The Beginning of All Things: three weeks old

My dear little pea,

You are 3 weeks old. So new, still, and yet we already cannot remember what life was like without you. How did we ever sleep without your little lamb-like bleats in the background of our dreams? You know there's no sweeter sound I've ever heard than your little baby breaths - the ones that make your chest rise and fall, the ones I jump out of bed in the middle of the night to feel upon the back of my hand. Those tiny puffs of moist air, which come so naturally, so effortlessly for you, kickstart my frightened heart one more time and I pray - yes I even pray - that I'll never again know a time without them whispering into my ear, as they do when you rest your tiny blonde head on my shoulder in the middle of the night.

The list of things I know about you is growing by the day. You're so familiar to me that sometimes it feels as if I'm not getting to know you for the first time, but rather that I've known you already, before, somehow, and that I'm merely re-discovering you all over again. I find myself saying 'oh, that's right...' when you pull one of your many highly-expressive faces. 'That's the face you make when you're hungry...'. I recognise each of your looks instantly. We communicate, you and I, we already share a silent, secret language. As each day passes all the pieces of you are beginning to fit together. I'm still amazed that each morning when I open my eyes you are there. You are here. Still here. Still here, and you're mine. You're all fact now, aren't you? Not a hint of speculation or wishful thinking about you. You are no longer a far-off dream.

One fact I've discovered about you over the last couple of weeks is that you love to have a bath. I'm sure you'd love to have a bath much more often than Mummy and Daddy want to give you one. We're still too scared that you'll be cold and slippery and that we'll mess things up, but you are so very patient with our fumbled attempts to get you into and out of the water, and you don't even wail when we wash your hair, even though I can tell that it is your least-favourite part. You seem content to put up with it as a trade-off for the warm waves of perfectly-warm water that you float about in (your daddy, as you'll soon realise is his way, makes sure the water is a perfect 37 degrees with his trusty thermometer).

Before the first bath you ever had, in the hospital when you were only 3 days old, the midwife told us to be prepared for a commotion. 'They all hate bath time,' she laughed as she lined up some tiny baby toiletries. But you made a liar out of her from the get-go! You looked surprised, perhaps, a little overwhelmed when Daddy first lowered you into the water, but certainly not perturbed. That's our girl. Our surprising and wonderful girl. I knew that's what we were both thinking.

At three weeks old you already have your own peculiar ways. When you're in the bath, for instance, you insist on having a face washer of your very own to clutch across your little body. If we don't give you a separate one at the beginning you just grab the one we are using to wash you, which is an extra challenge when we've only got so many hands. So your little face washers have become important security blankets for you and it makes us laugh a lot. I must try to get it on camera next time.

During the last week we have all been very busy settling into life with you in our home. You spent the first two weeks of your life in hospital, so it is both a novelty and a blessing to have you home with us where you belong. You have had a couple of outings into the big world since you came home, though regrettably most of them have been for medical appointments for either your or Mummy!

You went back to the Special Care nursery for a weigh-in and the nurses were very pleased with your feeding efforts! Mummy also saw a nurse who helped her learn how to breastfeed you better as we've had a bit of a hard time together with that. You also met a very special person, a doctor called Melanie, who has helped your mummy through the many months she was pregnant with you and even for a long time before that - when you were just a thought and a wish. Mummy goes to talk to Melanie every Friday about how she feels and Melanie just loves you. She melted when she saw you in the waiting room and spent the whole appointment with you on her lap. She knows just how much you were wanted and wished for.

Meeting Melanie for the first time

You also went to the hairdresser for the first time, but even though you have an incredible amount of hair, and people are always commenting on it, the hair cut was not for you but for both Mummy and Daddy whose appearances had been sadly neglected for many weeks! We were both sprucing ourselves up in preparation for a family photo shoot that is happening on the weekend which we are very excited about. We can't wait to have some beautiful photos of you to show off to the world.

The best trip by far was finally getting to take you to our favourite cafe, Miss Marie, where we go for breakfast every Sunday. You were universally admired by the other patrons and the staff. No one could believe how tiny you are! Mummy spent a lot of time drinking cups of tea in this cafe while she was pregnant with you and so it was just fantastic to be able to wheel you in there in your pram, all safe and sound, just as I'd spent all those months hoping and wishing.