through my mind. I dont know what makes them come up because it doesnt always have relevance to what I am doing or thinking at the time, but I will suddenly remember us in Amsterdam, or Belgium, or at a restaurant in Miami, or in our home in Miami, or our home in Barcelona.

I try to remember the bad times, to help me carry on, because I know I can never see him or speak to him again. Especially with you here. I need to protect you from his sickness at all costs. But its very difficult to only remember the bad times, because the good times with him were so great, and I really doubt I will ever have that again as long as I live. Like I said, it doesnt make my heartbreak any less real.

One of the pictures I keep seeing in my mind, is the look on his face when he walked in and saw me packing my bags. For a split second I saw his hurt so clearly. I'll never forget it, and I will always wonder if there was something underneath his facade. I will never know because I cant allow anyone to hurt me or you.

So, for what its worth, I loved your father more than I have ever loved any other man, without question. I was faithful to him in mind, body, and spirit. I wanted to be with him forever. He was a wonderful great man, and I am so deeply sorry that you will never meet him.

I am telling you this, so you know where you came from, and why I am not with your father anymore, and also because I cant tell anyone else because I am supposed to hate him for what he did to me, and unfortunately I cant hate him, and I will probably always love him, or at least what he pretended to be.