Adjusting to Habitat

A little story about the weather in early life...

It was a humid night, lit with an enormous moon. Shiloh, just 10 hours old, was asleep between us, enshrined on her own little bed. Every time her breath caught in her throat or she shuffled, I woke up. She awoke to feed punctually every four hours. Deeper into the night her breathing became rapid, too rapid? I held her close to me making long calm breaths hoping she would regulate her breathing to match mine. I fed her, I tried to sooth her. Eventually I woke Eyal, ever practical he counted breaths per minute and googled it. 100 breaths/minute is too many, it had been nearly an hour. I wasn't panicked, somehow still high from giving birth earlier, still in another world. We called the midwife, she called Emergency, for the first time in her life our baby left the cocoon of our house, bundled into the car. A warm wind had come up, somehow reassuring us. Her breath seemed to calm a little.

They greeted us by name as we entered the hospital, not rushed, but not calm. They asked me to undress my baby. My heart was breaking, her so naked and vulnerable and me meant to be a protector. They took blood oxygen, checked her heartbeat, her blood sugar, her reactions. She was the picture of newborn health. She breathed gently and calmly lying there naked looking at the doctor and three nursing staff. Later, we realised she had been too hot. Too well wrapped, over coddled. The baby needed to feel that wind on her skin.

Day Two: jaundice was creeping in, a little yellow pigment starting at the face and sweeping down to her toes. Our midwife suggested UV light, 10 minutes naked in the sun on her front and then back. Her little naked head so big for her body, like a little tadpole she lay flailing her arms in the sun. She was so recently released from my body, the incredible space around her was overwhelming. Her 20 minutes in the outside naked freed her from jaundice. We had underestimated the power of her need to acclimatise.

Now 8 weeks on, we are pros. On the sunny autumn mornings she sits outside, squinting and frowning into the backyard of jungle and rivers, watching the patters, listening to the river flow. On cold mornings I light the fire and she sits entranced. She moves her limbs through space confidently. She has learned to adjust to her new habitat outside. She is aware of the sun rising, the rain falling and the chill in the air. Her cold hands are always grasping to touch, her head always turning to look. An homunculus absorbing the world through touch and plays of light.