oscar

Where to start?

At the beginning? The middle? The end?

It doesn’t quite matter, as all of them are Oscar.

2.08kg, born at 12.31pm on Friday 24 November 2017.

He is tiny and strong and mighty and soft.

He has white blonde hair and eyes that when they opened looked at us with a presence and a depth that said I’ve come across great oceans and seas and storms to get here. But now the waters are still. Hello.

He is tiny and strong and mighty and soft. Oscar Noah O’Mara Crosby.

His mama feels like she has also sailed far across stormy seas. I gave my body over to others for the last 5 days. For bloods and anesthetics and traces and catheters, incisions and tugging and pulling and suturing. Arms and legs and spines and abdomens. Lying prone so full of drugs and pain I had lost all words as Brian helped take the liquid gold of colostrum from me drop by precious drop.

But we made it through. The waters are calmer. Tonight is my 90^th in the hospital. And also my last. Tomorrow I will no longer be a patient. I will cut my hospital wrist bands off and be discharged out in to the big bad world. It is hard to bend my head around it.

Oscar needs to stay a little longer, so I will be here still every day helping him grow and come in to the world in whatever way I can. Step by step he’ll get there and we are hoping he’ll join us by the fire in Wexford for Christmas.