Dear Baby Archie,
It’s the first day of the new year, but I’m still caught in the bright and unforgiving glare of the surgical lights from the year that passed. I feel the burn of fear and hope smouldering inside me, an uncontainable wildfire of love, instinct and raw vulnerability. My thoughts are scattered and I am fumbling through the chaos of a new mother’s mind. I see her - my past self - her arms cradling the future she imagined.
This was the moment I dreamt of for so long, but it was nothing like I expected. No rush of adrenaline. No unbearable pain. I tried to hold on to the tattered remains of the fairy tale birth I’d imagined, but it was slipping away, piece by piece. Despite this, there was still the sparks of new life and the joy of freshly minted motherhood. The overwhelming emotion and love would strike and forge me into someone else entirely.
It was ten minutes past six. I could feel it - the moment was coming. I was minutes away from meeting you, my baby. I was about to be cut open in an emergency caesarean. The safe, warm space that had housed you was going to be torn apart, and you would be thrust into the cold, sterile world of the operating theatre at Royal North Shore Hospital. But there was one small, terrifying detail I haven’t mentioned yet: You were sixteen weeks too early.
Uh-oh. This was dangerously early.
It started like any ordinary Tuesday but instead of savouring the last moments of sleep before a busy workday, we found ourselves in the hospital, caught in the throes of the extraordinary. My meticulously planned week unravelled in an instant. There was no dress, no high heels, no perfectly blow-dried hair or blazer. Instead, I was propelled through hospital corridors, plans obliterated, my heart pounding with the magnitude of what lay ahead.
We were waiting on the precipice of parenthood. Jay was beside me, gripping my hand, as doctors and nurses prepared for the spectacle of your arrival. The air crackled with urgency. I couldn’t see you, not yet. But Jay could. His voice cut through the chaos, bursting with awe. ‘I can see him! He’s incredible!’
And just like that, you were here.
Could you feel the weight of the moment, the rush of emotions crashing around you? Your first breath, tiny and defiant, filled the room like a thunderclap. Ancient emotions of joy and fear collided in our hearts as we crossed the threshold into something we’d only imagined.
You, our seven-hundred-gram warrior, had entered the arena, a world immense and untamed, waiting for you to conquer it.
I was under spinal anaesthetic and my mind felt as numb as my body. I hadn’t attended antenatal classes and I didn’t have a birth plan. If any birth was the exact opposite of what you expect this was it: an emergency c-section at twenty-four weeks. It is a strange thing for a mother to not feel or see the exact moment her child is born. After all these weeks in the waiting room which is pregnancy it was time to meet you. You took your first gasping breath. What do you think?
I couldn’t see much, bewildered as the birth unfolded. The fear of the unknown gaped before me, a widening chasm threatening to swallow the fragile hope I clung to. It’ll be okay. It’ll be okay. It is the universal mantra of terrified parents everywhere. Giving birth as a new mother felt like entering some secret society filled with “secret mothers’ business”, where the only initiation was raw, unfiltered love. My mum made motherhood look effortless, but I don’t remember my own birth day, which happened just across the road from where you were born, Archie. Was she excited, scared, overwhelmed? We both became mothers at twenty-seven years old. Happy Birthday, Archie!
When you arrived I tumbled down the rabbit hole of motherhood into a wonderland of confusion and awe. Desperate to see you, I craned my neck from the operating table, but my vantage point was obstructed. I wanted front row seats for the birth of my own child but here I was in the nosebleed section. Yet nothing about you could be defined by what I could or couldn’t see. Even the tiniest baby can fight with the strength of a lion. It’s in your blood, Archie. Your grandfather once bare-knuckled for money behind the local police boys club. Facing this new year, I’m determined to fight just as fiercely, for you.
I had so many questions as I lay on the table, my heart bare and stripped of any pretences. Were you okay? Were you breathing? Were you safe? Being born so small the odds felt stacked. Your father squeezed my hand and we prayed silently that you would survive. As terrifying as your sudden birth was, it was also steeped in wonder, like stepping through the wardrobe into Narnia. I thought I’d have sixteen more weeks to prepare, but life had other plans. Pop! There you were.